[WIP] PatchKit: Game Patcher with hosting service

Work in Progress

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PatchKit is a complete drop-in solution for game distribution and version upgrading. It's still in beta, but now we'd like to share it with everyone who is interested and hear your feedback.

Unity Patcher

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We'd like to share patcher application on the asset store for free. Within you will found the documentation and editor script that will help you to setup the account and configure your first game.

• Patcher application made in Unity
• Open source - https://github.com/patchkit-net/patchkit-patcher-unity
• Designed with Unity UI
• Without window borders on Windows
• Fully customizable
• Automatically updates to newer game's version if found
• Works on Windows, Mac and Linux

How to get it: 3.0-beta1 unitypackage is now available (Unity 5.3.4 or higher)
Docs: http://docs.patchkit.net/unity_custom_patcher.html

Unity Game Uploader

This will be published as a separate asset - it will help you publish your game.

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• Import it to your's game project
• Publish a new version with a single click
• Open source - https://github.com/patchkit-net/patchkit-integration-unity/tree/tools-integration

Sorry, the documentation is still in progress...

Web Interface

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• Edit your game details
• Create new versions with changelogs
• Upload your new game version just by dropping-in a zip file with your game's content
• See download statistics
• Download the launcher app for your game - share it with anyone you want
• Restrict who can play your game by using license keys
• https://panel.patchkit.net

Questions & Answers

I bet that you may have some questions. Please see our FAQ. If something is still unclear, I would be happy to answer all your questions and help you with using PatchKit!

Also you may'd like to look into is Getting Started page. It's nothing fancy, but will help you to make your first steps

Feedback

Any feedback on how you're using it, how you'd like to use it, what you like, dislike or what you're missing will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

Great but does it only work with your hosting server? I run a couple of dedicated server with plenty of free TB and would like to your use it for hosting. Can I purchase a version for own hosting?!?

 

I was thinking of giving an option of installing our mirror server software on 3rd party machines and restricting those to specified accounts and games, but it's not a feature yet. Mostly because it makes administrative tasks more difficult.

We've build our network infrastructure coupled tightly together so in case when we'd like to do any type of change (like upgrade) all the servers are handled at once. Without the full and exclusive control over those servers we cannot guarantee that it will be operational at all times.

Currently we have 5 servers running all over the world. This number will be increased to 10-15 in the next few months. If you're worried about reaching the limits - don't be. We will increase those on request

 

Ah ok great. And the prices? Are bound to downloads counts or project or value fees?

 

The pricing scheme is yet to be determined, although I really don't like the idea of charging per download or per transferred gigabyte. I'd like game downloads to be completely free to a reasonable level.

There will be an always-free basic plan. We won't limit the number of games and we won't ask you how much do you earn. The only meaningful limit is how much do you publish. Currently for beta testers there's a limit of 10 GB per month.

For instance if you have a 1 GB game, you're allowed to release about 10 updates each month. You won't be charged if you go beyond that point because during the open beta we will just increase your limit on request and it will stay like this.

Also we'd like to reward our early adopters - with at least a year of a free service after the release no matter the usage.

 

Update 2017-03-02
Patcher unitypackage 3.0-beta-1 is now available​

It can be downloaded here.
(Unity 5.3.4 or higher)​

Inside it you will find a README.txt with further instructions, but simply it will take you to online patcher documentation page.

Importing it into Unity project
Please import it to an empty Unity project. Patcher is not something that should work inside a game. We will introduce a separate asset to communicate with PatchKit service a little later. For instance you will be able to probe if current version is the latest version from inside the game.

Why 3.0 instead of 1.0?
Well... we've been working on it for some time now without publishing it on the Asset Store. It's a third version of it.

When it will be on the Asset Store?
I think it's a matter of weeks. We just need to make things straight and easy to understand for you guys.

 

This looks absolutely amazing! I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this, and will be testing what you currently have. I'll give feedback if I see any improvements or bugs (as expected).

 

I'm very happy to hear that! I'm looking forward hearing from you!

 

Vocês podem disponibilizar o site para download ?

 

Hi, is this still in development?

 

Hi!
Yes. It's not currently on the Asset Store (we've been rejected and we've decided to finish some other things first), but we're currently talking with Asset Store team to get our assets finally there.

There's no up to date unitypackage currently, but:
Here's how to get started: http://docs.patchkit.net/getting_started.html
Here's the patcher Unity project: https://github.com/patchkit-net/patchkit-patcher-unity/releases

 

Great, thanks for the update!

 

Hi,
a couple of questions:
Is it possible to do silent updates or updates with no user interaction? I.e. App gets started, finds update, updates, restarts app?
Is is possible to do partial updates/content updates? I.e. I have a couple of files in StreamingAssets and want to only update/add/remove some of them.

 

Hi!

Currently it's not possible, but we have in plans creating a patching library that may be attached to anything, it can even be a running game! In this way it would be possible to download all the deltas during normal gameplay and apply it automatically before the next run.

StreamingAssets support is also one of our incoming features. This is strictly related to patching library that I've previously mentioned.

P.S. We're still talking with Asset Store representative about getting in. Seems like there are some restrictions but currently we're just waiting.

- Piotr

 

Hey, thanks for the quick reply, this sounds great!

Edit: Do you have any ETA for those features?

 

Any news ?

 

@zyzyx Sorry, I did not notice your edited message.
@GamePyro

For the past few months, we were focusing on improving the performance of regular patching mechanism. The idea that you came with sounds really cool and our team is looking forward to implementing it but unfortunately, there aren't too many users requesting that feature currently.
I'd love to but I can't promise any ETA on that one. When we will start working on it depends mainly on the number of users asking for it.

I will keep you posted whenever we will move forward with this feature.

- Piotr

 

Nice to see that you guy are still working on it

 

Thanks! It is always great to hear that there are people that find it useful!
A lot is going on in the project, and we want to be more open with our users and the community. Most probably we will launch something similar to "Unity Feedback" to collect ideas that are important to our users.

- Piotr

 

@genail Thank you so much for this program and Asset! I have one issue though and I cant find a solution. I am getting the error of, "Assets/PatchKit Patcher/Editor/CleanTemporaryAppDirectories.cs(2,7): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `Castle' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?" Whenever I import the asset. Any Ideas?

Edit: I fixed this error, but whenever I use the Unity asset on Unity Pro 2018.2.8f1, I click the button in the editor and It doesn't open the menu. Any Ideas?

 

Hi @johannsorensen1 ,

Where did you get the sources from? I've found Castle.Core.Internal dependency but we've removed it on April 1, 2017. Please try re-downloading the project form the latest release.

Please let me know if it works

Best,
Piotr

 

I had fixed the previous error by updating (lol sorry), But using the Unity Asset on Unity Pro 2018.2.8f1 works until build and upload. It builds fine but when it finishes, it leaves two errors:

Code (CSharp):

1. Assertion failure. Value was Null
2. Expected: Value was not Null
3. UnityEngine.Assertions.Assert:IsNotNull(String)
4. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.Core.AppBuild:RemovePdbFiles() (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/Core/AppBuild.cs:248)
5. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.Core.AppBuild:TryCreate() (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/Core/AppBuild.cs:235)
6. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.UI.SafeBuildAndUploadScreen:BuildAndUpload() (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/UI/SafeBuildAndUploadScreen.cs:439)
7. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.UI.SafeBuildAndUploadScreen:<DrawVersion>m__3() (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/UI/SafeBuildAndUploadScreen.cs:296)
8. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.UI.<Dispatch>c__AnonStorey0:<>m__0() (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/UI/Screen.cs:70)
9. UnityEditor.EditorApplication:Internal_CallDelayFunctions()

And

Code (CSharp):

1. ArgumentNullException: Argument cannot be null.
2. Parameter name: path1
3. System.IO.Path.Combine (System.String path1, System.String path2) (at /Users/builduser/buildslave/mono/build/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/Path.cs:112)
4. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.Core.AppBuild.RemovePdbFiles () (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/Core/AppBuild.cs:252)
5. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.Core.AppBuild.TryCreate () (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/Core/AppBuild.cs:235)
6. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.UI.SafeBuildAndUploadScreen.BuildAndUpload () (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/UI/SafeBuildAndUploadScreen.cs:439)
7. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.UI.SafeBuildAndUploadScreen.<DrawVersion>m__3 () (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/UI/SafeBuildAndUploadScreen.cs:296)
8. PatchKit.UnityEditorExtension.UI.Screen+<Dispatch>c__AnonStorey0.<>m__0 () (at Assets/PatchKit/PatchKit/UnityEditorExtension/Editor/UI/Screen.cs:70)
9. UnityEditor.EditorApplication.Internal_CallDelayFunctions () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/EditorApplication.cs:200)

Any Ideas?

 

@johannsorensen1 Unfortunately, to build a custom PatchKit patcher you need Unity 5.3.4. You may find more information here.

We will update to the latest Unity version with 4.x.x Patcher version, but 3.x.x line stays with the 5.3.4. Please let me know if you need any assistance building it on 5.3.4.

 

I don't think this is the right place but i cannot download the launcher here is what it says



also i am in GMT + 5:30 if it makes a difference

 

Sorry about that! We've just deployed updated certificates. Should be ok now.
Gmail marked our reminder e-mail as spam -_-

 

Does it encrypt the game files or can people still remove the launcher and pirate the game?