Skip to main content

Browse GamesGame JamsUpload GameDeveloper LogsCommunity
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
Blue The Fox10 days ago

i’ve been writing a game in ink (the scripting language for text-based adventures) for a long time on-and-off, but the thing that has held me back the most in wanting to actually continue it is the fact it only outputs as a html game natively, and i’ve been informed by another game dev friend that people are generally not as trusting of browser games as they are for desktop games. Theres a unity plugin that allows ink to be used as part of the engine for a much more elaborate project if desired, but i just want to post the game directly instead of spending hours making a fancy “wrapper” in unity.

If wapper works as well as advertised, this seems like the perfect tool for the job! i’d just export my html from ink and then run it through wapper to turn it into an exe.

Reply
EyeFly9 days ago

I am getting a demo version ready right now if you want to wait to buy it. The demo will be the full app except the advanced settings. You can still process your html and use a custom icon and all basic settings

Reply
EyeFly9 days ago

Blue The Fox I got the demo up if you want to give it a try! Only the advanced settings are not in the demo.

Reply
Blue The Fox9 days ago

oh cool! sounds like a fairly generous demo too, thanks. Its pretty late tonight where i am located so i’ll probably wait until tomorrow to try it out.

Reply
Blue The Fox7 days ago (1 edit)

alrighty; i tried the demo out finally but i have a couple questions. it seems to work well as long as i dont delete the “source” folder in the output, but the built exe completely fails with an error 404 when i delete that folder. so my questions are:

  1. does the full version have a way to obscure or encrypt the apparently-necessary sources folder so that people cant just republish the game as a webgame or otherwise “pirate” it (even though it’ll probably remain free anyway in my specific case)?

  2. are there any functional differences between single dir and single exe modes? i wasnt sure if i found any differences myself as both seemed to still output directories next to the built exe, though the dirs were slightly different depending on the mode

  3. the built exe seems to not function completely if i uncheck the “include html folder” box. it looks like my game turns into plain text links with no css styling (my understanding of how html even works is very minimal). im sure this isnt a bug and is just user error on my part, but can you maybe help me understand why i need to include the source files with my distribution for it to look right? (assuming question 1 is still no, if it is?)

those questions aside this still seems pretty promising and im concidering a purchase depending mostly on question 1’s answer

Reply
EyeFly7 days ago (1 edit)

1.The full version does have a way to obfuscate the files.

2. The single exe packs the stuff in the _internal folder into the exe instead of having a folder. The single exe mode can cause anti-virus false positives sometimes because it has to unpack the exe to a temp folder. Onedir mode tends to avoid that by having the _internal folder containing the same stuff the single exe has to extract.

3. The copy html folder (assets) toggle copies all the stuff in the same folder as the html to the source folder. The source folder is your original html project. The source folder is required to work.

I hope that answers your questions. If not, just ask!

Reply
EyeFly7 days ago (4 edits)

So this is what Wapper is actually doing:

When you load your html file it gets renamed to index.html (required to make it work) and copies it to the source folder. If you only have a single html file with no other required files, you don't need to copy the html folder. If your project does have assets (including css or js files or other required files for your game), they need to be copied from the html folder.

Wapper creates a webview wrapper to load your project files into. The exe that Wapper outputs is the wrapper. The wrapper looks in the source folder for your html file and assets. The wrapper uses an http server to serve your files to the window.

The _internal folder is the wrapper's internal workings, the files it needs to work. If you build in Onefile mode (single exe), there is no _internal folder because the files are packed into the exe.

So the source folder is required for your project to work. And the _internal folder is required if using Onedir mode.

Wapper does have a custom archive (.efa file) to obfuscate your files that will not open in things like 7zip or other archive software. This is not encryption or DRM. My archive uses custom offsets, header, and file extension. But a person that knows what they are doing could still crack it. But it would not be easy for the average person.

Reply
EyeFly7 days ago (1 edit)

The obfuscation archive will still be inside the source folder. And your files will all be in a single archive file with a random name. You can set the location the archive is extracted to at launch of the game. Either appdata (common temp location) or portable (next to the exe). You can also set it to auto delete the extracted cache files when the game closes (this is set by default).

Reply
Blue The Fox7 days ago

these replies are very helpful, thank you. :)

Reply
AboutFAQBlogContact us
Copyright © 2026 itch corp · Directory · Terms · Privacy · Cookies