Getting Started

This quick tutorial will get you started with getting your game up and running on SandBoxd. If you have not done so, please register on SandBoxd before getting started.

1. Prepare your game

Create a folder which contains all the game files you wish to upload to SandBoxd. The only requirement is that there is an index.html file in the base directory. This will serve as the entry point for your game.

Your directory structure should look something along the lines of this:

2. Upload to SandBoxd

Go to the SandBoxd website. You can select upload game from the menu beside your name at the top or alternatively just click here. At this stage you can fill in your Game Name, Game Description and optionally upload an 80x80 thumbnail for your game.

Next you can select how you want to handle scaling because afterall this is an HTML5 site which can be run on a variety of different resolutions. The options are No Fullscreen, Stretch to Fit and Fixed Aspect Ratio. Let me go over all the options briefly.

No Fullscreen
This option is the easiest if you don't want to worry about scaling your game. It will fix the resolution by default and scale down (maintaining the aspect ratio) if the screen is too small.
Stretch to Fit
This option is the most flexible, but also the most complicated. Selecting this will hand over the job of managing different resolutions to the game itself. The screen will just fit to what ever resolution it is running on without scaling.
Fixed Aspect Ratio
Pretty much the same as No Fullscreen, but allows the user to fill the entire screen with the game by scaling.

If you don't want to worry about the intricies of scaling then just leave the default of No Fullscreen. It will make sure everything is visible at all resolutions. Finally you can set the default dimensions of the game and press Next Step.

On the next step you will see a recap of the information you provided. Scroll down to the Manage Game Assets section. Click and drag the files from your build folder you made in Step 1 to the Drag Files Here box. Wait for all the files to finish upload before proceeding to the next step.

3. Testing/Publishing

Before launching your game to the public, you will want to test and make sure everything is working as expected. To do this you can scroll back to the top of the page and press the View button on the left navigation. This will bring you to the page that everyone will be able to view. Press the play button to open your game.

Once you are satisfied that your game is functioning properly you can go back to the Manage Game page, change the access control to Public and press Update. This will open your game up to the public for everyone to play!