How to Make a Game Launcher and an Auto Updater With WPF | C# Game Launcher Tutorial

In this launcher tutorial you'll learn how to make a game launcher and an auto updater for your Unity (or other) games.

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In this game launcher tutorial, we set up a launcher that can also automatically install updates for players. When I created a launcher and auto updater for my Unity multiplayer game in one of my devlogs, I got a lot of comments asking for a tutorial on how to do this, so here it is!

By the end of this tutorial, you'll know how to make a launcher and game updater for your Unity games. You can also use it to automatically update games built with other engines—even regular applications will work!

#UnityTutorial #GameLauncher #Unity3D #AutoUpdater #GameDev

[tomweiland]

*If you've run into issues with the zip file not extracting properly, there's a few things you can do:*
1. Make sure you zipped your files using the default Windows method, _not_ with a third party application such as WinRAR, WinZip, 7-zip, etc.
2. Try using a different file storage provider, such as OneDrive or Dropbox.
3. Host the files on your computer and just use the file path as the download link. Obviously this won't work if the launcher isn't running on your computer, but it'll do the trick for testing/development purposes. You'll have to find a _proper_ file hosting solution at some point anyways, as Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. all have limits on how frequently a file can be downloaded, so all of those are really only usable during development.
From my research it sounds like the confirmation only pops up if the file is larger than a certain size, although I'm not sure what that threshold is. The StackOverflow answer claims that it's 50mb (my zipped folder was 20mb), but others have apparently gotten the popup with files under 30mb.

[heinzketchup]

This is just what i needed for my dev plan for the summer.

[joelfrom]

My game is getting close to being finished and I have been searching a lot on how to make a launcher. Thank you FBI and other trackers for putting this into my recommended!

[tomweiland]

What do you guys think of the new end screen? I spent way too much time on it, but I'm still not sure if I actually like it 🤔

Also, at 5:10 I added a popup saying "this should be false!" even though it should say "this should be true!"—I guess that's what happens when you've been editing for too long :P

[xzippyzachx]

I think I'm gonna try this out! It will be very useful when developing a game because it is updating frequently. This will make it much easier for testers to get the constant new updates. Also nice end screen. You just need to fit in the subscribe card somewhere...

[dylanr]

For anyone having the error on line 129 with google drive that pops up, upload the files to firebase storage and get the access token (The direct download link). Firebase is free to use and it fixed this problem for me. Great Video btw, helped a lot.

[eraykaya]

Wow! These series are just going better and better... I first watched you in networking series and you made this topic very easy to understand for me. You are doing excellent job. Please keep it up!

[RobLang]

Tutorial is excellent, as always! I'd add more specific error trapping to give the user more info on how to solve problems. Also I would write an Equals/Hash pair for the version number struct.

Loving the tutorials, tho, they're great!

Like the new end screen, forgotten that I'd appear on it.

[Deniz]

After 5 Secs I thought:
I LOVE YOU ! 😆
Thanks rly rly nice, usefull AND awesome ! :)

[IlIlIlIlIIIIIllll]

dude you are so underrated it is insane

[drimiteros_]

Wow, that was exactly what I was searching for. Great video!

[ayoitsjack]

Just wanted to say Tom loving these videos. They are super informative and a massive help. Thank you

[RugbugRedfern]

Would this also work to retrieve the game files from a github repository? Or do I need to use a service that can host a .zip file like Google Drive?

[DJLKM]

Awesome tutorial, clear, easily followed and at the same time in depth.

[JeloOW]

i was looking for a game launcher tutorial for a while lol ty

[scartredup]

Thanks! Really the only straight on turorial I could find! Appreciate it man! 👌

[nichoas]

This is incredible, I will definitely use this. Is it possible you could make another video expanding on the hash comparison you talked about at the end to speed up downloads? If not, it’s totally fine, amazing video!

[jeanribeiro]

Perfect tutorial.. the first that I really learned about how to create an mmo.. Very nice Tom!
Brazilian here 😁

[VIKTOR]

Omg thanks! 🤩 Thats exactly what i need it! Your tutorials are the best! 👌

[phoenixtheceikraill]

Thanks my guy! I had no issues on my end, I even managed to set a custom user agent string too. The game files are hosted on my own server so there was no issue with it.

Thanks again!