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Introduction
A quick introduction to what Boogie is
Boogie is exactly what it doesn't sound like it should do. It's not a rhythm game, it's not a dancing robot, it's just an application launcher and updater that can be distributed primarily with video games in mind.
I made this primarily as a suitable replacement for GetDown for my own video games. Distributing on multiple different platforms ranging from Github, to Desura, to itch.io, I wanted a single place that would send out patches and updates to my binary files without having to do much work. GetDown by itself was perfect for that, however I needed something more than just a distribution tool.
Boogie is that something more. It also integrates and formats README files found with the game files into the launcher and can generate a settings pane that formats command line arguments for running your game. I also worked to make it pretty looking by basing things on Linux Deepin's 2014 UI and modern website design philosophies, but all of that can be customized by just forking Boogie into your own project.
The entire application is made using LibGDX 1.3.1, so it sits best with LibGDX applications. If hardware requirements prevent the launcher from running, then your game probably wouldn't launch either. This eliminates some degree of frustration that I was personally getting from users when distributing GetDown with a modern libgdx game. Users were able to download and update files, but the game itself couldn't launch. This was thanks to different requirements for each step of the process. Using Boogie with a LibGDX game eliminates that issue.
As for Boogie's UI, it is pretty hard coded; however, most of the core logic is abstracted out in case you want to restyle around it. Its done entirely using Scene 2D and the Gdx-ai extension, so it's nothing too complex to work with.
As stated before, I was using GetDown and needed something a bit more full-featured for my game. So let's go over just a list of what each does.
- MD5 based hashing and pulling data from a remote source
- Uses standard Java libraries and Swing
- a configurable, simple ui that downloads and launch
- support Version
- allow for pulling files and executing specifics dependent on OS
- support deleting files no longer used by the game, only replacing or adding
- have a built-in readme viewer
- persist after the game closes
- do anything aside from updating and launching
- Direct downloading based on MD5 hash versioning of files, just like GetDown
- Custom, easily defined settings panel that appends cmd line args to execution statements
- Built-in stylized Readme viewer for games that have a README file
- allow execution of statements based on OS
- use a simple, JSON configuration file with plenty of options
- work on machines that do not support at least OpenGL ES 2 (libgdx requirements)
- work on anything aside from the desktop due to using LWJGL, so no web launching
So after looking at that list, you can probably decide which you'd rather use for your project.