How do you lock a demo of your game?

[Muraiko]

I've played some other RPG Maker games before, and one thing I noticed is how you cannot open some of the resource folders. Like, when you open up the main folder to the game, the other folders, like backdrop, charset, and chipset, don't appear, even though they still work properly in-game.

Another thing I've noticed is how you cannot open up some games in general with RPG Maker, and can't view the common events and scripting done. (Which also means you can't test play it, and cheat!)

For security reasons, and to make sure the player gets the full experience of the game, I'd like to know how to do this. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone were to help me out here.

[Prpl_Mage]

I think this was asked some years back.

And I think that you had to mess things up by changing the file type of the files so that the maker can't open them with the maker but the EXE file will still find it.

I remember it being very complicated though.

[X_marks_the_ed]

The files are probably just hidden.

To see hidden files: In a regular folder window, go to Tools -> Folder options -> View -> Show Hidden Files and Folders. Hit apply to all folders.

To set files to hidden: Right click the file, properties, and check 'hidden.'

Apps can still get to the files, but people seeing the folder can't see the files unless their computer is set to let them.

[Hell Angel]

Actually, I've seen it done so that no files come out of the original ZIP/RAR except for a single exe file. Not that they're hidden, like ed said, they just get the files out directly from the zipped folder. Even extracting specific files gets you nothing. Sounds pretty useful, but I don't know how it works. Might be some kind of tinkering with the ZIP/RAR, if anything.

[Prpl_Mage]

Oh yeah, Drak did that. I had to install Ruins of azagayle and everything. I just ended up with an EXE file at the desktop.

[HobomasterXXX]

There's a program called Molebox which lets you compress a whole game folder into one unmodifiable exe. That way all they can do is play.

[Muraiko]

Molebox, huh? I'll go check that out then.