Project settings

The file game.project contains all project wide settings. It must stay in the root folder of the project and must be named game.project. The first thing the engine does when starting up and launching your game is look for this file.

Every setting in the file belongs to a category. When you open the file Defold presents all settings grouped by category.

File format

The settings in game.project are usually changed from within Defold, but the file can also be edited in any standard text editor. The file follows the INI file format standard and looks like this:

[category1]
setting1 = value
setting2 = value
[category2]
...

A real example is:

[bootstrap]
main_collection = /main/main.collectionc

which means that the setting main_collection belongs to the bootstrap category. Whenever a file reference is used, like the example above, the path needs to be appended with a ‘c’ character, which means you’re referencing the compiled version of the file. Also note that the folder containing game.project will be the project root, which is why there is an initial ‘/’ in the setting path.

Runtime access

It is possible to read any value from game.project at runtime using sys.get_config_string(key), sys.get_config_number(key) and sys.get_config_int(key). Examples:

local title = sys.get_config_string("project.title")
local gravity_y = sys.get_config_number("physics.gravity_y")

Sections and settings

Below are all the available settings, arranged by category.

Project

Title

The title of the application.

Version

The version of the application.

Write Log

When checked, the engine will write a log file. If running more than one instance from the editor the file will be named instance_2_log.txt with 2 being the instance index. If running a single instance or from a bundle the file will be named log.txt The location of the log file will be one of the following paths (tried in order):

1. The path specified in project.log_dir (hidden setting)
2. The system log path:
   • macOS/iOS: NSDocumentDirectory
   • Android: Context.getExternalFilesDir()
   • Others: Application root
3. The application support path
   • macOS/iOS: NSApplicationSupportDirectory
   • Windows: CSIDL_APPDATA (e.g. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming)
   • Android: Context.getFilesDir()
   • Linux: HOME environment variable

Minimum Log Level

Specify the minimum log level for the logging system. Only logs at or above this level will be shown.

Compress Archive

Enables compression of archives when bundling. Note that this currently applies to all platforms except Android where the apk already contains all data compressed.

Dependencies

A list of URLs to the project Library URLs. Refer to the Libraries manual for more information.

Custom Resources

custom_resources Custom resources are bundled in the main game archive using the Custom Resources field in game.project.

The Custom Resources field should contain a comma separated list of resources that will be included in the main game archive. If directories are specified, all files and directories in that directory are recursively included. You can read the files using sys.load_resource().

Loading custom resources is covered in more detail in the File Access manual.

Bundle Resources

bundle_resources Bundle resources are additional files and folders located as a part of your application bundle using the Bundle Resources field in game.project.

The Bundle Resources field should contain a comma separated list of directories containing resource files and folders that should be copied as-is into the resulting package when bundling. The directories must be specified with an absolute path from the project root, for example /res. The resource directory must contain subfolders named by platform, or architecture-platform.

Supported platforms are ios, android, osx, win32, linux, web, switch A subfolder named common is also allowed, containing resource files common for all platforms. Example:

res
├── win32
│   └── mywin32file.txt
├── common
│   └── mycommonfile.txt
└── android
    ├── myandroidfile.txt
    └── res
        └── xml
            └── filepaths.xml

You can use sys.get_application_path() to get the path to where the application is stored. Use this application base path to create the final absolute path to the files you need access to. Once you have the absolute path of these files you can use the io.* and os.* functions to access the files.

Loading bundle resources is covered in more detail in the File Access manual.

Bundle Exclude Resources

bundle_exclude_resources A comma separated list of resources that should not be included in the bundle. That is, they’re removed from the result of the collection of the bundle_resources step.

Bootstrap

Main Collection

File reference of the collection to use for starting the application, /logic/main.collection by default.

Render

Which render setup file to use, which defines the render pipeline, /builtins/render/default.render by default.

Library

Include Dirs

A space separated list of directories that should be shared from your project via library sharing. Refer to the Libraries manual for more information.

Script

Shared State

Check to share a single Lua state between all script types.

Engine

Run While Iconified

Allow the engine to continue running while the application window is iconified (desktop platforms only).

Fixed Update Frequency

The update frequency of the fixed_update(self, dt) lifecycle function. In Hertz.

Max Time Step

If the time step becomes too large during a single frame, it will be capped to this max value. Seconds.

Display

Width

The width in pixels of the application window.

Height

The height in pixels of the application window.

High Dpi

Creates a high dpi back buffer on displays that support it. Typically the game will render in double the resolution than what is set in the Width and Height settings, which will still be the logical resolution used in scripts and properties.

Samples

How many samples to use for super sampling anti-aliasing. It sets the GLFW_FSAA_SAMPLES window hint. A value of 0 means that anti-aliasing is turned off.

Fullscreen

Check if the application should start full screen. If unchecked, the application runs windowed.

Update Frequency

The desired frame rate in Hertz. Set to 0 for variable frame rate. A value larger than 0 will result in a fixed frame rate capped at runtime towards the actual frame rate (which means that you cannot update the game loop twice in an engine frame). Use sys.set_update_frequency(hz) to change this value at runtime. This setting also works in headless builds.

Swap interval

This integer value controls how the application deals with vsync. 0 disables vsync, and the default value is 1. When using an OpenGL adapter, this value sets the number of frames the window should update between buffer swaps. For Vulkan, there is no built-in concept of swap interval, the value instead controls if vsync should be enabled or not.

Display Profiles

Specifies which display profiles file to use, /builtins/render/default.display_profilesc by default. Learn more in the GUI Layouts manual.

Dynamic Orientation

Check if the app should dynamically switch between portrait and landscape on device rotation. Note that the development app does not currently respect this setting.

Render

Clear Color Red

Clear color red channel, used by the render script and when the window is created.

Clear Color Green

Clear color green channel, used by the render script and when the window is created.

Clear Color Blue

Clear color blue channel, used by the render script and when the window is created.

Clear Color Alpha

Clear color alpha channel, used by the render script and when the window is created.

Physics

Type

Which type of physics to use, 2D or 3D.

Gravity X

World gravity along x-axis. In meters per second.

Gravity Y

World gravity along y-axis. In meters per second.

Gravity Z

World gravity along z-axis. In meters per second.

Debug

Check if physics should be visualized for debugging.

Debug Alpha

Alpha component value for visualized physics, 0–1.

World Count

Max number of concurrent physics worlds, 4 by default. If you load more than 4 worlds simultaneously through collection proxies you need to increase this value. Be aware that each physics world allocates a fair amount of memory.

Scale

Tells the physics engine how to scale the physics worlds in relation to the game world for numerical precision, 0.01–1.0. If the value is set to 0.02, it means that the physics engine will view 50 units as 1 meter ($1 / 0.02$).

Allow Dynamic Transforms

Check if the physics engine should apply the transform of a game object to any attached collision object components. This can be used to move, scale and rotate collision shapes, even those that are dynamic.

Use Fixed Timestep

Check if the physics engine should use fixed and framerate independent updates. Use this setting in combination with the fixed_update(self, dt) lifecycle function and the engine.fixed_update_frequency project setting to interact with the physics engine at regular intervals. For new projects the recommended setting is true.

Debug Scale

How big to draw unit objects in physics, like triads and normals.

Max Collisions

How many collisions that will be reported back to the scripts.

Max Contacts

How many contact points that will be reported back to the scripts.

Contact Impulse Limit

Ignore contact impulses with values less than this setting.

Ray Cast Limit 2d

The max number of 2d ray cast requests per frame.

Ray Cast Limit 3d

The max number of 3d ray cast requests per frame.

Trigger Overlap Capacity

The maximum number of overlapping physics triggers.

Graphics

Default Texture Min Filter

Specifies which filtering to use for minification filtering.

Default Texture Mag Filter

Specifies which filtering to use for magnification filtering.

Max Draw Calls

The max number of render calls.

Max Characters:

The number of characters preallocated in the text rendering buffer, i.e. the number of characters that can be displayed each frame.

Max Debug Vertices

The maximum number of debug vertices. Used for physics shape rendering among other things.

Texture Profiles

The texture profiles file to use for this project, /builtins/graphics/default.texture_profiles by default.

Verify Graphics Calls

Verify the return value after each graphics call and report any errors in the log.

OpenGL Version Hint

OpenGL context version hint. If a specific version is selected, this will be used as the minimum version required (does not apply to OpenGL ES).

OpenGL Core Profile Hint

Set the ‘core’ OpenGL profile hint when creating the context. The core profile removes all deprecated features from OpenGL, such as immediate mode rendering. Does not apply to OpenGL ES.

Input

Repeat Delay

Seconds to wait before a held down input should start repeating itself.

Repeat Interval

Seconds to wait between each repetition of a held down input.

Gamepads

File reference of the gamepads config file, which maps gamepad signals to OS, /builtins/input/default.gamepads by default.

Game Binding

File reference of the input config file, which maps hardware inputs to actions, /input/game.input_binding by default.

Use Accelerometer

Check to make the engine receive accelerator input events each frame. Disabling accelerometer input may give some performance benefit.

Resource

Http Cache

If checked, a HTTP cache is enabled for faster loading of resources over the network to the running engine on device.

Uri

Where to find the project build data, in URI format.

Max Resources

The max number of resources that can be loaded at the same time.

Network

Http Timeout

The HTTP timeout in seconds. Set to 0 to disable timeout.

Http Thread Count

The number of worker threads for the HTTP service.

Http Cache Enabled

Check to enable the HTTP cache for network requests (using http.request(). The HTTP cache will store the response associated with a request and reuse the stored response for subsequent requests. The HTTP cache supports the ETag and Cache-Control: max-age HTTP response headers.

SSL Certificates

File containing SSL root certificates to use when verifying the certificate chain during SSL handshakes.

Collection

Max Instances

Max number of game object instances in a collection, 1024 by default. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Max Input Stack Entries

Max number of game objects in the input stack.

Sound

Gain

Global gain (volume), 0–1.

Max Sound Data

Max number of sound resources, i.e the number of unique sound files at runtime.

Max Sound Buffers

(Currently not used) Max number of concurrent sound buffers.

Max Sound Sources

(Currently not used) Max number of concurrently playing sounds.

Max Sound Instances

Max number of concurrent sound instances, i.e. actual sounds played at the same time.

Use Thread

If checked, the sound system will use threads for sound playback to reduce risk of stutter when the main thread is under heavy load.

Stream Enabled

If checked, the sound system will use streaming to load source files.

Stream Cache Size

The max size of the sound chunk cache containing all chunks. 2097152 bytes by default. This number should be larger than the number of loaded sound files times the stream chunk size. Otherwise, you risk evicting new chunks each frame.

Stream Chunk Size

The size in bytes of each streamed chunk.

Stream Preload Size

Determines the size in bytes of the initial chunk for sound files read from the archive.

Sprite

Max Count

Max number of sprites per collection. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Subpixels

Check to allow sprites to appear unaligned with respect to pixels.

Tilemap

Max Count

Max number of tile maps per collection. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Max Tile Count

Max number of concurrent visible tiles per collection.

Spine

Max Count

Max number of spine model components. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Mesh

Max Count

Max number of mesh components per collection. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Model

Max Count

Max number of model components per collection. (See information about component max count optimizations).

GUI

Max Count

Max number of GUI components. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Max Particlefx Count

The max number of concurrent emitters.

Max Particle Count

The max number of concurrent particles.

Max Animation Count

The max number of active animations in gui.

Label

Max Count

Max number of labels. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Subpixels

Check to allow labels to appear unaligned with respect to pixels.

Particle FX

Max Count

The max number of concurrent emitters. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Max Particle Count

The max number of concurrent particles.

Collection proxy

Max Count

Max number of collection proxies. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Collection factory

Max Count

Max number of collection factories. (See information about component max count optimizations).

Factory

Max Count

Max number of game object factories. (See information about component max count optimizations).

iOS

App Icon 57x57–180x180

Image file (.png) to use as application icon at given width and height dimensions W × H.

Launch Screen

Storyboard file (.storyboard). Learn more about how to create one in the iOS manual.

Prerendered Icons

(iOS 6 and earlier) Check if your icons are prerendered. If this is unchecked the icons will get a glossy highlight added automatically.

Bundle Identifier

The bundle identifier lets iOS recognize any updates to your app. Your bundle ID must be registered with Apple and be unique to your app. You cannot use the same identifier for both iOS and macOS apps. Must consist of two or more segments separated by a dot. Each segment must start with a letter. Each segment must only consist of alphanumeric letters, the underscore or hyphen (-) character (see CFBundleIdentifier)

Bundle Name

The bundle short name (15 characters) (see CFBundleName).

Bundle Version

The bundle version, either a number or x.y.z. (see CFBundleVersion)

Info.plist

If specified, use this info.plist file when bundling your app.

Privacy Manifest

The Apple Privacy Manifest for the application. The field will default to /builtins/manifests/ios/PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy.

Custom Entitlements

If specified, the entitlements in the supplied provisioning profile (.entitlements, .xcent, .plist) will be merged with the entitlements from the provisioning profile supplied when bundling the application.

Override Entitlements

If checked the Custom Entitlements will replace the ones in the provisioning profile when bundling. Must be used in combination with the Custom Entitlements setting above.

Default Language

The language used if the application doesn’t have user’s preferred language in Localizations list (see CFBundleDevelopmentRegion). Use the two-letter ISO 639-1 standard if preferred language is available there or the three-letter ISO 639-2.

Localizations

This field contains comma-separated strings identifying the language name or ISO language designator of the supported localizations (see CFBundleLocalizations).

Android

App Icon 36x36–192x192

Image file (.png) to use as application icon at given width and height dimensions W × H.

Push Icon Small–LargeXxxhdpi

Image files (.png) to be used as custom push notification icon on Android. The icons will automatically be used for both local or remote push notifications. If not set the application icon will be used by default.

Push Field Title

Specifies which payload JSON field should be used as notification title. Leaving this setting empty makes the pushes default to the application name as title.

Push Field Text

Specifies which payload JSON field should be used as notification text. If left empty, the text in the field alert is used, just as on iOS.

Version Code

An integer value indicating the version of the app. Increase the value for each subsequent update.

Package

Package identifier. Must consist of two or more segments separated by a dot. Each segment must start with a letter. Each segment must only consist of alphanumeric letters or the underscore character.

GCM Sender Id

Google Cloud Messaging Sender Id. Set this to the string assigned by Google to enable push notifications.

Manifest

If set, use the specified Android manifest XML file when bundling.

Iap Provider

Specifies which store to use. Valid options are Amazon and GooglePlay. Refer to extension-iap for more information.

Input Method

Specifies which method to use to get keyboard input on Android devices. Valid options are KeyEvent (old method) and HiddenInputField (new).

Immersive Mode

If set, hides the navigation and status bars and lets your app capture all touch events on the screen.

Debuggable

Whether or not the application can be debugged using tools such as GAPID or Android Studio. This will set the android:debuggable flag in the Android manifest (official documentation).

Extract Native Libraries

Specifies whether the package installer extracts native libraries from the APK to the file system. If set to false, your native libraries are stored uncompressed in the APK. Although your APK might be larger, your application loads faster because the libraries load directly from the APK at runtime. This will set the android:extractNativeLibs flag in the Android Manifest (official documentation).

macOS

App Icon

Image file (.png) to use as application icon on macOS.

Info.plist

If set, use the specified info.plist file when bundling.

Privacy Manifest

The Apple Privacy Manifest for the application. The field will default to /builtins/manifests/osx/PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy.

Bundle Identifier

The bundle identifier lets macOS recognize updates to your app. Your bundle ID must be registered with Apple and be unique to your app. You cannot use the same identifier for both iOS and macOS apps. Must consist of two or more segments separated by a dot. Each segment must start with a letter. Each segment must only consist of alphanumeric letters, the underscore or hyphen (-) character.

Default Language

The language used if the application doesn’t have user’s preferred language in Localizations list (see CFBundleDevelopmentRegion). Use the two-letter ISO 639-1 standard if preferred language is available there or the three-letter ISO 639-2.

Localizations

This field contains comma-separated strings identifying the language name or ISO language designator of the supported localizations (see CFBundleLocalizations).

Windows

App Icon

Image file (.ico) to use as application icon on Windows. Read more about how to create a .ico file in the Windows manual.

HTML5

Refer to the HTML5 platform manual for more information about many of these options.

Heap Size

Heap size in megabytes for Emscripten to use.

.html Shell

Use the specified template HTML file when bundling. By default /builtins/manifests/web/engine_template.html.

Custom .css

Use the specified theme CSS file when bundling. By default /builtins/manifests/web/light_theme.css.

Splash Image

If set, use the specified splash image on startup when bundling instead of Defold logo.

Archive Location Prefix

When bundling for HTML5 game data is split up into one or more archive data files. When the engine starts the game, these archive files are read into memory. Use this setting to specify the location of the data.

Archive Location Suffix

Suffix to be appended to the archive files. Useful to, for instance, force non-cached content from a CDN (?version2 for example).

Engine Arguments

List of arguments that will be passed to the engine.

Show Fullscreen Button

Enables Fullscreen Button in index.html file.

Show Made With Defold

Enables Made With Defold link in index.html file.

Show Console Banner

When enabled this option will print information about the engine and engine version in the browser console (using console.log()) when the engine starts.

Scale Mode

Specifies which method to use to scale the game canvas.

Retry Count

The number of attempts to download a file when the engine starts (see Retry Time).

Retry Time

The number of seconds to wait between attempts to download a file when the download failed (see Retry Count).

Transparent Graphics Context

Check if you want the graphics context to have a transparent backdrop.

IAP

Auto Finish Transactions

Check to automatically finish IAP transactions. If unchecked, you need to explicitly call iap.finish() after a successful transaction.

Live update

Private Key

If set, use the specified private key file when bundling live update content. If no key file is set, a key is generated.

Public Key

If set, use the specified public key file when bundling live update content. If no key file is set, a key is generated.

Native extension

App Manifest

If set, use the app manifest to customize the engine build. This allows you to remove unused parts from the engine to decrease the final binary size. Learn how to exclude unused feature in the application manifest manual.

Profiler

Track Cpu

If checked, enable CPU profiling in release versions of the builds. Normally, you can only access profiling information in debug builds.

Setting config values on engine startup

When the engine starts, it is possible to provide config values from the command line that override the game.project settings:

# Specify a bootstrap collection
$ dmengine --config=bootstrap.main_collection=/my.collectionc

# Set two custom config values
$ dmengine --config=test.my_value=4711 --config=test2.my_value2=foobar

Custom values can—just like any other config value—be read with sys.get_config_string() or sys.get_config_number():

local my_value = sys.get_config_number("test.my_value")
local my_value2 = sys.get_config_string("test.my_value2")

Component max count optimizations

The game.project settings file contains many values specifying the maximum number of a certain resource that can exist at the same time, often counted per loaded collection (also called world). The Defold engine will use these max values to preallocate memory for this amount of memory to avoid dynamic allocations and memory fragmentation while the game is running.

The Defold data structures used to represent components and other resources are optimized to use as little memory as possible but care should still be taken when setting the values to avoid allocating more memory than is actually necessary.

To further optimize memory usage the Defold build process will analyse the content of the game and override the max counts if it is possible to know for certain the exact amount:

• If a collection doesn’t contain any factory components the exact amount of each component and Game Object will be allocated and the max count values will be ignored.
• If a collection contains a factory component the spawned objects will be analysed and the max count will be used for components that can be spawned from the factories and for Game Objects.
• If a collection contains a factory or a collection factory with activated “Dynamic Prototype” option, this collection will use the max counters.

Custom project settings

It is possible to define custom settings for the main project or for a native extension. Custom settings for the main project must be defined in a game.properties file in the root of the project. For a native extension they should be defined in an ext.properties file next to the ext.manifest file.

The settings file uses the same INI format as game.project and property attributes are defined using a dot notation with a suffix:

[my_category]
my_property.private = 1
...

The default meta file that is always applied is available here

The following attributes are currently available:

// `type` - used for the value string parsing (only in bob.jar for now)
my_property.type = string // one of the following values: bool, string, number, integer, string_array, resource

// `help` - used as help tip in the editor (not used for now)
my_property.help = string

// `default` - value used as default if user didn't set value manually (only in bob.jar for now)
my_property.default = string

// `private` - private value used during the bundle process but will be removed from the bundle itself
my_property.private = 1 // boolean value 1 or 0

At the moment meta properties are used only in bob.jar when bundling application, but later will be parsed by the editor and represented in the game.project viewer.