I'm looking for recommendations for inexpensive patchers/updaters that I can use to create an update installer for Vault Vex. The few that I've looked at seem great (automatic web based updates, version management, steaming hot coffee with the click of a button, etc.), but they come with price tags that I'm not willing to pay ($200+), since all I need to do is patch or replace a few files in the game's installation directory. How do you handle updates to existing installations? Is it simple enough that I could just write my own?

It looks like you used InnoSetup to create an installer for Vault Vex. Why not just use InnoSetup to create the patch as well? If necessary, you can extend InnoSetup with custom code, but I doubt you'll even need to do that.

Clickteam has a patch maker (http://www.clickteam.com/English/patchmaker.php) that seems pretty good. It's free for use with an ad, or $60 to take out the ad. Seems like a good deal to me. I'm planning on using it for my game.

Originally posted by Matthijs Hollemans
It looks like you used InnoSetup to create an installer for Vault Vex. Why not just use InnoSetup to create the patch as well? If necessary, you can extend InnoSetup with custom code, but I doubt you'll even need to do that.

I'd like to use InnoSetup (since, as you note, I'm already using it for the game's installer), but I'm not sure it'll do what I want. Though some files could be simply overwritten, I'd like to be able to patch some of the larger files (rather than overwrite/replace them) so that I can reduce the size of the update download. Also, I'd like something that won't interfere with the existing uninstaller (by "interfere" I mean "leave additional files or Installed Program List entries hanging around that don't get cleaned up when the game is uninstalled"--it always bugs me when I install an update for a game and it creates a new entry in the Installed Program list which doesn't disappear when you uninstall the game). As near as I can tell, InnoSetup isn't able to meet these criteria.

eSellerate has an api that you can use to make your games "patch aware", it will contact a server if the users has an internet connection and pop up a message saying "a new version exsists, would you like to update?"

eSellerate does have a lot of nice features like that, but I'm a little leery of relying on them. Obviously eSellerate offers these extras to keep you from switching payment processors, an option I'd like to keep open. :)

I tried out ClickTeam's Patch Maker (thanks for the tip, Fenix) and it's pretty nice (especially for the price), but the resulting file is significantly larger than it should be. I know this because I compared Patch Maker's results with those of PatchWise (a free patch util that doesn't have most of the features I like in PM) and Patch Maker's file was about 800K compared to PatchWise's 250K. :( However, PatchMaker's got the best features for the money, so I guess I'll go with it until I find something better. Thanks for everyone's input!

I also second Clickteam Patch Maker. It's what I use.