Installing and Getting Started

Simple Cpp Game is designed to work on x86 Linux, Mac, and Windows. ARM is not explicitly supported at this time due to lack of available test hardware for the developer.

Installing Dependencies

The Simple Cpp Game (and associated documentation generation) has the following dependencies:

  1. A C++ Compiler

    Any C++ Compiler and CMake. A C++ compiler that supports C++14 and #pragma once will suffice. The game was developed and debugged using g++ 12.2 (Ubuntu 22.04 default).

    On Ubuntu 22.04: sudo apt install gcc g++ cmake

    Mac users can install the clang/clang++ compilers and cmake via homebrew: brew install llvm cmake

  2. SFML Dependencies

    The Simple Cpp Game is built with the Jupiter engine that is dependent on SFML. The CMake files will build SFML from source, but SFML’s dependencies (xrandr, freetype, and udev) need to be installed manually first.

    Linux users are recommended to install these dependencies via their distribution’s package manager, if possible. For example, in Ubuntu:

    sudo apt install libxrandr-dev libfreetype-dev libudev-dev mesa-common-dev

    Mac users do not need any additional dependencies to build SFML.

    Windows users should consult the Oracle of Google for how to best install dependencies.

  1. Doxygen (with graphviz)

    Linux users should install Doxygen via their distribution’s package manager. For example, on Ubuntu:

    sudo apt install doxygen graphviz

    Mac users should install Doxygen via Homebrew.

    brew install doxygen graphviz

    Windows users should download and run the Doxygen installer and graphviz installer.

  2. Python3

    Any version of Python 3 will work with Simple Cpp Game. It is used for the environment in which the documentation is built.

    Linux users should install a version of Python from their distribution’s repositories. Be sure that this includes the virtual environment tools as well. For example, to install Python3.10 on Ubuntu:

    sudo apt install python3.10 python3.10-venv

    Mac users should install python3, pip, and the virtualenv tools. There are many ways to do this, such as with homebrew:

    brew install python3

    pip3 install virtualenv

    Windows users should download and run an installter from the Python website. Do NOT use the version of Python from the windows store; it is substantially more difficult to work with.

Downloading the Game

The code and other resources for the Simple Cpp Game can be found in the repository. You can download the repository from the website or by cloning it with git clone https://github.com/ntemplon/SimpleCppGame.

Building the Game

The easiest way to build the game is to open VSCode in the respository directory and invoke the CMake: Configure and CMake: Built Target simple-cpp-game commands with Ctrl + Shift + P or Cmd + Shift + P on Mac.

To manually build the game, open a terminal in the repository directory and run the following commands. They are provided for Linux; use whatever equivalent commands are available on your operating system.

  1. Make the working directory inside of the repository

mkdir build;cd ./build

  1. Configure the project to prepare to build

cmake --no-warn-unused-cli -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS:BOOL=TRUE -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER:FILEPATH=/path/to/c_compiler -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER:FILEPATH=/path/to/cxx_compiler -S/path/to/repo/root -B/path/to/repo/root/build -G "Unix Makefiles"

Note: The default location for c compilers and cxx compilers on Ubuntu is /usr/bin

Note: If on windows, use cmake-gui.exe instead and refer to the CMake documentation for assistance.

  1. Build the target

cmake --build . --config Release --target all

This will result in a simple-cpp-game executable in the build folder, which you can run to play the game!