CSE2-archive/VISUAL_STUDIO_2019_GUIDE.md

So you want to compile CSE2?

Well, to start, you'll need Visual Studio. I know a lot of people recommend MSYS2 instead, and while it is a lot more lightweight, it's also way more complex, and outright broken in some places, which will make compiling an absolute nightmare (I'm looking at you, Brotli).

So, we'll be using Visual Studio Community 2019. Don't worry - it's free. You can download it here:

https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/

Once it's downloaded, run vs_Community.exe. Follow the installer until you reach this menu:

Here, you'll want to select the 'Desktop development with C++' workload, and then click 'Install'. Once it's done installing, you'll be prompted to restart your computer.

Next, download a copy of CSE2's source code if you haven't already and extract it somewhere. You can find a copy of CSE2 Portable's code here:

https://github.com/Clownacy/CSE2/archive/portable.zip

You are now ready to compile CSE2. To begin, open Visual Studio 2019. If it prompts you to open a project, select 'Continue without code' to skip past it and enter the main IDE. It should look something like this:

From here, select File/Open/CMake, and then navigate to where you extracted the CSE2 source code, and open the CMakeLists.txt file.

After this, Visual Studio will spend a few minutes configuring itself. You can see all of this in the little text console at the bottom of the window. Eventually, it will conclude, and hopefully not report any errors. The window should now look something like this:

You are now able to produce 64-bit Debug builds of CSE2. To do so, simply select Build/Build All. Like before, Visual Studio will spend the next few minutes performing tasks, and reporting back in the text console. It should eventually generate CSE2_debug.exe and DoConfig_debug.exe, which you can find in CSE2's game_english folder.

However, you probably want to be compiling Release builds, not Debug builds. To do so, select the 'Open the CMake Settings Editor' option. It will take you to this menu:

From here, change the 'Configuration type' option to 'Release'. You can now rebuild CSE2, and the files CSE2.exe and DoConfig.exe will be generated in the game_english folder.

And... that's it. If you want, you can edit CSE2's code by expanding the src folder on the right, and selecting one of the various .cpp files.