Star Ruler 2 is a space 4X strategy game developed by Blind Mind Studios. They have released the entire game as open source. Unfortunately the game wasn't a commercial success, so they've decided to share what they have under the very permissive MIT license. Thanks!
I've created a short tutorial on how to set up a Star Ruler 2 development environment on Windows 10. I tried to make this very approachable, so anyone should be able to follow. You can use this to check out how their engine works, do further hobbyist development, or you know, just play the game. Of course if you play the game and end up liking it, I encourage you to actually buy it.
Here's how to get Star Rulin' 2:
Download the source zip from github:
https://github.com/BlindMindStudios/StarRuler2-Source
Now unzip the package wherever you want the game to reside. For the purposes of the tutorial I just unzipped it at the root of my D: drive, but the location doesn't matter.
If you look in the folder, you'll see an inviting 'Star Ruler 2.exe' executable. This is the launcher for the game. You can double click on it already, but it'll do nothing, since there are no binaries to actually launch.
Next head to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/
Visual Studio is an IDE, or an Integrated Development Environment. It's a set of tools that are used to create programs, such as video games. We'll use it to compile the code you just downloaded into an actually functioning videogame.
Just click on the download link on the web page, and then launch the installer you downloaded. You should see something like this:
As you can see, there's a ton of options about exactly what to install. Thankfully VS comes in parts, and is good about figuring out what parts it requires on the fly. You can just click on the install button for now to get going. If it asks about "workloads" or other things it wants to install, just say yes. Doesn't hurt. You might be invited to take a survey or two during this process. Helps to pass the time!
It'll also want you to create an account, but we can actually do without one! Click on 'Not now, maybe later'.
After the install is complete, you should see the Start Page of Visual Studio. Head straight to File -> Open -> Project / Solution...
The file Visual Studio wants to see is called 'Star Ruler 2.sln'. This is the location of the file:
Now Visual Studio will inform you that it doesn't actually have half the stuff it needs to deal with Star Ruler 2. Click on 'Install'
The Visual Studio installer screen you saw before will come back up. Click on 'Modify' at the bottom right. Yeah, it says 'Modify' instead of 'Install' this time. Weird.
Some other popups might come along, there might be a survey! Just keep clicking 'Ok' and 'Continue' and other words like that.
It might ask you to restart your system for god knows what reason. Keep focused on the thought of turning some insufferable elf race's planets into glass.
If you had to restart, just start Visual Studio and open the 'Star Ruler 2.sln' file again.
In the end if everything went right, you should be looking at a screen like this:
Now we want to compile the game. The relevant functions are under the Build menu. However, before jumping the gun, let's check out the Configuration Manager:
For playing the game the configuration should be 'Non-Steam Release'. 'Debug' is for development purposes.
Now we're ready to compile. Click on 'Build Solution' in the Build menu!
Feast your eyes on the output window; this is the powerful process of turning source code into a video game! There'll be a lot of warnings, it's just the compiler being pedantic about how you're supposed to code in C++. Nobody cares, compiler.
Depending on your processor, this will take a while. Contemplate diverting asteroids towards insectoid dyson spheres.
When the process is done you should see this in the output window:
Are you ready to rule the stars 2? Because now that 'Star Ruler 2.exe' launcher I mentioned earlier will totally launch the game!
You also now have a fully functional Star Ruler 2 development environment. Don't like something about the game? Find that part in the source code, change it, and click on Build Solution again! Good luck, C++ is a complex language for a beginner, but it's easy to start with something like changing a bit of text to say 'butt'.
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