Exporting a game

An export turns a project into a folder that runs on its own: the game’s player, its content and the engine’s shaders, with no editor. Each target (a desktop, the browser, the Steam Deck) is one export preset, and each preset is built from an export template.

Export templates

A template is a ready-built player for one platform and configuration: the program that runs a game, without any game in it. An export adds your project’s content to a copy of it.

The editor always has one template: its own player, built beside it, for the platform it runs on. So an editor you built from source exports to that platform without anything more. A template for another platform comes from building the engine for it:

Platform	How to build its template
Linux	scripts/build-export-templates.sh linux
The browser	scripts/build-export-templates.sh web (needs the Emscripten SDK)
Windows	pwsh scripts/build-export-templates.ps1
Steam Deck	scripts/build-steamdeck.sh (see Platforms)

The scripts install the templates into the editor’s templates folder: templates in the editor’s user data folder (~/.local/share/assiduousengine/templates on Linux, %LOCALAPPDATA%\assiduousengine\templates on Windows). Edit > Preferences…, on the Export tab, can point the editor at another folder.

Edit > Export Templates… (also a button in the Export dialog) lists the installed templates, with their platform, configuration and engine version. From there:

• Install from Folder… copies in a template someone gave you (a folder with a template.xml).
• Create from Build… makes a template from a player you built (a Bin/<configuration>/<platform>-<compiler> folder).
• Remove… deletes one, and Reveal Folder shows where it is.

A template built for another engine version is marked Built for another engine version. An export with it still runs, but the player should match the editor that cooked the content.

Export presets

Project > Export… opens the Export dialog. On the left are the project’s presets; + adds one for this computer’s platform, and the other two buttons duplicate and remove the selected one. The card at the top says which template the preset will use, or that none is installed for it.

A preset’s settings are in three sections.

General

• Name of the preset.
• Template: Any for its platform and config takes the best one installed for the platform and config below, or pick one by name, which decides both.
• Platform and Config, when the template is Any. They offer this computer’s platform and Release, and the platforms and configurations of the templates installed.
• Player name: the name of the game’s program. Leave it empty for the template’s own (Engine.Player).
• Output folder: the folder inside Dist/. Leave it empty to use the preset’s name.

Content

• Extra files: files copied beside the player as they are, such as a licence, a readme or your CREDITS.md. Add Files… picks them.
• Ship debug symbols: copy the template’s debug symbols into the export, for reading crash reports.
• Only what is reached: pack only what the default scene, the startup script and the other project settings lead to, instead of every cooked asset. An asset the game loads only by name from a script needs Always Export (see Assets and importing). An export with this on also writes export-report.txt, the list of what was kept and why, and what was left out.
• Shader source: ship the project’s shaders as HLSL beside the cooked ones, for players who want to read or mod them.

Display

The project’s display settings (Project Settings, the Display section) apply to every platform. A preset can set its own instead, for a device that needs them: a handheld’s screen size, fullscreen on a console-like device, a phone held one way.

• Own render size: the Render width, Render height and Render fit (Stretch, Letterbox, Crop or IntegerScale).
• Own window: the Window width and Window height, the Window mode (Windowed, Fullscreen or Borderless) and whether it is Resizable.
• Own orientation: Orientation, Any, Landscape or Portrait.

Each of these settings shows once its box is ticked.

The presets are saved in the project, in export_presets.xml, so they belong in version control.

Exporting

Export exports the selected preset; Export All exports every one. The editor cooks the project first, then packs and copies the game. When it is done, Open Folder on the notice opens the result.

Exports go to the project’s Dist/ folder, one folder per preset. An export does not empty the folder first, so a file it no longer writes (a player you renamed, say) stays until you delete it.

What a game folder holds

For a desktop game:

File	What it is
The player (<Player name>, .exe on Windows)	The game’s program. Run it to play.
Content.pak	The project’s cooked content
player.xml	The game’s settings: its window, its scenes
Data/	The engine’s shaders
Libraries beside the player	What the player needs to run
Your extra files	As you listed them

The window’s title is the project’s name. The engine does not yet give the game’s window an icon of its own.

To share the game, share the whole folder. The player finds its content beside itself, so it runs from wherever the folder is put.

Exporting from the command line

Tools.Export, built with the editor, exports without opening it:

Tools.Export path/to/project                      # the first preset
Tools.Export path/to/project --preset "Web"       # one preset, by name
Tools.Export path/to/project --all                # every preset
Tools.Export path/to/project --all --rebuild      # cook everything again first
Tools.Export path/to/project --out /tmp/builds    # somewhere other than Dist/

It reads templates from $ENV_TEMPLATES_DIR or the default templates folder, not from the editor’s preference. Tools.Export --template list lists them.

Next: Platforms, for running a game on each.