# Simple C++ Game Study

This repository contains all of my research into C++ as the next intermediate language for Learn Code the Hard Way. You can read my first blog post _[Exploring the Replacement for C as an Educational Language](https://learncodethehardway.com/blog/26-exploring-the-replacement-for-c-as-an-educational-language/)_ to read my thoughts on C++ as a first test.  The end goal of these projects is to learn C++ well enough to make simple 2D games for a course.  The course will teach:

1. C++ Basics -- Just like all my other courses.
2. Game Dev Basics -- Keeping it simple and mostly as a vehicle to learn C++ and...
3. Defensive Programming -- Learning how to crash C++, prevent crashing, test it, etc.

Another way to put this is I want to teach people how to make games that don't crash, and C++ is a great language for learning both...because it can make games and tends to crash.

## Current Status

The `sfmldemo` currently contains a very bare build using [Meson](https://mesonbuild.com) to build a [SFML](https://www.sfml-dev.org) project. This currently builds on Windows with MinGW but I haven't tested it anywhere else.  The build takes the [example code from imgui-sfml](https://github.com/SFML/imgui-sfml) and makes it work, so you have a game window with a working GUI in it already. That is actually remarkable feat on Windows.

To get this working the rough (ROUGH) steps are:

1. Get MinGW and Meson installed.
2. Run setup.ps1
3. `meson compile -C builddir`
4. `meson install -C builddir`  -- Careful with this, it might install stuff in unwanted areas. On my computer it put them in `C:\` but I have to read the instructions on how to set the install location.
5. `./builddir/sfmldemo` -- That should run it and you see a window with ImGUI's demo panel.

I'll have more extensive instructions in a later blog post, but if you have time try this out and let me know how it went at help@learncodethehardway.com.  Please let me know if you tried a different compiler, Windows version, etc.  If you're on OSX or Linux it should work the same but Linux people might want to use their package manager instead.

## Next Step

Once this is mostly working and documented I'll start the process of learning C++ and then work on a bunch of silly little games to learn how it all works.