Packaging a game

microengine package <target> turns a game project into the file a player installs. Every package takes the game’s identity from its project file, carries its Content files, and holds a build-info.json that says which game, version, SDK and commit it was built from. The four demos are packaged by these same commands.

Shell

microengine package windows    # dist/StarCourier-1.2.0-windows-x64.zip
microengine package linux      # dist/StarCourier-1.2.0-linux-x64.tar.gz
microengine package android    # dist/StarCourier-1.2.0-android.apk
microengine package web        # dist/StarCourier-1.2.0-web/ and .zip

Desktop: Windows, Linux, macOS

A self-contained .NET single-file executable: players need no .NET. Next to it: SDL 3 (the default platform) and raylib (--platform raylib), the Content folder, README.txt (how to run it), build-info.json, the game’s LICENSE.txt when it has one, THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt and licenses/ (MicroEngine’s MIT licence, the .NET runtime’s licence and notices, and SDL’s and raylib’s licence files). Everything is in one folder named after the game. Builds use invariant globalization, so no ICU library is needed on the player’s system, and carry no debug information or build-machine path. Android and iOS packages carry SDL’s licence file with their other notices (assets/licenses/ in an APK, licenses/ in the app).

	Windows	Linux	macOS
Architecture	x64	x86_64	Apple silicon (arm64)
Built on	Windows (only there can .NET write the executable’s icon and version)	any system	a Mac (codesign)
Identity	executable icon, product name and description	<id>.desktop and icon.png; window icon and app id at run time	Info.plist, AppIcon.icns, bundle id
Player needs	Windows 10/11 64-bit, a GPU with Direct3D 11, OpenGL or Vulkan	glibc 2.34+ (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 35 or newer), X11 or Wayland with OpenGL, PulseAudio or PipeWire; raylib needs glibc 2.38	macOS 14+
First launch	SmartScreen may warn about an unsigned program	—	an app that is not notarized needs Open Anyway in Privacy & Security (Signing)

The Linux package is portable (extract and run); its .desktop file is ready to copy to ~/.local/share/applications once its Exec= and Icon= lines point to where the game was extracted. A system older than glibc 2.34 gets a clear error naming the missing version, not a crash.

Android

An APK for arm64-v8a (phones) and x86_64 (emulators, Chromebooks), Android 7.0+ (MicroEngineAndroidMinApi), built with .NET for Android: install the android workload (dotnet workload install android), an Android SDK (ANDROID_HOME) and Java 17+. The game runs on SDL 3 with the engine’s on-screen touch controls; keyboards and gamepads work too. The launcher shows ApplicationTitle and the icon; the package name is ApplicationId; versionName is Version and versionCode grows with every commit (or --version-code). Content files travel as APK assets and are unpacked once per installed version. Signing is your key (Signing); --debug-key builds a test APK.

Google Play takes Android App Bundles (.aab), which the tool does not build yet; the APK installs directly (side-loading) and through stores that accept APKs. Android’s developer verification rules apply to who may install it.

iOS

ios-simulator builds a .app for Xcode’s Simulator on Apple silicon: useful to try the game, and never installable on an iPhone. ios builds an .ipa for devices, signed with your Apple certificate and provisioning profile; without them the tool stops and says what is missing. Both need a Mac with Xcode and the ios workload. The app icon is made from MicroEngineIcon (enlarged to 1024 pixels without blur); supported orientations follow MicroEngineOrientation. Distribution through the App Store or TestFlight is done with Apple’s own tools from the .ipa and requires an Apple Developer Program membership.

Web

A static site: index.html titled with the game’s name, its icon as favicon, the WebAssembly runtime, the game and its Content files, build-info.json and the licence files of everything inside (the .NET runtime, Emscripten, SDL). Upload the folder to any static host (GitHub Pages, Netlify, an S3 bucket, nginx); files are also pre-compressed (.br, .gz) for servers that serve them. The game runs on SDL 3 compiled to WebAssembly, in the same page in desktop and mobile browsers, with touch controls.

It needs the wasm-tools workload (dotnet workload install wasm-tools); with a newer .NET SDK than the game’s .NET 10, the workload for .NET 10 instead (dotnet workload install wasm-tools-net10 with .NET SDK 11), because wasm-tools serves only the SDK’s own .NET. microengine doctor web names the one your SDK needs. SDL for the browser comes inside the MicroEngine.Sdl package, built with the same emscripten as that workload, so any game that references MicroEngine.Sdl or MicroEngine.Desktop can be packaged for the web (--sdl-wasm FILE names another SDL library).