Running game assets on Windows

Running game on Windows

To run any game on Windows, you need to mix content of two archives in the same directory: the plain engine package for Windows, and the game assets package. In result, you will get a fully portable copy of the game that you can put on your USB stick and take between different computers.

Before to start

• You will need to have a 7-zip archivator being installed to unpack 7z archives.
• Download the archive of the game engine itself, you will need to download the Plain runtime edition (the stable, or the in-development version). Depending on your processor and type of opeating system, you should download the build compatible with your processor.
  • For ARM64 platform, you also required to download and install the compatible VC runtime.
• Download one of the archives of the game assets package itself.

Preparing the game

• Create an empty directory at any convenient place (for example, C:\Games\<Name of game>\, later refered as game directory).
• Unpack content of the game assets arichve into the game directory.
• Open the engine archive and unpack all content of the thextech-bin sub-directory inside the archive into the game directory. It's possible that some text files may conflict: you can easily rename them.

Running the game

• Once all stuff is ready, to start the game, run the thextech-win64.exe, thextech-win32.exe or thextech-arm64.exe executable (the name depends on what type of build you downloaded).
• You can create a shortcut or open any compatible LVL, LVLX, WLD, or WLDX files via the game executable (Use the "Open with..." menu, or drag and dropping the file to the executable of the game through the Explorer) to play them directly.
• As an icon for your shourtcut, you can use an ICO file from the graphics/ui/icon sub-directory at the game directory.

Extra directories

During use of the game, there are next directories will be created:

• logs - Debug logs of the game. Once you get any troubles with the game, please attach one of these log files to the bug report.
• screenshots - Screenshots taken via the game itself using F12 key.
• gif-recordings - Recorded GIF animations via the game itself using F11 key.
• settings - Settings of the game:
  • settings/thextech.ini - Setup of the game. You can edit it via notepad to enable or disable some features including the Discord Rich Presence support.
  • settings/controls.ini - Setup of game controls: all key bindings and game controller buttons setup were saved here.
  • settings/gamesaves - The storage of game saves: all saved games appears here. However, if you moved an old episode with game save files presented (such as save1.sav, save2.sav, save3.sav), they will be imported by the game, however, updated gamesaves will appear at the new storage at the settings/gamesave directory, keeping the episode directory clear.
• gameplay-records - Recorded gameplays demos: when you enable the recording of gameplay in the settings, every attempt to play a level will create a new replay file that you can open by the game and see the full playthrough. In some cases, these replays can help to reproduce various bugs that happen very rare.