Standalone Application Overview

The standalone version of the game development tool is a desktop application that can be installed on a computer, and it allows the user to design and model game data, as well as generate source code for it. The standalone version is typically used by individual game developers or small development teams who want to work offline.

Charon editor UI

Prerequisites

Standalone application uses dotnet charon tool, which is a .NET Core application built for .NET 8.

  1. Download and install NET 8+.

  2. Make sure you have write access to %APPDATA%/Charon (C:Users%USERNAME%AppDataRoamingCharon).

Checking Available .NET Versions

# check for mono already installed
dotnet --list-sdks

Installation and Updates

You can use just two commands to install the command line tool, or use a bootstrap script that will check dependencies and installed software, and then download and run the tool for you.

# install charon globally (run it once)
dotnet tool install -g dotnet-charon

# update global tool
dotnet tool update -g dotnet-charon

# run tool
dotnet charon INIT ./gamedata.json

Two bootstrap scripts which download and run latest version of Charon on your PC:

  • RunCharon.bat for Windows

  • RunCharon.sh for Linux or MacOS

Both scripts require the dotnet tool to be available in PATH.

  1. Download one of the scripts into a local folder charon.

    1. RunCharon.bat (Windows)

    2. RunCharon.sh (Linux, MacOS)

  2. Navigate to the local folder cd charon.

  3. Run RunCharon.bat or RunCharon.sh depending on your OS.

  4. Wait for the script to automatically download and upgrade dotnet-charon tool, and display help text.

  5. Create an empty file named RunCharon.bat INIT gamedata.json

  6. Run in standalone mode: RunCharon.bat gamedata.json

Or use following bootstrap script:

rem ##### Load and run bootstrap script #####

@echo off
mkdir Charon
cd Charon
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gamedevware/charon/main/scripts/bootstrap/RunCharon.bat
./RunCharon.bat INIT ./gamedata.json

rem ##### Start editor #####

./RunCharon.bat ./gamedata.json --log out

Creating and Editing Game Data

Any empty gamedata.json file could be used as starting point for standalone application launch. The editor will automatically fill the empty file with the initial data.

./RunCharon.bat ./gamedata.json --log out

After finishing your work, you could just terminate the process with CTRL+C keyboard shortcut or close terminal window.

See also