CRADL

Summary

This is a game created with Unreal Engine 5.4.

Authors

• A
• R
• J

Windows Setup

1. Unreal Engine 5.4

1. Install the Epic Games Launcher.
2. In the launcher, go to Unreal Engine → Library, click +, and install the latest 5.4.x release (not 5.5+ — the project targets 5.4 APIs).
3. Install to the default location (C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_5.4). If you install elsewhere, update the engine paths in .vscode/tasks.json.

2. Visual Studio Community 2022 (toolchain)

Visual Studio provides the MSVC compiler and SDKs Unreal needs — even if you edit code in VS Code, you still need it installed. You never need to open Visual Studio, though: builds go through UnrealBuildTool, either via the VS Code build task or by calling Build.bat directly, which is easier than driving a build from the VS IDE.

Microsoft buries the download for older releases; if the main Community page no longer offers 2022, use one of these:

• Direct bootstrapper: https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vs_community.exe
• Older downloads page: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/older-downloads/

In the Visual Studio Installer, select these workloads:

• Game development with C++ (you can uncheck the bundled "Unreal Engine installer" — the engine comes from the Epic launcher)
• Desktop development with C++
• .NET desktop development (UnrealBuildTool runs on .NET)

Then under Individual components, make sure these are checked (some come with the workloads, verify anyway):

• MSVC v143 – VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 build tools (v14.38-17.8) — UE 5.4's supported toolchain; newer MSVC versions can produce "unsupported compiler" errors. On a verified working setup, UBT reports Using Visual Studio 2022 14.38.33133 toolchain.
• Windows 10 SDK (10.0.19041.0) — the version UBT actually selects on a verified setup (even when newer SDKs like 10.0.22621.0 are also installed). Any Windows 10/11 SDK from 10.0.18362 up should work.
• .NET Framework 4.6.2 targeting pack (normally included with the .NET desktop workload)

You do not need a standalone .NET 6 SDK — Build.bat runs UnrealBuildTool with the .NET SDK bundled inside the engine.

3. Visual Studio Code (editor)

Day-to-day editing and building happens in VS Code:

1. Install VS Code and the C/C++ extension (ms-vscode.cpptools).
2. Open the repository folder. Build tasks are already configured in .vscode/tasks.json.

4. Get the project building

1. Clone the repository.
2. Associate .uproject files with the engine: right-click CRADL.uproject → Switch Unreal Engine version… → select 5.4 (this registers the engine and creates project file associations). Then right-click again → Generate Visual Studio project files if you want a .sln for IntelliSense/debugging.
3. In VS Code, run the default build task (Terminal → Run Build Task, Ctrl+Shift+B): UE: Build Editor (Development). This invokes Build.bat for the CRADLEditor target and compiles the C++ module.
4. Launch the editor with the UE: Launch Editor task, or by double-clicking CRADL.uproject.
5. Happy CRADL-ing (press Play)

If the editor prompts that modules are missing or out of date, let it rebuild them (or run the build task first — that's faster to diagnose when something fails).

Optional: data-pipeline tooling

The Dev Portal and Items: Resolve Roster tasks in .vscode/tasks.json run Python via WSL with a pyenv environment named cradl. These are only needed for content-pipeline work (item roster seeding, the dev portal), not for building or running the game.

Contributing

Read CLAUDE.md for the project's non-negotiable rules (C++-only logic, replication-first design, Enhanced Input, no post-5.4 APIs) and ARCHITECTURE.md for architectural decisions.