Required C++ Tools

To be able to use the Geode SDK, you will need at least the following:

• A C++ compiler
• CMake - Version 3.21+ is required, and make sure to add to PATH when installing on windows.
• git - Hey you. yes you. I know a lot of people skip this but you will need it. Don’t come at us asking for why “could not find git for clone of json-populate”

Compiler

To use the Geode SDK, and in turn make Geometry Dash mods, you will need either:

• Visual Studio 2022+ on Windows
• clang on MacOS
• A secret third thing on Linux

Windows

From the Visual Studio website, you can download the Visual Studio IDE along with the compiler. If you want just the compiler, look for Build Tools for Visual Studio further down in the page.

After launching the installer, look for Desktop development with C++. You may choose other features, but you will need at least MSVC and Windows SDK installed.

Once its installed, you should now have a working C++ compiler installed that is suited for GD mod development.

Please note that Visual Studio 2022 or higher is required. 2019 or lower will not work, as they don’t support C++20 properly.

MacOS

Install brew if you don’t already have it, and then run:

brew install llvm

Linux

Linux is a bit more complicated, as obviously there’s no linux release of GD (yet). Of course, you can run the Windows version of GD through software like wine quite well, which is probably what you’re already doing.

Because of that, this guide will set you up to cross-compile windows Geode mods from linux.

We recommend reading this gist: linux-win-cross.md for up to date information on how to cross compile.