Currently only Linux is officially supported, but Windows support should be possible with a few minor modifications.

• For building native Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint packages, the repository has a 'debian' subdirectory with a build description. There is also an unofficial PPA at https://launchpad.net/~adrian-arroyocalle/+archive/freerct, set up by Adrián Arroyo Calle.

The source code is in Subversion, so you need a svn client to get it.

The command to do this is

$ svn checkout http://freerct.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/  freerct-read-only

(see also the 'source' tab of the project)

There is also a git mirror of the project on github.

The command to get this is

$ git clone https://github.com/FreeRCT/FreeRCT.git

Almost everything is written in C++, which means you need g++ or clang++ to compile it. FreeRCT uses C++11 features, so g++ 4.8+ or clang 3.3+ is recommended. In addition, you need:

• lex/flex - Scanner generator for generating RCD input files. (optional)
• yacc/bison - Parser generator for generating RCD input files. (optional)
• libpng - Making the RCD data files that contain the graphics and other data read by the program.
• SDL2 & SDL2-ttf - Displaying graphics of the program. Note that SDL2 versions of both libraries are needed.
• CMake & make - Building the program.

The existence of these programs/libraries is checked by cmake.

Building is as simple as

$ cd freerct-read-only # Go into the downloaded source directory.
$ cmake .              # Checks libraries are where they're supposed to be and replaces some strings
$ make                 # Let make do the heavy work.

• src directory contains the source code of the FreeRCT program itself.
• src/rcdgen directory contains the source code of the rcdgen program, that builds RCD files from source (which are read by freerct).
• graphics/rcd directory contains the source files of the RCD data files, except the graphics.
• graphics/sprites directory contains all the graphics of the game.

The cmake/make commands above will generate the rcdgen program, the rcd files and build the 'freerct' program in the src directory.

Finally, you need a 'freerct.cfg' INI format file next to the 'freerct' program, containing the path to the font file you want to use. It looks like

[font]
medium-size = 12
medium-path = /usr/share/fonts/gnu-free/FreeSans.ttf

This means the medium sized font is 12 points high, and its source font definition file is at the indicated path. Make sure you use a path that actually exists.

The actual file is not that critical, as long as it contains the ASCII characters, in the font-size you mention in the file.

Now run the program

$ cd src
$ ./freerct

or

$ make run

which should open a window containing a piece of greenly coloured flat world, and a toolbar near the left top (see also the pictures in the blog).

Pressing 'q' quits the program.