Nitrox.Discovery

Discovers the path to an installed game from a given game name. Supports the most popular game stores and on both Windows and Linux.

Use with MSBuild (minimized setup)

<Target Name="FindGameAndIncludeReferences" BeforeTargets="ResolveAssemblyReferences" Condition="'$(_NitroxDiscovery_TaskAssembly)' != ''">
    <DiscoverGame GameName="Subnautica"> <!-- CHANGE THIS -->
        <Output TaskParameter="GamePath" PropertyName="GameDir" />
    </DiscoverGame>
    <Error Condition="'$(GameDir)' == ''" Text="Failed to find the game 'Subnautica' on your machine" />

    <!-- Load any references to game DLLs here -->
    <ItemGroup>
        <Reference Include="MyGameDll">
            <HintPath>$(GameDir)\bin\MyGameDll.dll</HintPath>
        </Reference>
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

Important

Condition="'$(_NitroxDiscovery_TaskAssembly)' != ''" is needed so Visual Studio can still load Nuget packages without requiring DiscoverGame task to exist!

These options are available for DiscoverGame task

Nitrox.Discovery/Nitrox.Discovery.MSBuild/DiscoverGame.cs

Lines 21 to 47 in 7c018aa

	[Required]
	public string GameName { get; set; }
	/// <summary>
	/// Name of the game executable, with or without extension.
	/// </summary>
	public string ExeName { get; set; } = "";
	/// <summary>
	/// Relative depth to search within the game root for the game executable. Default is 0 unless on OSX, then 1.
	/// </summary>
	/// <remarks>
	/// As OSX has different file structure (.app/Contents/MacOS or .app/Contents/Resources, the default is 1).
	/// </remarks>
	public int ExeSearchDepth { get; set; } = RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.OSX) ? 1 : 0;
	/// <summary>
	/// Specifies the libraries to include in the search. The search will start in the same order as given.
	/// Leave empty to search all libraries. See <see cref="GameLibraries" /> for valid library names.
	/// </summary>
	/// <remarks>
	/// End with "All" to include all libraries in the search, but start the search with the preceding library names.
	/// For example: <code>Steam;Epic;All</code>
	/// </remarks>
	public ITaskItem[] IncludeLibraries { get; set; } = [];
	public string IntermediateOutputPath { get; set; }

Recommended setup

<Target Name="FindGameAndIncludeReferences" BeforeTargets="ResolveAssemblyReferences" Condition="'$(_NitroxDiscovery_TaskAssembly)' != ''">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <!-- Change this (optional: can be put in your Directory.Build.props file) -->
        <GameName>MY_GAME</GameName>
    </PropertyGroup>
    <DiscoverGame GameName="$(GameName)">
        <Output TaskParameter="GamePath" PropertyName="GameDir" />
    </DiscoverGame>
    <Error Condition="'$(GameDir)' == ''" Text="Failed to find the game '$(GameName)' on your machine" />
    <PropertyGroup>
        <GameDir>$(GameDir)\</GameDir>
    </PropertyGroup>
    <!-- Optional: do other checks on game (e.g. version check) -->
    <Message Importance="high" Text="Game found at: '$(GameDir)'" />

    <!-- Load any references to game DLLs here -->
    <ItemGroup>
        <Reference Include="MyGameDll">
            <HintPath>$(GameDir)bin\MyGameDll.dll</HintPath>
        </Reference>
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

You can append other references on a per project basis like this

<Target Name="MoreGameReferences" AfterTargets="FindGameAndIncludeReferences">
    <ItemGroup>
        <Reference Include="SomeOtherGameDll">
            <HintPath>$(GameDir)bin\SomeOtherGameDll.dll</HintPath>
        </Reference>
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>