README.md

# X-Change Life™
X-Change Life™ is a NSFW (18+) gender-swapping RPG that still in the early stages of development. For details and further information about the game itself, please visit [@aphrodite's dev page](https://devs.rpdl.net/aphrodite), which includes links to the web-hosted version of the game, as well as the game's official Discord.

## Technical Information
X-Change Life™ is written in Harlowe, a Twine "Story Format". Through the patient efforts of @togashikokujin, we have decompiled this project using Tweego into human-readable text files, which allows for better collaboration and open development. This new way of doing things also allows user-created content to be created for the game, using the [mod loader](https://gitgud.io/xchange-life/mod-loader).

We are open to anyone who wants to create bugfixes / performance enhancements for the game as merge requests. It is highly recommended you use [Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/), along with the [Twee 3 Language Tools](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=cyrusfirheir.twee3-language-tools) extension, if you plan on getting involved in development. 

## Local Build Requirements

* [Git LFS](https://git-lfs.github.com/)
  * Required to view/access game's images, audio, etc. in local builds
  * Note: This repo is large enough that downloading all of the assets can take some time, so only do this if you have the time and bandwidth to do so.
* NodeJS and NPM
  * npm >= 8 is recommended, though lower versions can work. Keep in mind that if you run a lower version, running `npm install` will lead to unwanted changes in the NPM package files that you will not want to include in merge requests.
  * [Installation instructions can be found here.](/docs/installing-node.md)
* Tweego
  * [Windows Tweego Installation instructions can be found here.](/docs/installing-tweego.md) 
  * On MacOS, Tweego can be installed with a single command, just copy and paste this command into the terminal:
  ```/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/jsoma/5ef3045b2004a610455f371479a6f0cf/raw/b6c9224faa18fd52f3e1bf7120af17eed6da8ec1/tweego.sh)"``` 


## Building locally

The below commands have been tested in a Unix-based environments (Ubuntu and MacOS). Do let us know if any further steps are required on Windows systems.

```bash
npm install
npm run build
npm run start
```

If Tweego and npm are configured properly, it should go through the appropriate build steps and then present you with a locally-executed web page in your default browser.

Alternatively, you can simply run ```npm run build``` and open the index.html file generated in the /dist/ folder.