Step 2: Choose Your IDE

Install and configure Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code or JetBrains Rider for MonoGame development.

This is a guide for setting up your development environment for creating games with MonoGame using the IDE or Editor of your choice. By following this guide, you will learn how to install the necessary tools for developing C# applications.

This guide gives instructions for three IDEs, but any IDE supporting .NET SDK development will do:

IDE	Operating systems	Cost
Visual Studio	Windows only	The Community edition is free for individuals and small teams.
Visual Studio Code	Windows, macOS and Linux	Free.
JetBrains Rider	Windows, macOS and Linux	Free for non-commercial use.

Select one IDE. If you do not know which IDE to use, use Visual Studio Code, because .NET runs on three platforms, Windows, macOS, and Linux.

In this step, you will:

Install an IDE.
Install the extensions or workloads that the IDE needs for .NET development.

Install your IDE

Open a web browser and go to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/.
Download the Community edition of Visual Studio.
When the download is complete, run the installer.
In the Workloads tab, select .NET desktop development.
Optional: To make games for Android or iOS, also select .NET Multi-platform App UI development.
Click Install.

Note

Visual Studio shows the MonoGame templates that you installed in Step 1. You do not need to install a MonoGame extension for this guide.

The MonoGame Extension on the Visual Studio marketplace is only needed when working with the legacy MGCB Editor.

Open a web browser and go to https://code.visualstudio.com/.
Download the installer for your operating system:
- On Windows, run the installer.
- On macOS, open the .zip file. Then, move Visual Studio Code.app to your Applications folder.
- On Ubuntu, download the .deb package and open it to install.
Start Visual Studio Code.
Open the Extensions panel. Click the Extensions icon in the Activity Bar, or select View > Extensions.
In the search box, type C# Dev Kit.
Click Install for the C# Dev Kit extension from Microsoft.

Note

The C# Dev Kit extension also installs the C# extension and the .NET Install Tool extension. These extensions give C# code completion, debugging and project tools.

Important

On Arch Linux, the code package from pacman is Code - OSS. Code - OSS cannot use the C# Dev Kit extension. Install the visual-studio-code-bin package from the Arch User Repository (AUR) instead.

Optional: To debug games on Android or iOS devices, also install the .NET MAUI extension from Microsoft.

Open a web browser and go to https://www.jetbrains.com/rider/.
Download Rider for your operating system. You can also install Rider with the JetBrains Toolbox App.
Run the installer and follow the instructions.
Start Rider. When Rider asks for a license, select the non-commercial option or enter your license.

The MonoGame projects in this guide use the Content Builder to build game content. To make sure that Rider runs the Content Builder, change one build setting:

Open File > Settings (on macOS, Rider > Settings).
Go to Build, Execution, Deployment > Toolset and Build > Build. (menu names may vary by Rider version)
Select Invoke BeforeBuild and AfterBuild targets for skipped projects.
Click Save.

Note

If content does not build after this change, clear the Use ReSharper Build option in the same settings page.

Conclusion

In this step, you accomplished the following:

You installed an IDE.
You installed the extensions or workloads that your IDE needs for .NET development.

In the next step, you will create your first MonoGame project and run it.

Test Your Knowledge

What is an IDE?

An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is an application that you use to write, build and debug code.
Which IDE in this guide runs only on Windows?

Visual Studio.
Which extension must you install in Visual Studio Code for C# development?

The C# Dev Kit extension from Microsoft.

Table of Contents

Step 2: Choose Your IDE

Install your IDE

Note

Conclusion

Test Your Knowledge