1st thing - if similar topic exist, can you past a link? I can't find it.

Like everyone, I want write game. It'll be isn't big, more like 'tech demo' or 'learn something new'. I want to use C++, some 2D library, game with top view. I'm using linux, coding in Java at work. But I want to deploy final product to Windows, in *.exe. What technology/tools (IDE or something else) allow me to do it? It's possible to complie and deploy 2D game in OpenGL without any change to Windows, even if game was written in Linux?

I know for now, that will be problem with IDE. I'm using Intellij for Java, but all C++ IDE on Linux are bad or worse, but I must chose one. I'm not happy, but I wasn't install Windows especially for it.

It's possible to complie and deploy 2D game in OpenGL without any change to Windows, even if game was written in Linux?

Provided you stick to portable libraries, you should be able to (though differences in how filenames are handled can be annoying). In the project I'm working on when I tried building it on Windows the only couple of lines I needed to add was a few #includes I should have added and forgot. (didn't get a warning on Linux since some other headers were including those implicitly) I spent more time rebuilding all the libraries than building the game itself.

That said, I'm also clueless as to how do cross compiling (i.e. build the Windows executable with a Linux system). I have MinGW-w64 installed (a variant of MinGW that adds some headers and such that are missing from the normal version, as well as allowing 64-bit executables), but I have no idea from where to go. It seems like every library has a completely different way to be built for cross compiling, ugh.

I was forced to do this one time as an educational experience, and while I was able to do it, the amount of hassle that came along with it was unreal. The best advice (assuming you have a windows box) is to program the windows specific code on native Windows. Regardless, you are going to have to use a toolchain that supports the ".exe" file. This is best done natively on Windows, but you might be able to use 'W.I.N.E' or something similar.

If you are using libraries that are cross-platform, and assuming you stick to cross-platform code, it should be as easy as just compiling on the new platform (I use the phrase "should be" lightly).

Do you have any Windows box at all? It can be troublesome to develop for a platform you can't test on.

I missed this the first time, but this is a very real and valid point. It is not good practice to test a game that you want to natively port to Windows in something like "W.I.N.E." You really want a native system to test on.

@EDIT: Added to original answer.

I've Windows, all version, from MSDN AA, but:

• I hate cmd, but love bash (important at work) - it's more intuitive, user-friendly etc. IMO
• I'm using Windows only for games, in my desktop PC. It has only Steam, communicator, Spotify and Chrome. It's like console;) But it's old machine (E7300, 4GB RAM DDR2 800), for work I've i5, 6GB RAM DDR3 (laptop). I don't like coding on desktop.
• I don't like Visual Studio, for me is unintuitive, like Eclipse (Intellij ftw)

So Windows for me at work is... unnecessary

We use a continuous integration server at work (Atlassian Bamboo) which attempts to build the software on all the platforms we are targetting. This is really useful because it prevents us from ignoring a platform for long periods of time. When it tries to build, it will fail and give us an email so that we can then go and do a better job of maintaining the port.

If you are an experienced UNIX/Linux developer, then you probably have a fairly good knowledge of writing portable software anyway to cater for the many different Linux / BSD distributions we use today. Using the Mingw toolchain (and certainly Cygwin) will create a sufficiently UNIX-like development environment for you to work in anyway (Arguably more UNIX-like than Ubuntu ;).

Code::Blocks is crossplatform, it is decent enough.

Then you can run the Windows emulator and compile the final exe (the nice thing is that you would be able to use the same project since you would be usiung the same IDE for both systems).

I've Windows, all version, from MSDN AA, but:

• I hate cmd, but love bash (important at work) - it's more intuitive, user-friendly etc. IMO
• I'm using Windows only for games, in my desktop PC. It has only Steam, communicator, Spotify and Chrome. It's like console;) But it's old machine (E7300, 4GB RAM DDR2 800), for work I've i5, 6GB RAM DDR3 (laptop). I don't like coding on desktop.
• I don't like Visual Studio, for me is unintuitive, like Eclipse (Intellij ftw)

So Windows for me at work is... unnecessary:)