Tutorial 03: Deploy and Run Your Game

You’ve built a scene with lighting, geometry, a camera, and a script. Now it’s time to run it as an actual game! Unlike many other engines, Traktor uses a deployment system that builds and packages your game for different platforms. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to configure a Stage, set up your scene, and deploy your game to a target.

About Stages and Layers

Before we can run our game, we need to understand two important concepts: Stages and Layers.

Stages define what happens when your game runs. Think of a Stage as a configuration that describes the game’s entry point. The Stage asset tells Traktor which scenes to load, how to set up the world, and what systems to initialize. Your project comes with a default Stage called “Main” in the Stage folder.

Layers are the building blocks of a Stage. Each layer represents a different aspect of your game - the world, UI, effects, audio, etc. The most common layer type is the World Layer, which loads and manages a 3D scene. You can have multiple layers in a Stage, and they all run together.

For our simple game, we just need one World Layer that loads our FirstScene.

Step 1: Open the Main Stage

Let’s configure the default Stage to load our scene:

  1. Find the Stage folder - In the Database panel, expand Source and you’ll see a Stage folder
  2. Open Main stage - Double-click the Main asset to open it in the Stage Editor

Database panel showing Stage folder with Main stage

The Stage Editor opens, showing the current stage configuration. By default, it’s doesn’t have a world layer and won’t load any scenes.

Empty Stage Editor

Step 2: Add a World Layer

Now let’s add a World Layer to load our scene:

  1. Add a layer - In the Stage Editor, click the browse button for the Layers to select a layer.
  2. Choose World Layer - In the dialog that opens, select World Layer and click OK

Add Layer dialog showing World Layer selection

A new World Layer appears in the layers list.

Step 3: Configure the World Layer

The World Layer needs to know which scene to load:

  1. Select the World Layer - Click on the World Layer in the layers list to select it
  2. Browse for scene - In the Properties panel on the right, find the Scene property and click the Browse button

World Layer properties showing Scene browse button

  1. Navigate to FirstScene - In the Database browser, expand Source, then expand Scenes, and select FirstScene
  2. Confirm selection - Click OK

Database browser with FirstScene selected

  1. Save the stage - Click OK to save the Main stage

Your stage is now configured to load FirstScene when the game runs!

Step 4: Open the Target Manager

Now we’re ready to deploy and run the game. Traktor uses a Target Manager to build and deploy to different platforms:

  1. Switch to Targets tab - At the bottom of the editor window, click the Targets tab (next to the Database tab)

The Target Manager opens, showing all available deployment targets. You should see at least one target - typically “Win64” for Windows or your local platform.

Target Manager showing available targets

Step 5: Deploy and Run

Now for the exciting part - running your game:

  1. Find your target - In the Target Manager, locate your connected target (e.g., “Win64” or your platform)
  2. Start the game - Click the Play button (▶) next to your target

What happens now:

  • Traktor builds all your assets (scenes, meshes, scripts, textures) for the target platform
  • This may take a few seconds the first time as it processes everything
  • A progress indicator shows the build status
  • Once the build completes, the game launches in a new window

You should see your scene running as a standalone game - the lit cube rotating exactly as it did in the editor!

Game running in a window showing the rotating cube

Step 6: Monitor Performance

While your game is running, the Target Manager shows real-time performance statistics:

Target Manager showing performance statistics while game is running

You’ll see metrics like:

  • Update time - Time spent updating game logic and scripts
  • Physics time - Time spent in physics simulation
  • Input time - Time processing input
  • Render time - Time spent rendering the frame
  • GC time - Garbage collection time for Lua scripts
  • FPS - Frames per second

These statistics help you understand performance and identify bottlenecks. For our simple rotating cube, all times should be very low and FPS should be high.

Step 7: Stop the Game

When you’re done testing, you can stop the game in two ways:

Option 1: Close the game window - Simply close the game window like any other application

Option 2: Use the Target Manager - Click the Stop/Close button in the Target Manager statistics bar

Target Manager with close button highlighted

The game closes and control returns to the editor.

Understanding the Deployment Pipeline

What just happened behind the scenes?

  1. Asset Building - Traktor’s pipeline processed all your source assets (scenes, meshes, scripts) and converted them to optimized runtime formats
  2. Packaging - The built assets were packaged with the Traktor runtime and your Stage configuration
  3. Deployment - The package was deployed to your target (in this case, your local machine)
  4. Execution - The game launched using your Main stage, which loaded FirstScene with all its entities

The next time you click Play, Traktor only rebuilds assets that have changed - making iteration fast. Change your script, click Play, and see the results in seconds.

Trying Different Targets

If you have multiple platforms configured, you can deploy to different targets:

  • Win64 - Windows 64-bit
  • Linux - Linux builds
  • Android - Android devices (requires Android SDK)
  • iOS - iOS devices (requires macOS and Xcode)

Each target may have different build settings and optimizations. The Target Manager lets you test on multiple platforms without changing your project.

What’s Next?

Congratulations! You’ve built a complete game project from scratch and deployed it to a target platform. You now understand the full workflow: creating scenes, adding scripts, and deploying to run.

Build on what you’ve learned - Try adding more entities, different scripts, or new scenes. Modify your Stage to load multiple layers.

Explore deployment options - Learn about Deployment to understand advanced target configuration and optimization settings.

Learn more systems - Check out the Engine Documentation to explore physics, audio, animation, and other features you can add to your game.

Join the community - Share your project on Discord and see what other developers are building with Traktor.

See Also