I've installed Visual Studio 2017, and have made some progress with building AGKIDE using the solution included in the repo: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/AGKIDE
I believe I've installed what the README explains (or tried to, using chocolatey), but when I try to build the solution, I encounter errors such as these:

1>gcc -shared demoplugin.o -L"C:/libs/lib" -lgtk-win32-2.0 -lgdk-win32-2.0 -latk-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpangowin32-1.0 -lgdi32 -lpango-1.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lglib-2.0 -lintl -liconv -o demoplugin.dll
1>c:/programdata/chocolatey/lib/mingw/tools/install/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/12.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: skipping incompatible C:/libs/lib/libgtk-win32-2.0.dll.a when searching for -lgtk-win32-2.0
1>c:/programdata/chocolatey/lib/mingw/tools/install/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/12.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: skipping incompatible C:/libs/lib/gtk-win32-2.0.lib when searching for -lgtk-win32-2.0
1>c:/programdata/chocolatey/lib/mingw/tools/install/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/12.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: skipping incompatible C:/libs/lib/libgtk-win32-2.0.dll.a when searching for -lgtk-win32-2.0
1>c:/programdata/chocolatey/lib/mingw/tools/install/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/12.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: skipping incompatible C:/libs/lib/gtk-win32-2.0.lib when searching for -lgtk-win32-2.0
1>c:/programdata/chocolatey/lib/mingw/tools/install/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/12.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: skipping incompatible C:/libs/lib\gtk-win32-2.0.lib when searching for -lgtk-win32-2.0
1>c:/programdata/chocolatey/lib/mingw/tools/install/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/12.2.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: cannot find -lgtk-win32-2.0: No such file or directory

Does anyone know how to resolve this sort of thing ?

You need geany and gcc and put paths. In your PATH variable . Follow instructions and it's easy as pie

I have looked at the README in the repo, for me there are missing steps or something as far as how to do this completely from scratch.

nope

?

I'm afraid that is not particularly helpful.

That was not very helpful at all BOTR. If it's not going to help then please don't post

It might be a good idea to start with the geany github

You can subscribe to a geany help mailing list be sending an email with 'help' in the subject to users-request@lists.geany.org

Thanks for the info Blink - I will check that out !