Tools

From FANG

Using the FANG Engine requires the use of several free pieces of software. In additon, there are other pieces of software which are useful for making your own games. This page contains links to the software you'll need to develop your own games. All of the software is free and available for all operating systems.

Programming Tools

JavaWIDE

Believe it or not, you can actually program games directly on this web page without installing any software. To do so, you'll need an account. Talk to your instructor about providing you with an account. If you don't have one, you'll need some of the software below.

Java for Windows/Linux/UNIX

JDK 6 Update 3 (or later) - Download from http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

Choose the online or offline version for your operating system.

Note: Unlike when you install other programs, you don't just run the Java application once it's installed. Instead, intalling Java allows you to create programs. Don't be alarmed if nothing shows up after you install it, just check to see that you can run the example applets on the FANG Engine webpage.

Java for Mac OS X

Download the latest version from http://developer.apple.com/java/download/. Java 6 is required for some advanced features of the FANG Engine, but all of the basic functionality is possible using Java 5.

Integrated Development Environment

Eclipse Europa 3.3. Download from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php
Netbeans. Download from http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.0/final/
BlueJ. Download from http://www.bluej.org/download/download.html
DrJava. Download from http://www.drjava.org/

Audio/Visual Tools

Audacity. Download from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Also, download and unzip the LAME MP3 encoder. The first time you try to export an mp3 it will ask you for the location of lame_enc.dll. This is one of the files included in the LAME MP3 download.

Gimp. Be sure to install GTK first, then Gimp. The GTK download is on the same page as the Gimp download.
- Windows users download from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html
- Mac OS users download from http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/
- UNIX/linux users download from http://www.gimp.org/unix/