Free Stuff on the CD

Note

If the HTML page is not displayed when you insert the CD, click the Windows Start button in your Taskbar and select Run. In the dialog box that appears, type <d>:\AutorunPro.exe, where <d> is the letter of your CD/DVD-ROM drive.

On the CD, you'll find an assortment of essential tools for game programmers. Although I list them here, you can get more information on them by inserting the CD into your CD- or DVD-ROM drive. When you do, an HTML page will automatically display. That page contains a list of everything on the CD. In that list is an item called Tools, Tools, Tools. That item provides a link to a page in the CD that explains what the tools are and how to install them.

LlamaWorks2D This is the game engine you'll use to write your games. I wrote this version of LlamaWorks2D especially for this book. Building games with LlamaWorks2D will save you many hours of programming. In addition, it handles many of the repetitive and tedious tasks you have to do in order to get a game up and running. Using LlamaWorks2D, you'll spend less time with the mechanics of Windows programs and more time on games.

Dev-CPP The free Dev-C++ compiler is a combination of a compiler, linker, debugger, and program editor. You need all of these tools in order to write games. Therefore, you must install this program first.

Audacity Audacity is an excellent sound editor that is available for free. With Audacity, you'll be able to record sound effects and edit them for your games.

GIMP You'll need a program for drawing the images and animations your games use. Windows Paint, which is a free program that comes with Windows, just doesn't have enough features for you to produce professional graphics. Therefore, I've provided a program called GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). With this powerful program, you'll have what you need to draw everything that appears on the screen when your game runs.

And Much More In addition to the tools mentioned here, you'll find documentation for important graphics and sound technologies, an outstanding music production program, a graphics file format conversion tool, a 3D image production program, and an animation tester. Please see the CD for more details.

Installation Instructions

I've made installing the programs in the CD extremely straightforward. On the main page that is displayed when you insert the CD, there is an entry called Tools, Tools, Tools. In that item is a link. When you click the link, you'll see a page called Installing the Free Tools. Find the tool you want to install on that page. For most of the tools, there is an installation link. Clicking this link runs the install program automatically. A few of the tools must be copied to your hard drive. The Installation section for that tool contains instructions on how to do that.

Compiling The Sample Programs

This book contains numerous sample programs that demonstrate the concepts it teaches. In order to view the programs, you must first compile them. The instructions for compiling them are slightly different for each program. To make things more convenient for you, I've written instructions for how to compile every program. You'll find the compilation instructions on the CD. To see them, insert the CD into your CD/DVD-ROM drive. On the HTML page that appears, you'll find a list item called Compilation Instructions. Click that link.

At this point, an HTML page appears called Compiling the Sample Programs. This page contains a list of all of the sample programs grouped by chapter. To see how to compile a particular program, click on its link in the list. The compilation instructions for that program will appear.

In addition, I've provided a compiled version of each program. They're in the Bin (short for binary) folder for their respective chapters. You'll see a link for each Bin folder on the Compiling the Sample Programs page.