During this course we will use a few specific pieces of software to help us work with JavaScript. If you didn’t get a chance to download and install the following before the course, please grab them now!

Preparation Checklist





1. Install Google Chrome

We are going to be using a text-editor called “Brackets” which has special integration with Google Chrome. While your game will work fine in any browser, the course will assume you are using Google Chrome so that we’re all using the same environment together.

  1. Head over to the Chrome Download Page and click Download Chrome.
  2. Run the installer after downloading it.

2. Install Brackets

Brackets is a modern, light-weight text editor that’s been built from the ground up for working with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It offers special features when working alongside Chrome to develop faster for the web. Brackets is also incredibly useful for working with Phaser as it also comes with a built-in web-server so that you can preview your website as if it were hosted on the internet. Some features of Phaser work better when the page is hosted on a web-server and brackets handles all of that for you with a single button click.

Brackets is available for Windows, macOS and Linux and you can install it by following these steps…

  1. Go to the Brackets Download Page and click Download Brackets.
  2. On Windows - run the installer to install Brackets.
  3. On macOS - copy the application to your Applications folder.
  4. On Linux - you are on your own I’m afraid!

3. Download / Join Slack

During the course we will use Slack as a tool for communication and to send out updated materials and links to useful information. The best thing to do is to download the Slack Desktop Client, but the web clients works too. First, join our Slack and then make sure to enter the channel #game-dev-2018.

  1. Download the Slack Desktop Client
  2. Join the Tjejer Kodar Slack Channel

4. Download the Template Project

We have provided a template project to help you get started. As we only have a single day to build our game, we’re going to skip over all of the ‘boiler-plate parts’ that you need just to make a game work in a web-browser and jump straight to building the game itself. You should download the template project from the Template Project Page and unzip it somewhere on your laptop. If you have Dropbox or Google Drive, you might want to place your project there so it’s always backed up in the cloud!

Note: It’s a good idea to use some version control software like Git to keep track of your changes throughout the day. However, we have a lot to cover already, so we won’t specifically talk about how to use Git, but if you have used it before or want to take some time to get to know it during the course, we will be here to help!