Let's build an Audiogame part 1: Preparing the environment

Today, we'll be preparing the environment which you'll be using to build audiogames in Python. There're a lot of fiddley bits here, and so you'll need to be patient, but when we're done, you'll be all set up to start producing your masterpiece :)

Install Python

If you are totally new to Python, you'll first need to install it. Grab the latest 2.7 copy from Python.org. This guide will be using Python version 2.7, though should work with few modifications on 3.x.

To maximize compatibility with older computers still running 32-bit versions of their operating systems, you'll want to download and install the x86 version of Python. When installing Python, be sure to press space on the item in the installer treeview that says "Add Python.exe to Path", and select Will be Installed on local hard drive. This is extremely important. Once installed, ensure that you can execute both the commands python and pip from a fresh command prompt.

Ensure you have the latest pip

Pip is the main tool used to fetch and install Python packages. These packages contain functionality which other developers have created and made available for you to use. The huge amount of readily-available high-quality packages is one of the largest reasons I suggest newcomers use Python to create their audiogames. To install the latest version of pip, issue the command:

python -m pip install -U pip

The Visual C++ Compiler for Python

Some Python packages require a C compiler in order to build native extensions that are not written in pure Python. In order to make installing these packages easier, you should install the freely-available Visual C++ Compiler for Python. You can obtain it from Microsoft directly

Checking that everything worked

To finish off this phase of the tutorial, let's make sure that everything is working properly. Please verify the following: Ensure that typing python -V at your command prompt returns the version of Python which you just installed Ensure that typing pip on the command line brings up the help for the newest version of pip