Tutorial 1: Quickstart
This guide will help you get started with Easel. It will walk you through the process of creating a simple game, and introduce you to the basic concepts of Easel. As a learning exercise, we are going to create a game called Astroblast where you control a spaceship lost in space and shoot asteroids before they hit you. By the end of this tutorial, you will have published a multiplayer version of this game that you can play with your friends.
To get a feel for what you are going to make, you can play our version of Astroblast here: astroblast.easel.games.
Who this is for?
Easel is for everyone, regardless of their experience with programming. You will be able to follow this tutorial even if you have never coded before. If you are new to coding, you might find this an insightful experience into how not just games, but all software is made.
If you are an experienced programmer, you might enjoy learning about Easel's unique approach to making games from this tutorial. The tutorial after this one builds on this tutorial, and covers Easel's unique language concepts in a lot more depth. If you are an experienced programmer, you will want to aim to complete both this tutorial and the next one.
Throughout the tutorial, you will find many infoboxes just like this one. Infoboxes provide additional explanations that you might find helpful, but are not essential to completing the tutorial. Don't feel worried if you don't understand everything in the infoboxes!
What you will need
This tutorial is designed to be done on a computer - a laptop or desktop computer. You may have trouble following along on a tablet or phone because there will be a lot of typing involved.
Getting help
If you are having any trouble throughout this tutorial, there are a couple of things you can do:
- Search the documentation using the search box at the top right of this page. This documentation consists of over 25000 words covering all the concepts and functions of Easel, so it is possible you might an existing page that tells you what you need to know.
- Join our official Discord community.
In the Discord you will find a channel called
get-help, where you can ask questions and get help from the Easel team and other users. We also welcome any feedback on this tutorial or Easel in general through the Discord server.
Let's go!
This tutorial is split up across multiple pages. Click the Next button below to take you to the next page of this tutorial.