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AppGameKit Studio Chat / Tutorial: Develop with AppGameKit Studio on a Chromebook!

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Zappo
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Joined: 27th Oct 2004
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Posted: 15th Feb 2022 00:23 Edited at: 15th Feb 2022 18:41
For those unfamiliar with ChromeOS or Chromebooks in particular, you can purchase pretty decent spec machines quite cheaply for everyday use. Most have full HD touchscreens, can run Android apps from the Google Play Store and even have Linux in a virtual machine (VM) - built in. I purchased one to take to meetings as they are super light and boot up in about 4 seconds, and I use it with Google Workspace (formally G Suite) everyday but recently decided to see how far I could push it to develop apps using AppGameKit Studio. It turns out it works brilliantly so I thought I would share.

Setting Up Linux on a Chromebook
To set up the Linux Virtual Machine, open "Settings" and go down to "Advanced". Find "Developers" and enable the "Linux development environment".

By default, it will recommend around 10GB of space for the Linux machine but as there are many useful Linux applications to help with game development (e.g. Gimp for image editing and Audacity for audio editing) you should consider making this larger if you have the space available. Mine has 64GB of storage and my Linux VM is set up to use about 14GB. It will take a minute or two to download the Linux system and create the VM.

NOTE: When you run a Linux app it has to start the virtual machine so it can take a few seconds before the app appears. Once you have the VM running, Linux apps should start pretty quickly.

If you are not familiar with Linux, you can run commands and access the file system by using the "Terminal" app from the "Linux apps" group in ChromeOS. You start in your own "home" directory which is where you should save any work. This home directory is also accessible to the Chrome OS (including the "Files" app file browser) so you can open, read, write and copy your files in and out of there and they will be available to both ChromeOS and Linux. In the Chrome OS this directory is referred to as "Linux files". I won't describe the basic Linux terminal commands as there are plenty of resources available to learn them. The flavour of Linux installed is "Debian", which is very popular and easy to manage.

Setting Up AppGameKit Studio
Download AppGameKit Studio for Linux from "The Game Creators" website. Use your normal Chrome browser to do this and save the ZIP file to the "Linux files" folder in the file manager, which gives Linux access to it.

From the Linux terminal, type:
unzip AppGameKitStudio-2021.12.06-Linux.zip
Replace the name of the zip file with the version you downloaded. This command will unzip AppGameKit Studio into it's own folder. Do NOT be tempted to unzip the file using ChromeOS as the extracted file permissions will be incorrect - you must unzip it in Linux.

Install the open audio library libopenal1 using the command:
sudo apt-get install libopenal1

Install the zenity dialogue system using the command:
sudo apt-get install zenity

To run the IDE, go into the newly created folder by typing:
cd AppGameKitStudio
Then run the application using:
./AgkStudio64
NOTE: The dot slash at the start just means to use the current directory/folder.

Exporting Apps for Android
To build Android packages you also need to install the Java Development Kit (JDK) - which is pretty big (400MB approx), using this command:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-11-jdk-headless

Create the build directory as it isn't automatically created for some reason:
mkdir ~/.config/AGKApps/TheGameCreators/AgkStudio64/build_tmp
NOTE: The tilde symbol at the start is a shortcut way of referring to your home folder, i.e. the shared "Linux files" folder.

If you do export Android packages/bundles you will notice that you don't get an egg timer or other indication that it is working and exporting. Just give it a minute and it should return to the IDE when finished. You can look at the terminal window to see if there were any errors, missing Linux packages or folder/directory issues.

Other Useful Linux Applications to Install
Image Editing:
If you want to install Gimp (the free advanced image editor) you will need 220MB of free space but it is useful to edit photos, create graphics, texture maps etc. Gimp will automatically create an icon in your Chrome OS for easy launching so you won't need to open a terminal to run it. Install Gimp by running this command:
sudo apt-get install gimp

Audio Editing:
To install Audacity for free audio recording and editing, you will need about 54MB of free space and should run this command:
sudo apt-get install audacity
Audacity will also add an icon in your Chrome OS for easy launching. If you want to use your microphone with Audacity you will need to give the Linux VM permission to access it. To do that, open your Chrome OS "Settings", open "Advanced" and go into "Developers". Tap on the "Linux development environment" and turn on the "Allow Linux to access your microphone" switch. You may need to restart your Linux VM for it to take effect but it will do this for you.

Good luck!
Zappo
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Joined: 27th Oct 2004
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Posted: 26th Feb 2022 00:28
Quick note for anyone struggling to access some things using a Chromebook keyboard:

- Context sensitive help (F1) = hold the "Search" button and press the "Back/Previous" button (second key on the top row).
- Home & End = hold the "Search" button and use the left and right arrow keys.
- Page Up & Page Down = hold the "Search" button and use the up and down arrow keys.
- CAPS Lock = hold the "Search" button and press the ALT key.
Pfaber1
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Joined: 7th Jan 2018
Location: England
Posted: 26th Feb 2022 10:21
will my Games written in AppGameKit Studio in Linux mint 20.03 run on a Chrome book?
Bored of the Rings
User Banned
Posted: 26th Feb 2022 14:04
thanks for this, I haven't used Linux in a while, but have worked with UNIX since the late 80s and still now. Will make a virtual Linux OS tomorrow and see if I can get it all up and running.
Professional Programmer, languages: SAS, C++, SQL, PL-SQL, DBPro, Purebasic, JavaScript, others
Zappo
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Joined: 27th Oct 2004
Location: In the post
Posted: 27th Feb 2022 02:06
Pfaber1 - If you build the app for Linux (64bit) then it should run on a Chromebook which has had the Linux VM set up on it. Alternatively you could just build the app for Android and run that on Chromebooks without any Linux setup. You can install apps from the Google Play Store built-in without any additional setup.

Bored of the Rings - Best of luck. The AppGameKit Studio apps I have tested on my Chrombook within the Linux VM actually build faster than on my Windows PC with a quad core i5 CPU! I've been really impressed by it.
Pfaber1
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Joined: 7th Jan 2018
Location: England
Posted: 27th Feb 2022 16:28 Edited at: 27th Feb 2022 16:39
I had allways thought of chromebooks as not worth bothering with but my opinion is changing . Yes see what you mean will run Android anyway.
Bored of the Rings
User Banned
Posted: 2nd Mar 2022 14:09
Installed Linux / AppGameKit Studio no problem. Thanks again for the instructions , was a good refresher.
Professional Programmer, languages: SAS, C++, SQL, PL-SQL, DBPro, Purebasic, JavaScript, others

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