If we’re going to write a video game, or a program of any sort, we’ll need to look into some of the tools of the trade. I’ve worked in several different environments, and you are going to end up doing the same (trust me), but for now I’m going to pick out two specifically that I’ve grown strikingly familiar with. If you install either of these two you’ll be able to follow along fairly easily with the tutorials I give, although I’ll be descriptive enough that with some finesse you can work in whichever you like. So, if you have your favorite programming environment set up, you can probably skip most of this post and come back toward the end.