Getting Started
Welcome to FlixelGDX! This page is the fastest way to go from "I want to make a game" to a working project on your machine. Fill in the form below, click Download project, and you will get a zip of a ready-to-run Gradle project — with the FlixelGDX framework wired in via Maven Central, a game class, a play state, and Gradle tasks you can run from any IDE or terminal.
Every option has a friendly description that pops up on hover. The big Expert mode toggle at the bottom reveals advanced knobs (heap size, extra JVM flags, free-form Gradle config) — leave it off if you are just getting started.
It's highly recommended that you use Kotlin as your language. It's syntactically similar to Haxe, and you'll feel right at home with its null safety, type inference, and concise syntax.
Project generator
After you download
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Install a JDK — Java 17 or newer. The generated
README.mdhas step-by-step install instructions for the JDK and operating system you picked above. The Pong tutorial's Step 0 has the same walk-through embedded if you'd rather scroll than open a separate file. -
Unzip the downloaded archive anywhere on your computer.
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From a terminal in that folder, run your game on the desktop:
./gradlew :lwjgl3:run # macOS / Linuxgradlew.bat :lwjgl3:run # WindowsThe zip already ships the Gradle wrapper, and the build script tells Gradle's Foojay Toolchains Resolver to auto-download the matching JDK on first run — so the very first build takes a minute, every build after that is instant.
By default the generated project pulls FlixelGDX from Maven Central
(org.flixelgdx:flixelgdx-*), and the org.flixelgdx.* Gradle plugins resolve
straight from their published markers. A single flixelVersion property in
gradle.properties drives every module and plugin, so upgrading is a one-line
change. Need a snapshot, or a specific commit or branch? Switch Expert mode
to JitPack above; the generated settings.gradle then maps the plugin IDs to
their JitPack modules for you. See the framework's
COMPILING.md
for the full details.
Where to go next
- Head to Your First Project to build the classic Pong from scratch, step by step.
- Browse the API reference when you want to look up a class.
- Drop into the framework repo at
flixelgdx/flixelgdxto file issues, read source, or grab a snapshot build.