Allegro is an easy-to-use, free and open source, game and software engine. It can draw 2D shapes and images, and play sound files, and draw basic 3D.
According to the Allegro website it says: "Allegro is a cross-platform, libraries mainly aimed at video game and multimedia programming. They
handle common, low-level tasks such as creating windows, accepting user input, loading data, drawing images,
playing sounds, etc. and generally abstracting away the underlying platform.
According to the Oxford Companion to Music, Allegro is the Italian for "quick, lively, bright". It is also a recursive
acronym which stands for "Allegro Low LEvel Game ROutines". Allegro was started by Shawn Hargreaves in the
mid-90's but has since received contributions from hundreds of people over the net."
What you can do in Allegro:
- Full mouse, keyboard and joystick support
- Play sounds and audio(.wav format)
- Draw simple shapes(primitives)
- Draw images(bitmaps)from file
- Make pixel particle effects
- Load different fonts from file
- Display static and dynamic text
- 3D rendering
- Fullscreen and windowed, change resolution
Here are some examples of what Allegro engine can do.
Now you know what Allegro can do, head over to the next tutorial to get started!