This assumes you already have JDK installed (you can get it from the Sun website if you don't already have it on your machine)

If you want to develop on your own machine, you'll need to install Ant.

Installing Ant (http://ant.apache.org/)

- download - http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi

- installing Ant (http://ant.apache.org/manual/install.html)

- extract somewhere you like

- be sure to update the windows environment variables as such:

1) right-click on My Computer, then click on "Properties"

2) Go to the "Advanced" Tab

3) click on "Environment Variables" at the bottom

4) if a variable called ANT_HOME already exists, make sure it points to the directory you just extracted Ant to, otherwise create a new variable.

5) they also mention checking your JAVA_HOME variable to make sure it exists and is set to the location of your JDK

Follow the steps at http://www.gamegardens.com/howto/ to download the libraries and sample code.

Under the "Tutorials" section on that page there are 3 links. It is strongly recommended that people check out all 3. The 3 links are:

1) Compiling and running the sample games - http://www.gamegardens.com/howto/getting_started.html

2) Creating your own game - http://www.gamegardens.com/howto/first_game.html

-. this explains the major objects of the sample game (the 'empty' game framework they provide for you) and how they interact as well as giving you hints for where different game functionality should go.

-. Be sure to check out the link towards the top on distributed objects if you're unfamiliar with them (http://www.threerings.net/code/narya/narya/docs/api/com/threerings/presents/package-summary.html#package_description).

1) A thread discussing the Presents distributed object architecture - http://forums.gamegardens.com/discussion/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=51

It's not required, but if you want to try to use a graphical SDK like Eclipse this thread will probably be helpful:

http://forums.gamegardens.com/discussion/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=117