Dark Basic

[Yuriy O]

Anyone has any idea of what this is?
Supposed to be some kind of language for making games for 80 bucks??? :confused:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000C7FOD/gamediscovery-20/103-3070374-6294264

[samnova]

I would say that their site http://darkbasic.thegamecreators.com/ would be good place to start.

I never got around to use it myself (I did went a copy of DarkBasic through their news letter), but have to say it looks promising, as does BlitzBasic.

[Sunshine]

I bought dark basic and it was pretty cool for a little while but I quickly ran into some stumbling blocks, which lead to more stumbling blocks.....

1> The code is straight functional code, there is no object orientation at all to it. This would not be bad for small projects, but sometimes even small projects take quite a bit more code than you would think.

2> At the time I bought it, there were errors, and although I waited for a patch, none seemed to appear.

3> Blitzbasic (as I hear now) is much faster than darkbasic.

4> For some reason Darkbasic does not allow you to smash media into a compressed file for quick-loading, thus at the beginning of every program, even VERY small programs, there is a loadtime of up to one minute or more :eek: Try the demo's out and you'll see what I mean.

I did pretty good for a while, but the load time was what finnally made me stop using it. I should have known because in looking back the demos I got for it did have this long load time. I'm sorry, but if the whole executable is only 3 megs, then there is no reason for a 60 second wait before starting. :mad:

[EpicBoy]

I've heard lots of negative things about DarkBASIC, the primary ones being that the feature list is in name only. Half the items don't work and/or are riddled with bugs.

I have personal experience with BlitzBasic and recommend it very highly.

[Sybixsus]

I own both DB Pro and Blitz3d. What EpicBoy says about bugs and missing features is spot on. I'll put it as simply as I can. I've completed six games with Blitz3d, two of which have been shareware and the most recent is hopefully to be released before too long. Everything I've started with DB Pro had to be abandoned when I found a bug or a command which only works on some computers.

[Yuriy O]

I was kinda surprized to see a language for so cheap. No, never really heard of it. All our games are made on visual c. Custom work. I'm familiar with C, but do not programm on my own. Question, would it be hard to learn Blitz3d in order to do programming part? I mean for a person, who knows basics of programming, loops, ifs, procedures and etc, but does not have a hands on day to day experience writing and creating code?

[Diragor]

Question, would it be hard to learn Blitz3d in order to do programming part? I mean for a person, who knows basics of programming, loops, ifs, procedures and etc, but does not have a hands on day to day experience writing and creating code?

Someone with the most basic understanding of programming could easily pick up Blitz3D in no time. If you can whip up a small program to draw simple graphics on the screen in C or any other language then Blitz should be no problem at all.

Edit: I should note that if you can't whip up such a program, you'll probably be able to learn to do it with B3D faster than with than any other language I can think of. There's a fully functional demo that compiles source files under 16K, which is more than enough to get started and see what you can do. I recommend checking it out: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Products/demos.php

[Glennyboy]

Learning Blitz3d isn't difficult if you understand the principles of programming. More difficult is actually finishing something, which is something you just have to do.

In defence of DBPro, I hear they are having a focussed bug-tackling fest right now, which may actually make it into something more respectable. Nevertheless, having used both languages, I find Blitz far, far better structured.

[robleong]

And of course, if you encounter problems with Blitz Basic, come on over to www.blitzcoder.com !