Making a game

[WinwordExonar]

I personally have made a tiny OS. It was a DOS interface that I could load up an LCARS ( Star trek panel from the Next Gen Enterprise 1701-D ) look and feel to it. It was strictly 16-Bit and the kernel was pretty simple. I made this back in 2000.

Certainly more complex overall but from an individual's standpoint it's not always true. Lots of high level math involved in custom graphics engine design.

That is exactly correct. More math involved in Graphics then in OS Development. Give me OS dev over Graphics Engine design any day. I can whip up another OS DOS interface within a couple days. But graphics ? HECK NO. Not that fast at least. And I know a lot about how it works, but I personally still have a hard with it at times do to the MATH involved. Especially from scratch. And on top of that, ALL the different thousands of video cards that you have to know how to talk too. In OS dev its not about graphics, if you get Ralph Browns Interrupt list and a book on how hardware works ( which I bought the book to both ) then you can easily make your own OS within a day or two. ( Gotta love AA55h. )

[ascii]

I feel like you're making unreasonable comparisons. It's not fair to compare a small OS to a large game. If I were to compare, say, the Linux Kernel to a game like Skyrim, I think the Linux Kernel is more complex, but that's just my opinion. I'm not really a fan of labeling things in such a manner, anyhow.

[Nathaniel Sheller]

I don't know if someone mentioned it previously in this post, but I recommend downloading Game Maker. It's free (payments optional if you want the pro edition, but I used the lite). GML somewhat resembles C++ in a way. I would start there.

Get comfortable with that. I spent several years on that before I moved on to C++. Never took a course on C++. I'm not even old enough to be in a course on C++, lol. I'm only a freshman (high school). I learned the basics from Game Maker and GML.

[Patrick Quinn]

No, I refuse to use GM.

[Nathaniel Sheller]

Why? It's a really good tool. Have you ever tried it?

[Patrick Quinn]

Yes. And it's a crappy UI with no coding involved.

[ascii]

I have yet to hear a single good thing about game maker.

[ResidentBiscuit]

I would avoid game maker. DB would be a much better choice, at least that has some actual programming involved

[Nathaniel Sheller]

It's not THAT bad. You learn some from it and the transition from it to C++ was not difficult at all.

[Stupebrett]

No offence, but Game Maker is for people who are too lazy to learn programming.

[Code Assassin]

I agree, Game Maker isn't the best of choices. DB would be better for learning purposes, but after a while I think you should move from DB to SFML.

[Patrick Quinn]

What is DB?

[ResidentBiscuit]

DB = Dark BASIC, it's a rather old language with no support anymore but it's still good for learning how graphics work in a 3D environment. It was actually the first language I was in contact with. My highschool had a Game dev class that used it. Back then, you had this 800x600 resolution, black background, with white letters as your IDE. I believe it's a little more modern now haha. I would recommend looking at it, there are countless tutorials out there. Get comfortable with it, then move to SFML or DirectX (DB is based off DirectX actually). Thats what I would I do if I were you.

[ascii]

I'd recommend BlitzPlus over DarkBasic. Though I've never used either of them, I hear Blitz is more modern and generally a better language.

[ResidentBiscuit]

I do believe Blitz is actually still supported, so that might be a better option. I just know DB was a blast to play with and did a good job of learning proper structure and logic flow. And it simplified graphics a tad so it's not so drastic when you jump right into a large library.

[WinwordExonar]

I have bought and paid for both Blitz3D and DarkBasic Pro.

This is what I have made using DarkBasic Pro :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOlyCN9txbg


I did the same type of thing in Blitz3D. They are GREAT learning languages. I highly recomend either one. DarkBasic Pro has a full free version. The free version has ads.. the paid for version does not. No limits to either one. But as was mentioned, DBP is no longer supported.

Blitz3D is still active. The guy who owns the Blitz3D website is still working on bugs if any are found. DBP creators have moved on to other things. However, warning you now... The Blitz3D forums are NOT noob friendly. But its a good programming IDE. DarkBasic Pro Forums are VERY friendly however. So my hint is.. use their search on the forums if you want to find something. 9 times out of 10, you will.

Another BASIC language I love is PowerBasic. And they just came out with another version. PowerBASIC is strong and can use inline assembly language. It can also use DLL plugins or whatever you need just like Blitz3D and DBP can. So you have a LOT of choices.. but if you want to go free, then DBP is your only choice.

If you want to pay for any of these three ( at the time of my writing this ):

DBP has a special going on : 49.99
Blitz3D : 100.00
PowerBasic : 199.00

Keep in mind, ALL three of those are for Windows ONLY.

If you want to go on other platforms, then get BlitzMax : 80.00 AND it supports ANY graphics API. Unlike the others. BlitzMax allows you to use C++ code with the BlitzMax graphics engine as the front end to any of the Graphics API's, such as DirectX or OpenGL as an example. Works on MAC, Windows, and Linux.