Has anyone heard of DarkBASIC?

[tyger_claw]

Hey All,

I was browsing the shelves at Futureshop and came across a VideoGame Programmer's Starter Kit. It's promise was to be simpler then other vg kits because it doesn't use C or C+ programming, but instead, darkBASIC.

My question is, what is it? A dumbdown of Basic? A mutation of Basic (kinda like Linux's multi flavours)

[kilerboots]

Hey i heard of it. I think it's supposed to be a new programming language that is better to make high quality games. Try googling it to find more.

>Hope that helps.

[Tedob1]

although i could be wrong i believe its a varient of x-basic

[slick_shoes]

its actually pretty fun...

i wouldn't ever even consider it HIGH QUALITY, like it claims to be, but its a happy medium.
basically, it uses the BASIC language, and allows you to have access to the directX api via friendly little functions they give you. its pretty fun to make little network games....

goto www.darkbasic.com or www.darkbasicpro.com

have fun
slick_shoes

[the_JinX]

Yeah.. It's kinda like DIV gamestudio on ACID..

it's a cool way to make 3D game programming easier....

But the_JinX sticks to his C/C++ there's no money in basic

[roswell1329]

Great question. I've actually haven't been on AO for awhile because I've been playing around with DarkBASIC, and it's big brother DarkBASIC Pro. I agree to some extent with slick_shoes about it not been as "High Quality" as some of their advertising reads. The language still has some bugs in it that are somewhat annoying, and their documentation is extremely light. It's kinda difficult to learn the language without diving into the DB forums asking questions. It's a fun language, though. I've always wanted to write my own video games, and now I am. C/C++ will always be the professional's language of choice, but as a one man show I'm not trying to compete with Quake III and MOHAA. I'm no good at writing my own music or creating my own high-quality 3D models. But I am getting to use all the texture-making tools I used to use when I was making my own levels for Half-Life and Counter-Strike.

The original DarkBASIC is a true basic implementation which means it's just an interpreter. Things will naturally run a bit slow (although not as much as you'd think), and your end product will usually demand some stiff requirements. DarkBASIC Professional is an interesting caveat for BASIC languages -- it's actually a compiled language. The end result is SPEEDY SPEEDY SPEEDY. If you'd like to see some of the capabilities of the language, I've listed a few demos that should give you an idea of what each version of the language can do:

DarkBASIC (Classic) Examples:
Limit Rush - a fun little hovercraft game.
Virtual Insanity - an extremely professional looking puzzle game
Star Wraith 3 - one of the DarkBASIC creations to get picked up professionally. This one's on some magazine cover cd's.

DarkBASIC Professional Examples:
The Lab - a wonderful demo of some of DBPro's main features (particles, model manipulation, and translucent texturing)
Shadow of the Beast - a neat little demonstration showing how parallax side-scrollers can be done.
Road Terrain - a good example of DBPro's SPEED.

I'm currently working on re-writing the manual for my own use which I will release in a few months (the language has 1050 commands, so it will take awhile ). Please let me know if you would like any more information.

Oh, and there is one thing that SUCKS about DarkBASIC. Due to it's need for DirectX, you MUST use Windows. No way around it. Even wine-x can't help you there. This really sucks because I've got a 45 Gig partition for linux on my box and only 15 for windows, but I've been spending all my time in windows lately. Ug. Someone out there want to write DarkPERL for linux/openGL?

[the_JinX]

As soon as you find DarkPERL or DarkPYTHON or something, get me the URL

And I must say those demo's rock (my girlfirends box)!!

[roswell1329]

Yeah. DarkBASIC is really starting to mature a bit as a language, and it's got a good following. They just released a new patch for DarkBASIC Pro which should even speed things up tremendously!

[tyger_claw]

What's the pricetag for such a new thing?

Is there a way I could get it for free off the darkbasic.com site (not pirated - gnu like)

The site itself, darkbasic.com, has a few tutorials for this programming language as well as demo's, forums and whatnot. So if not free, why not? Like Python..

I noticed that it only has a "trial" version on their site. Guessing it's a 15 or 30 day trial period before it locks out. (which sucks since most of us haven't played enough to want it badly by 30 days...)

It's cool but a bummer. Why can't it be like Linux? Download the software free, pay for it on a CD with a Manual/Book and extras?

[roswell1329]

Unfortunately, the demo is only a 30 day trial -- for either DB Classic or DB Pro. I wish it could be open-source too, but that is sadly not the case. I know that they have stopped development of DB Classic, so maybe they would release that version in the future and only charge for Pro, but there is no plan to do that now. Sorry.

Perhaps the idea behind it is that if you make something good enough, you may be able to sell it for money. Digital entertainment is becoming BIG BUSINESS. Many people working with DarkBASIC offer their creations as shareware, or sometimes they will charge for additional levels. With DarkBASIC Pro, you can now also make standard Windows applications -- much like Visual BASIC. Most professional programming environments where you could potentially sell your creations for profit are sold for money and are not released for free (with at least 1 obvious exception...Python). DarkBASIC is sold with the agreement that any creation you make with DarkBASIC or DarkBASIC Pro you may sell for profit. Don't get too excited yet, though. It takes a lot of work to create something worth selling. We're talking music, artwork, 3D models, textures, sounds, and finally code. If you're really into game design, though, this is a great way to get an introduction into the process of game development.