thinBasic Games?

[JonasJuh]

Why isnt there more games made in thinbasic?.. Is it not a good programming language
to make games in?..

I was thinking of making a "Leisure Suit Larry" kind of game with network support..
Is it something i could do in thinBasic or should a find another language to
work with?..

[kryton9]

You will be surprised by the games that can be made. And it is getting better all the time. Check out this area first.

http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?board=35.0

Welcome aboard hope you stick with us and join in the fun!

[JonasJuh]

Okey thanks :)

But can you make "network" games in thinBasic?..

[kryton9]

Yes, but I don't think any of us have yet made one. Eros will be able to answer, I am sure when he gets on you will know all you want.
I do know the internet module is in and works, sending information back and forth. But how it would go into a game, I never did it before.
But I know we talked about adding a high score page for some of the games, and that I know was doable.

[Michael Hartlef]

The reason why you don't see many games in thinBasic is that this was and still is a very small community. But there are allready some good examples of 3D games with TopDown and RobotDuel. Network support should be possible allready, just nobody did it here before I think. But you will be surprised about how helpfull the community is.

Talking again about games, you have several modules to get this working:

1) TBGL - This is the OpenGL module, sorry no DirectX right now
1b) There is a Irrlicht module in the works, but I can't tell you how far it is.
2) TBDI - This module supports gamepads and joystick with Force-Feedback
3) TCPIP - For such a network connection.
4) ODE headers - For the physic part

Ok, and finally... welcome on the board.

Michael

[ErosOlmi]

Ciao Jonas.

thinBasic is a general Basic like Interpreter. It means it is not in particular focused on games.
This didn't stop some clever people here to face game creation challenge using thinBasic. You will found some examples under TBGL dedicated forum. TBGL is a thinBasic module, developed by Psch user, that bring the power of OpenGL natively inside thinBasic. More you have the full set of OpenGL functionalities using OpenGL headers.

OK, so what you need to develop a game?

graphic engine: is there. TBGL module plus OpenGL headers also supporting shaders (by Psch)
sound engine: is there. TBASS module (native thinBasic)
network engine: is there. TCPUDP module (native thinBasic)
joystick usage: is there. TBDI module (by Mike)
string functions: more than 50, ultrafast
math functions: more than 30. Need more? Just ask or give us the algo and we will add quite soon
create exeutable from your script? thinBundle do it
create obfuscated scripts? thinAir (thinBasic editor) can transform your plain text script file to obfuscated files


I think we have all the arsenal already in place to be able to create some games. If you want to see some TBGL module capabilities, see some videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=thinbasic

One last word: thinBasic is an interpreter and not a compiler. It means we cannot get advantages from the speed of a compiled application but we have to think and study as better as possible some programming strategies in order to avoid big multimillion loops per seconds that under a compiled application create no problems but under an interpreted script makes a lot of difference.

Ciao and do no hesitate to ask whatever you need. We listen to all.
Eros

[sandyrepope]

I think that there are two areas that give people trouble when it comes to games.

One: What gives me trouble is ideas for games. I am not very good at coming up with creative ideas.

Two: Graphics! I still don't understand how to make my own graphics and I'm sure there are others out there who have the same problem. Also, there are problems with using graphics that can be found on the internet and that is copyright. I think there would be nothing worse than writing a good game only to have trouble because some of the images were copyrighted. This is something I worry about.

I would like to see games written in thinBasic but there doesn't seem to be enough people using thinBasic for games. As good as thinBasic is this will change as more people begin to use the language.

What I would like to see happen is people talking on the forum about what type of games they like to play. Maybe this could inspire others to begin writing games using thinBasic.

Just my thoughts about the subject.

Thanks
Sandy

[kryton9]

Sandy, I am a sucker for graphics and eye candy, so don't get me wrong. But I also enjoyed gaming way back in the late 70's and early 80's when it was just blocky graphics.

1. First it has to be something fun, hard but not too hard
2. music and sound effects really help and then fun interaction.
3. For graphics as long as you have control over something and it is simulating what you were going for things work.

Some ideas:

Forsome game types to start:
mouse click games, these can be shapes that appear and you have to click on them before they move off screen or pop up somewhere else.
arrow key games, you move the object with the arrow keys through a maze, or simple level. You can pick up things or fire at things
then another element is adding puzzle solving to the above.
the other area is simulation. You just try to simulate something from a very easy way to complex as you develop in your skills.
This could be flying, driving, war sims, construction games.

#2 if you don't make music or play with synthesizers, there are tons of free midi files that would make great music for a game. There are also tons of
sound effects if you search on google and yahoo for example. Sometimes just hearing a song or sound effect can give you an idea.

#3 graphics, simple graphics will eventually be in thinBasic, that is standard 2d routines. You can then easily makes shapes of kinds and colors and change their scale, rotation etc. Think of all the cool drawings you see from first graders, with colors and simple shapes you can get some nice graphics. And then there are tons of sprite collections for free on the internet too. These are very nice graphics of characters, vehicles and effects.

Here is a link for midi's, I put a direct link to Rock the Casbah by the Clash, I always thought this would make a great music for a game level.
http://209.197.86.65/19580222/punk/clash/Rock_The_Casbah.mid
Here is the main site: http://www.mididb.com/

Sound effects:
http://stonewashed.net/sfx.html

Here is a free book about game graphics:
http://www.gamemaker.nl/feldman.html

These are some free sprites, always gives you ideas just by looking at them:
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-08-08-n51.html
http://www.videogamesprites.net/

Hope it gives you some ideas, ask for help if you need anything. If you have an idea for a graphic and need it or a model etc.

[JonasJuh]

Wow!
Thanks everyone! I have never been to a community where everybody is so
helpful :)
But the truth is I've been looking at other basic languages to. :-[
And I have found http://www.basic4gl.net which is more of a "game
basic" but I like thinBasic..
Help me out which shall I use?

[ErosOlmi]

Hi Jonas,

even if I'm the author of thinBasic I have to say Basic4GL is really good for making games. Here, even if we talk about thinBasic and support thinBasic, we all love programming in general. We have passion for programming. So feel free to talk of whatever about programming.

I'm not an expert on making games so I'm not the best person to give you suggestions on which environment to choose. I feel Basic4GL seems good.
thinBasic is more general language but the work Petr (Psch user here in forum) have done with TBGL module let me think you can do great games with thinBasic too. thinBasic has also many modules dedicated to many aspects other than just games. So up to you to test and try.

I want to attach here few not finished examples of thinBasic script.
Install latest preview version of thinBasic and see by yourself what thinBasic can do just double cliking on thinBasic script.

Ciao
Eros

[ErosOlmi]

Here another example with direct link. It is a 9 Mb script example due to the many images for game background but worth to have a try if you can download it.
This project has been a real passion here in thinBasic forum. It has been developed by many people here and results were really good.

Here also some more TBGL projects: http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?board=35.0

Ciao
Eros

http://www.thinbasic.com/public/products/thinBasic/Scripts/TBGL/TopDown/TopDown3D_Alpha_2.1.1.zip

[matthew]

Wow!
Thanks everyone! I have never been to a community where everybody is so
helpful :)
But the truth is I've been looking at other basic languages to. :-[
And I have found http://www.basic4gl.net which is more of a "game
basic" but I like thinBasic..
Help me out which shall I use?


Hey Jonas, I don't know if you knew but I'm matthew from the Basic4GL Forum.

I was helping to answer some of the questions (http://basic4gl.proboards20.com/index.cgi?board=B4glhelp&action=display&thread=1184790078&page=1) you had about Basic4GL.

Instead of choosing between the Two Languages perhaps you should do what I do and use them both.

[Petr Schreiber]

Regarding last Eros post:

if you do not want to download 9 MB monsterito, then please wait till the end of week, when I will release Alpha 3.
Download will be smaller, explosions more spectacular ;)

I hope you will like thinBASIC as you will explore its features more and more.
Making games in thinBASIC seems to be more than "possible" for me, especially as Eros is incredibly tuning speed with almost each release, Mike Hartlef TBDI is easy to understand for handling the input.

Bye,
Petr

[ErosOlmi]

ahah :D
We have a preview here!

[Petr Schreiber]

;D

Everybody can download Alpha 3 (http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?topic=621.0) now!


Bye,
Petr