Hi there!

[StevetS]

Hi,

I downloaded GLBasic a while ago but have recently  spent a couple of weekends playing with it and am really surprised how easy it is to use. I knocked up part of a Defender clone and everything worked pretty much first time! Uploaded a short vid of it onto Youtube here:

It's not complete - hadn't intended making a game, more a test of the language but it came together so quickly.

I was expecting a massive slow-down with the collision detection (looping to check everything against everything else!) but it still seems surprisingly fast.

I'm using the free version at present but am wondering how well the 3D commands are implemented in the full version. I've quite a bit of experience with Dark Basic Pro - are they on a par with it?

Many thanks,

Steve.

[mentalthink]

hi Steve Wellcome to the Boards!!!

The game it's very impressive for your first work whit Glbasic (I'm doing a Shot'em up too  )

About the question whit dark Basic, I use some time ago, but this it's absolutely perfect, it's cheaper, have C++ inline(not it's necessary, but you can add capabilities to your code), and learning Glbasic, learn another languages like C++,it's more easy.

Always it's upgrading, and new devices are incomming... in sometime I think a short time we have news Devices Html5 and Raspberry Pi, and I'm sure after a time we have another... The developer make a fantastic tool.

And well the very important, the Community it's very friendly , here we are from any point of the globe, but we are a little Big family  , always you will find help from someone...

Don't think too much, sure you enjoy a lot whit GLbasic...

Wellcome

[erico]

looking good!

[Ian Price]

Hi Steve. Your game is looking pretty good, especially for a first crack of GLB's whip.

Looking forward to seeing what else you can come up with (and of course the full version of Defender)

[matchy]

Sweet remake but originality is much appreciated.  You would like 3D and I think it's easier for scalability than 2D.

[mentalthink]

Yes 2d to 3D very easy... 

[erico]

Add a bit of choplifter and voila!

[bigsofty]

It looks like you've got a good handle on GLBasic already, well done! 

[hardyx]

Good job for the first project in GLBasic. This language gives you results very early. 3D commands are very easy to use too, if you know the 3D concepts.

[Marmor]

Impressive for the first glbgame!
Ive written a never released dropzone .
A similar game as yours .
To get a faster  game ive checked the collisons only every second frame .
Ive got also better fps if i splitted  the collisonscheck in two parts.
1 part i check the player shoot against enemy.
2 part i check the enemy against player sprite.
Here i also used the frame splitting method.
The collisions is now +/- 1 pixel  but this is not important for this type of game.
Ive cant remember exactly but i get 54 fps without the trick and 60 fps if i use this splitting on an iphone first generation.

The original game on atari  is using hardwaresprites  and is one of the fastest game game in 8 bit times.

[spacefractal]

even the subject could been change for more ontypic with this game, but very welcome to the forum  .

That test game seen looks retro well and play cool for your first game (even its unfinished yet, but its a test)!

Good luck with your defender clone, its look ace.

Even prototyping dosent take very much time, but polising, design etc does take much longer time as excepted. That was happens with my first glbasic game (which started by a different game as well).

[StevetS]

Thanks for the comments!

GLB seems very intuitive to use and easy to build on. I especially like the dim options for extending and searching the arrays.

I'm a fan of the old retro style games and this seems ideal for development.

Are there any books available for GL Basic (reference / programming)?

Many thanks,

Steve.

[mentalthink]

Yes you can find the MrTatoad Books,in Lulu Books, be carefull you have to search in the Uk Shop... you have it , in ebook and in physical Book... You have a few books, read the description because We have about DDGUI, the IDE and I think the important it's the reference for the programmer or somthing called like this...

I think MrTatoad will pass to this post, he can recommend the best choice...

Regards, and enjoy of Glbasic,,., Wellcome.!!!

[MrTAToad]

Yes, my books are available in paper form, but they aren't as cheap as the download version.

There are books about DDGui, User Guide and the big Programmers Reference Manual.  They are all available from the lovely people at Lulu : http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/MrTAToad

[Wampus]

Very cool first game. Bet that was FUN to code!

Ive got also better fps if i splitted  the collisonscheck in two parts.
1 part i check the player shoot against enemy.
2 part i check the enemy against player sprite.
Here i also used the frame splitting method.
The collisions is now +/- 1 pixel  but this is not important for this type of game.
Ive cant remember exactly but i get 54 fps without the trick and 60 fps if i use this splitting on an iphone first generation.

The collision detections for Porcupop were split like that. Actually they were split into lists. The method went something like this:-

1) Every frame after z-ordering go through the list of every object in the world and add them to lists for collision detection if needed:-
    a) Enemy objects that can hurt the player or be shot
    b) Enemy projectiles/fire that can hurt the player
    c) Worldy things that can hurt the player and be shot (trees, rocks, mushrooms, etc.)
    d) Player projectiles/fire that can hurt enemies and worldly things
2) Use the lists to cut down the number of collision detection calls to a minimum

When the game gets very busy I thought the large numbers of collision detections combined with z-ordering, large sprite textures and 3D transformed textures would kill slower machines. Nope. The game runs at full-screen 60FPS on an Intel Atom N270. If I converted the OpenGL stuff to the ES API it would run fine on mobile devices too.