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Dark GDK / [Discussion] Why No DarkGDK Games?

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vitinho444
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Posted: 17th Jul 2011 22:43
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Hey guys, after i think.. a year? of DarkGDK, i ask myself.. Why there are no DarkGDK Games.. i mean Popular like Wow and stuff..?

Just a discussion thread xD

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Mr Bigglesworth
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Posted: 17th Jul 2011 23:55
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Because making a game like WoW will take many years with a full, dedicated team. Most people here work alone or with a couple of friends. So the development time of a large-scale game will take much, much longer.
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D_A
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 00:16
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Absolutely!

DA
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Matty H
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 00:21
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Check me out

Not my work by the way

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vitinho444
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 00:34
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yes but i just point Wow, but well 2d simple games and stuff :/

@Matty H
nice, its made with DGDK?

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Hassan
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 00:36
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as Mr Bigglesworth said, not to mentions the bugs here which could be a reason why those large organized teams won't use GDK, and go for their own engine/wrapper, which they can debug and make it bug free, plus the additional stuff they can do just for their game, which can't be done with GDK, a little extra work to make the wrapper/engine is better than having to live with bugs and limitations, since GDK support is almost dead, i mean really, look at the VC++ 2010 support, although everyone wanted/wants it, it's still not there, or at least, nothing "official", it's sad, but all devs are dedicating their time for DarkBasic, and there is almost totally no care for GDK, well since it's free, you can't except something yeah, but for a commercial game, which you're talking about, they will need to buy a license, and i honestly don't think it's worth it, there's no support

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Matty H
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 01:18 Edited at: 18th Jul 2011 01:21
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Quote: "@Matty H
nice, its made with DGDK?"


Yeah, I'm pretty sure, check out the WIP section, its on the first page.

Check out some work by evolved also:
Evolved

I'm pretty sure he/she uses GDK now also. Although he/she does express some GDK bugs/limitations that DBPro does not have

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_Pauli_
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 01:37
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Quote: "check out the WIP section, its on the first page."


I just wondered what game you are talking about?
I can't watch the youtube clip because it seems to have some copyrighted music in it, which is blocked here in Germany...
Can't even see the title

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vitinho444
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 01:44
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well, how can i starting my own wrapper/engine then?

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Mireben
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 12:56 Edited at: 18th Jul 2011 12:57
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Quote: "Why there are no DarkGDK Games.."


The target audience of Dark Basic Professional and Dark GDK are people who are not professional coders (many are complete beginners to coding), but they want to make some games as a hobby, just for fun. Such people tend to end up using Dark Basic rather than Dark GDK beause they get scared of C++ and Basic seems easier. Those who are OK with C++ and could use Dark GDK to advantage, are better coders who eventually "grow out" Dark GDK and move on to more advanced projects/systems as soon as they hit a limitation.

I still think that Dark GDK is a good product but it requires lots of work getting anything together with it. Someone once wrote that it doesn't have a "workflow" or an integrated set of tools to use and that's true. You have to get bits and pieces (e.g. plugins) and try to put them together, and code every last bit yourself. Then there are the bugs and the lack of support, the fact that it's not object-oriented and the fact that newer DirectX / Visual Studio versions cannot be used... It's certainly not the choice for a commercial project and I'm getting worried about its future, now that TGC focuses on their new multi-platform development tool and the Dark GDK forum got pretty still.

Quote: "how can i starting my own wrapper/engine then?"


It may not be such a good idea... Even big game-making companies tend to license an existing engine and customize it rather than make their own, since it's such an awful amount of work. (Some do make their own engines though, at the cost of more development time.)

If you want to try, I suggest starting with lots of DirectX tutorials because if you want to wrap something, you need to understand how the thing you wrap works. Then you can study Dark GDK source code or, if available, the source code of other display engines to see how they are implemented, but understanding someone else's code is usually very difficult. You can even try to recompile and tweak Dark GDK source code, add your own functions to it.

By the way, if you are coding something using Dark GDK, you could say that you are building an engine already, since it's not an engine in itself, and you are implementing a wrapper also, because you'll probably wrap the Dark GDK functions inside classes.
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Matty H
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 13:27
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Quote: "I just wondered what game you are talking about?
I can't watch the youtube clip because it seems to have some copyrighted music in it, which is blocked here in Germany...
Can't even see the title "


Yeah sorry, it was MPL3D Solar System.

I have to agree with everything Mireben said.

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Morcilla
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 18:59
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@Matty H, hey thank you for mentioning MPL3D. Here is the link to the latest WIP page (pending to be reopened): http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=68745&b=8&p=8

Not exactly a game, but I went commercial with this educational simulation. Besides at our web site, you can find it in YouTube and Facebook as well. Althoug I'm afraid I can't call it exactly 'popular', next version includes a customizable spaceship mode, and an asteroid mini-game, to see if that improves popularity.

By the way, I've seen your commercial plug-in, Dark Imposters, and I think that definitively I'm giving it a try with MPL3D Solar System. It could greatly speed up all background objects (if everything works out fine!) Cool

@_Pauli_, how strange that you cannot see the video. The music is copyrighted by me and our collaborator Bruno Gallego. And I have not restricted access from any country, it must be a YouTube policy, uh. Nevertheless probably you can still watch some of the other videos at YouTube (tip: oldest ones are the best ones).

So it is not impossible to produce commercial games, but it requires a strong polishing and rounding, that many projects do not reach. Hey I'm even an Intel partner as a result of this project and the Intel AppUp developer program. Still, I'm not completely happy with the result. Due to the huge amount of things to be done, some of them don't look as polished and rich in functionality as they should. It's a hard work.

Worried as well for the future of DirectX9 and DGDK, the risk has always been there, and all the engines and wrappers have this risk.
Time spended can expand so much with a big project, that technology can become obsolete before you finish.
As an example, I started the MPL3D Solar System project using DGDK with Visual Studio 2003, so you can make an idea...
Support was low at the beginning as well, and it came and eventually gone and back again. In the long run DGDK has been surviving for... 8 years now? So overall I cannot complain at all

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TechLord
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 19:33 Edited at: 21st Jul 2011 23:44
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Quote: "Why No DarkGDK Games?"

Once you're exposed to the true power of OOP in C++ and the VC++ IDE with Intellisense etc, you realize you can do what the pros do, understand their lingo, and use the same tools they do. DGDK is awesome because of this. It facilitates ones evolution as a Programmer, Game Developer. The Transition from BASIC to C++. No other system in the world provides this bridge!

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Hawkblood
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Posted: 18th Jul 2011 23:32
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All these posts are a downer to me. I've done DX programming, and it's not the easiest to do. When I upgraded to Win7, I lost compatability with VC++6. Also, with VC++2008 (SL), I can't seem to interface with DXSDK9.0c... Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
Besides, I like GDK. I knew about some issues within it, but it didn't seem to be holding me back (yet). I am almost to the full production phase of my X-Flight game. It's not a complicated game, but I think when I'm done, it will be on-par with any game of it's genre.

Considering these posts, I may, when I finish this project, go back to DX and make my own wrappers/classes.

The fastest code is the code never written.
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TechLord
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 07:50 Edited at: 21st Jul 2011 23:45
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Quote: "well, how can i starting my own wrapper/engine then?"


I would say start by going to the drawing board. Spend some time on it. Game engines are complex no matter which way you approach them. It helps to have a blueprint on how all the systems work with each other.


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vitinho444
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 14:09
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Well this i a nice discussion xD

Ok i just said the thing about making a engine or wrapper because it will get me into hard coding xD

I checked the source for DarkGDK and i think (if im not wrong) that all functions are inside the libs, and i cant open those...

@Mireben
I agree with you, but i never tried DarkBasic, and im sorry for trying Darkgdk first because now i check the DirectX tutorials and i dont understand a thing in there -.- ... but i need to so...

Thanks a lot guys

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Mireben
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 15:23
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The libraries are not the source code, they are the compiled binary code. You can get the C++ source code from here:

http://code.google.com/p/darkbasicpro/

This is the home page. If you click "Source" and "Browse", you can look at the source on the web site and you can even search for functions but it's very slow in this way. To actually download a snapshot of the current source code to your own hard disk, you need to install a Subversion client (for example Tortoise SVN).

I don't quite understand why you're sorry for trying Dark GDK first. I would think that having some practice in C++ actually helps you to understand the DirectX tutorials.
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vitinho444
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 17:36
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darkbasic = DarkGDK ?

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Mireben
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 21:31
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They have a common code base. Many functions are the same.
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vitinho444
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 23:42
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nice thanks a lot

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Mireben
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Posted: 20th Jul 2011 11:34
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@Hawkblood: I wanted to say this already yesterday, I don't think the purpose of this thread was to discourage anyone from using Dark GDK. It's certainly possible to make great games with it.
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vitinho444
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Posted: 20th Jul 2011 13:09
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@Mireben yes but it's better be begginer/medium in hard DX than pro in DarkGDK....

I would like to learn DX but i cant get into it.. its just very confuse ..

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Hawkblood
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Posted: 20th Jul 2011 16:27
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DX has so much math involved, but it's not so hard that it can't be learned by anyone willing to scrifice some time. My problem is that I didn't learn to use classes correctly until I started DGDK. Not that it had anything to do with me learning classes, I just learned to use them more efficiently. I am still learning and perfecting my skills, but I don't want to run into a performance wall with DGDK.

The fastest code is the code never written.
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