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Would anybody reccomend the "Beginners Guide to DarkBasic Programming" to someone who wants to create a game? (Particulary 2-d sidescroller shoot-emiup.) I don't know anything about the book, but it sounds good... Thanks!

Hi lukeman. The answer to your question really depends on how experienced of a programmer you are. I am very new to DB but I've been coding games for a long time (especially AI). I bought the book just because it was the only one out there. I got DBP in the mail two days before I got the book. In just two days of poking around the forum, tutorials, reading the help files, and experimenting, I had already outgrown the book- i.e. there was absolutely nothing in it that was not intuitively obvious. So if you are an experienced programmer and just new to DB then I suggest you don't get it. Also, be aware that although it claims to be for both DBC and DBP, none of the new features of DBP are covered. If you are new to programming or game programming in general then I think you would get quite a bit of help from it as it starts off very slow and works its way up to a very small and simple (but complete and functional) 3D networked car game. Forums are best to learn from after you learn the BASICs- no pun intended (well perhaps it was). Jonathan Harbour is a very good author. If you are looking to learn general good game programming techniques try reading one of his other books: Visual Basic Game Programming with DirectX. As the name implies, it is for Visual Basic 6.0 (which I like a lot) but if you know BASIC in general it will still be very useful to you. I've read over 120 computer books, and this one was the best I ever read (his VB book not his DB book). Hope that helps.

Hey Brain, thanks for the tip! By the way, I AM a very beginner programmer (hmmmm... correct english?? oh well) and need all of the foundation (core) understanding of the language and programming in general that I can get. You seem to know quite a bit about programming. Because I am a beginner at programming, do you think that I should order the bundle pack of Dark Basic Classic+the "Beginners Guide to DarkBasic Programming" for about $130.00? Or should I go for Dark Basic Pro even though I'm a beginner? BTW I, one day, want to create a very cool side-scrolling shoot-em-up of my own do you know if I could easily do something like that in DB Classic or do I need DB Pro? Thanks agian Brian.

You could easily do that project in both, but it may be easier in some sense to use DB Pro because it does not limit you, but it may be easier to do it in Classic because there's not as much to learn. I was programming with Blitz (argh! cough...hack, wheeze...dying, dead) before and for my birthday my parents got me DB Classic and the book (3d gm too, but don't get that). We're finishing up (starting really, blitz never got us anywhere) our first person shooter in DB Classic, then if we sell enough copies of that we're investing in a copy of DB Pro to take advantage of all the features.

It really depends on how much you want to spend. Definitely get the book, but you may want to just get DB Pro so you don't have to upgrade later, and yet people who have Pro every once in a while still make something in Classic for the heck of it.

The fact that DBPro has more features doesn't necessarily mean the games you make will always be better than those made in Classic, check out http://www.starwraith.com, most of those were made in Classic. This post is not really going anywhere, so go ahead and ask some specific questions, and we'll be all too happy to answer them.

Thanks for your input Crazy Donut, I will definitely take that into consideration when making my purchase. Well, just to let you know how new I am to programming, I made my first program 3 days ago. It is kindof a make-believe "hacking" game where you "hack" into microsoft's server to stop a super-weapon from being used on the world. It is very, very elementary (btw I'm only 17 yrs old) and, so far, only has one still image. The rest is just text, but I guess it's a start. Man, when I think about it, there are just so many things that I would have to know to program a 2-d side-scrolling game. And I don't know how to do 90% of it. For example, make characters, animations for characters, get those characters and animations into my program, make the backgrounds for my levels, make the foreground and the background scroll indendently of each other,etc... The bad thing is, I could go on and on about other things that I know that I would need to know to do this. Even all of that probably wouldn't be half of the things I would need to know that I don't even know of. (If that makes any sense to you). Anyways, I just need to know how to do this stuff. well, thanks for helping out!

@ lukeman,

You are in a very good place to learn programming. I've only been poking around in here for about 10 days and can tell you the vast number of people in the DB community seem to be very nice and very helpful.

I would go with DB Classic if you are that new. I think it is less buggy and it is an inexpensive way to start learning some very basic programming skills. At some point- say in a year or so you will want to get DBP (which should be less buggy by then I hope). At some point after that you should also try learning some Visual Basic (and how to talk directly to DirectX functions- which DB hides from you) and even some C++ if you are getting serious and thinking about doing this as more than just a weekend hobby.

There is a lot to learn before you write games that others will consider "good". As a teacher of computer science I can tell you first hand that some pick it up much faster than others- but in the end anyone who wants to can learn to program. Just try making small test programs before you jump into a full game project. You'll get less frustrated that way. If you do decide to go with DBPro because you really want to do 3D, then stick to First Person Shooter games for a while, as these are usually the easiest types of 3D games to write- especially with DBPro. I tend now to focus more on advaned RTS and Adventure games with a strong emphesis on AI and making entities that "truly learn".

So you know, it sells for less than $40 at WalMart.