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Hi - I am currently evaluating a range of different game creation packages for use in schools and/or University research into digital games. Before my evaluations go online I would be interested in hearing any comments or feedback from this forum about my experiences with Dark Basic Classic.

For my comparison I have been implementing the same simple game in each package, trying to take into account the features offered by each. My example for Dark Basic Classic can be downloaded from: http://www.gamelearning.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/_public/DarkBasic.zip Although I realise that it is possible to do much more than this with Dark Basic, I hope it is broadly representative of the kind of games you can create fairly quickly with Dark Basic. Please let me know if you think there is anything that I might not be aware of about this example that shows Dark Basic Classic in an unfair light, or anything that could be quickly added that would show off some more of DarkBasic’s features.

I have to say that my overall experience with Dark Basic Classic was rather disappointing. I was frustrated by the combination of no user-defined types, global variables (other than arrays) or any kind of pre-processor definitions (#defines). I found that this made programming awkward, and I had to go to crazy lengths to make my code some way readable. I realise that many beginning programmers may get by without these things, but I think that a teaching programme should show how to correctly apply exactly these kinds of features in order to produce maintainable programs.

I found the IDE rather old-fashioned and DOS like, and after I had been using it for a while it started to crash for no reason. Maybe this is just something built into the demo to make you want to buy the full version, but it had quite the opposite effect! However, I thought the help facilities were okay, and I it was nice to see the inclusion of some tutorials to get beginners going. One thing I really did like was the ability to create a final exe that contains all of the resources in one file – very neat and tidy.

Feature wise, it seems to have most things you would expect from a 3D programming package. It was disappointing not to be able to use skinned characters, but you can’t really see the holes between limbs in my example game. The 100 object limit on the demo seemed a little bit petty too, as it messes up the lighting effect in my example because I had to combine blocks together to keep under the limit.

Over all it’s a decent enough package, but I’m not convinced that it is appropriate for teaching in schools. Most teachers have less experience and a lot less free time than the average hobbyist and I would be worried that using Dark Basic Classic would be likely to put them off teaching game creation forever. I think a package for schools needs to be more intuitive and more user-friendly than the standard offering, not less. As far as using Dark Basic in gaming research goes, I imagine that Dark Basic Pro is a much more viable alternative, and I intend to look at that next.

I realise this is fairly negative assessment, which is why I wanted to give the right of reply to those that know the package best. Your comments and thoughts are appreciated…

Jake.

Thats a nice little game pretty much all of what you've said is true but there are work-arounds for alot of it. For instance with globals and types, you can use a different editor(Dark Edit) and you have the option of using global's and type's. it also gives the editor a a windows style, which looks much much better.
I think you should also try dark basic pro aswell, its considerably better

First, I must say it was amazing to see a competent professional such as yourself give DB a whiz. Your game looked very professional.

Yes, DarkEdit is the solution for DarkBasic Classic providing all the nice stuff ReD_eYe mentioned. There are also numerous plugins available that allow you to produce windows form applications instead of just the normal full-screen mode games.

If you're looking for more raw power, types, globals, skinning, and a beautiful windows interface, you are better off looking at DarkBasic Professional.

The reason why DB Classic is called Classic is because it's old and pretty much outdated. This has its disadvantages--it only has support for up to DirectX8.1, and its 2d commands are still based off DirectDraw routines and slow the program down. Yet, besides that the program is sufficiently stable, and programs written in this will run on practically any machine. This may just be me, but I've tried Blitz3d and found it to be a little awkward and inconsistent.

DarkBasic Professional includes DirectX9.0b support, support for .bsps, it's own native object format .dbo, and hundreds of other features not found in DarkBasic Classic. We'd all understand here if you recommended DBClassic only for beginners or people with crummy machines, but be sure to give DBPro a spin. In fact.....i we sell a few copies of our game made in DBC, we're using the money to get Pro .

Thanks for you comments – I certainly intend to give DBPro a look. I guess it is the very idea that the 'old and outdated' should be recommended to schools that I disagree with. Surely what schools, teachers or any beginners really need is a cut down version of DBPro that has all the user-friendliness, but without the advanced features? A sort of 'DBPro Lite’. So no bsp trees, pixel shaders, real time shadows, and bump mapping, but a purpose-built windows environment, an elseif statement, globals and nested case statements. I realise this may seem like I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I would genuinely like to see game-creation as a viable school activity and there are already enough barriers to making this a reality