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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Newsletter 23 is (finally!) out

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Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
23
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Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:00
Hi all,



After a few delays Issue 23 is finally out. Loads of content this month - Dark Game SDK released - 5 new SoundMATTER packs - SFX Engine (new price!) - PlantLife + Upgrade - TGC 2004 Compo Results - Forums News - Video Game Curriculum and loads more.

Grab it from your inbox or the usual place:

http://www.thegamecreators.com/?gf=newsletter

Cheers,

Rich

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde
Shadow Robert
22
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Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:04
about f**kin' time heh


David T
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:05 Edited at: 1st Dec 2004 02:06
Yay!

Reserving my post spot here. Will report back later.

[edit]

Quote: "SFX Engine (new price!) "


hehe lol

Get 15 new commands, all the date / time commands left out of DBPro for free!
DOWNLOAD PLUGINS HERE: http://www.davidtattersall.me.uk/ and select "DarkBasic"
Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
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Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:09
Quote: "about f**kin' time heh"


Not my fault this time - it's been ready for nearly a week now

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde
Jeku
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:12 Edited at: 1st Dec 2004 02:12
Great newsletter, Rich. Glad to see all the new products


--[GameBasic - Coming Soon]-- ^^^ banner generously designed by TheBigBabou
Ian T
22
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Location: Around
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:18
Nice newsletter. TBH I'm a bit dissapointed about Dark SDK for some reason I can't place, it's not that it doesn't look great, but... there's... something. Oh well. Good job to TGC on getting the new products out, and you for all those damn compo reviews as well (I've read every one ). I hadn't heard about Tito or PlantLife.

Cheers!

[center]
"Thanks for the poncho..."
--Bill Clinton
Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
22
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Joined: 13th Sep 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:20
Mouse - what would you like to see in the Dark Game SDK?

Mike
MikeyP
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Location: Manchester, UK
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:31 Edited at: 1st Dec 2004 02:33
Hah, Wow I thought the exact same thing Mouse, It just doesnt seem right ... Can't figure out why

Brilliant newsletter, especially liked the Convention summary.

Edit: I feel a DarkGame SDK Board Coming...
David T
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Location: England
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:33
Dark SDK - looks good although there isn't nearly enough info at the moment. It needs screenshots, downloadable demos etc.

At the moment we only have a couple of pages with rough info. Perhaps a demo version to try that leaves a watermark?

Get 15 new commands, all the date / time commands left out of DBPro for free!
DOWNLOAD PLUGINS HERE: http://www.davidtattersall.me.uk/ and select "DarkBasic"
Shadow Robert
22
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Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:40
Quote: "Not my fault this time - it's been ready for nearly a week now"


Heh, yeah well I tend not to pay attention. Alot of people seem to be getting rilled when it's even late by a day.
All for like 5-10minutes of reason, tis so weird!

Quote: "TBH I'm a bit dissapointed about Dark SDK for some reason I can't place, it's not that it doesn't look great, but... there's... something"


Two things spring to my mind, Command Structure and Output Size.
It still seems quite, bulky but an 80% drop in size is still good



would make more sense and not be too hard to do.
this said personally I'd want to make alot of it more object driven, seeing as this is aimed at C++ developers, you'd want things to be more Object-Based so probably.



but I dunno, guess you wanted to try and keep the Basic syntax stuff.


OSX Using Happy Dude
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Location: At home
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:46
There does seem to be a prblem with the shop area - must be busy

Walk softly... and carry a big gun...
Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
22
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:47
With some more work we can get the size of the executables smaller. Hopefully we can do this for one of the upgrades.

Initially we used namespaces but then switched back to the prefix. It could be changed in the future. Guess we'll see how it all works out.

Again with the code style we kept it as close to DB Pro as possible so it's simple enough to convert a project over. Still would be good to see that style. Maybe one day

Mike
David T
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 02:51 Edited at: 1st Dec 2004 02:54
Quote: "Initially we used namespaces but then switched back to the prefix. "


Ah yes that was another thing I thougt of. Writing "db" before every functions would be incredibly, incredibly tedious and prone to the odd typo. As Raven suggested namespaces would make much mroe sense.

Also what's happened to all the edit options (run in window, fsex, maximised window, include media etc)?

Get 15 new commands, all the date / time commands left out of DBPro for free!
DOWNLOAD PLUGINS HERE: http://www.davidtattersall.me.uk/ and select "DarkBasic"
adr
22
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Location: Job Centre
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 03:20
@Mike

I'm seriously tempted to make a purchase, but I could do with knowing what state the DevC++ conversion is in. If it's possible, but it'll take a long time, then I'll buy it. If you don't yet know if it's even possible, then I may well hang fire ...


How good is your game? - Billy Paul
Freddix
AGK Developer
22
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Location: France
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 03:21 Edited at: 1st Dec 2004 03:21
@Rich : nothing about x4 ... did I send you files too late Rich ?
@Adr : compatibility with DevC++ isn't 100% done so they will probably release their engine for Visual C++ and later for DevC++

re faze
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Location: The shores of hell.
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 03:25
Hmmm...... $200 . who is this designed for?
Im so poor, when i take my hat off to scratch my head
people throw money in
OSX Using Happy Dude
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Location: At home
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 03:32 Edited at: 1st Dec 2004 03:35
As Professor Farnsworth is so fond of saying : Get a job, you hippie!

I presume your refering to the $180 version - thats aimed at Shareware programmers

Walk softly... and carry a big gun...
David T
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Location: England
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 03:37
The pricing is quite funny. Freeware version, £45

Get 15 new commands, all the date / time commands left out of DBPro for free!
DOWNLOAD PLUGINS HERE: http://www.davidtattersall.me.uk/ and select "DarkBasic"
APEXnow
Retired Moderator
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Location: On a park bench
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 03:39
Wow, Rich, thanks for placing my .MAP to .CSM converter entry on there. I didn't expect that, cheers

Paul.


Home of the Cartography Shop - DarkBASIC Professional map importer
Ian T
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 04:08
Quote: " Mouse - what would you like to see in the Dark Game SDK?"


I placed the thought that was nagging me and it wasn't actually a lack of features, it's something rather more selfish -- with this I am running low on decent excuses on why not to make my current project in C++, except that I just don't want the extra work. But that'll resolve itself eventually I'm sure.

The other thing that bothers me is actually the frame rate differences. I mean, it's great for marketing Dark SDK and all, but it's somewhat disturbing that DBP's frame rates are so awful compared to C++ using Dark SDK. I can think of a few reasons it'd be slower with all the DLLs tied together and the extra background work, but the difference still seems really excessive, and I think bothering for people who still plan on using mainly DBP like me. But, again, that doesn't speak poorly for Dark SDK itself.

Feature-wise it looks fantastic. The main thing I'd be interested in is releasing future expansion packs compatible with Dark SDK from the get-go.

Again, great job on the new product .

[center]
"Thanks for the poncho..."
--Bill Clinton
Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 04:12
With those results remember that we're using top of the line C++ compilers where Microsoft probably paid a lot of money to develop them and I suspect with large development teams. With the DB Pro compiler only 1 person working on it - Lee. But over time the DB Pro compiler can be improved and I'm sure we'll see the benefits for DB Pro.

Another point to consider about the SDK - any fixes to the SDK are also applied to DB Pro and vice versa which means nothing is left behind and they both continue to be developed.

Mike
Ian T
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 04:16
Sounds good. What's not to love in unified project development ...

Out of curiosity, will the expansions for Dark SDK/DBP be the same product or different ones? IE, will you have to purchase the Advanced Terrain pack twice if you want to use it with DBP and Dark SDK? And if so, do people who bought it before Dark SDK's release get a discount?

I think about this stuff too much

[center]
"Thanks for the poncho..."
--Bill Clinton
Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 04:20
Need to get the expansion packs that we have made to work with the SDK first and then we take it from there.

Mike
BatVink
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 04:31
I'm guessing Dark SDK is the result of the labour of FPS Creator?

BatVink
http://biglaugh.co.uk/catalog AMD 3000+ Barton, 512Mb Ram, 120 Gig Drive space, GeForce 5200 FX 128 Mb, Asus A7N8X Mobo.
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Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 04:33
Virtually all of FPS Creator is written in DB Pro using the DB Pro compiler and editor. The only part that is not is the Windows front end for the editor which was written in C++.

Work to get the Dark Game SDK set up has only started recently. We've always wanted to set up the SDK but for various reasons it hasn't happened until now.

Mike
Erick G
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 04:41
I have purchased my copy and I cannot wait to try it out, OOP just makes so much more sense.
Peter H
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Location: Witness Protection Program
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 05:12 Edited at: 1st Dec 2004 18:35
BTW the pic on the right of the home page still shows the 22nd newsletter
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v123/DarkWing_Duck/newsletter.jpg

"We make the worst games in the universe."

Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
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Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 1st Dec 2004 17:28
Quote: "I'm guessing Dark SDK is the result of the labour of FPS Creator?"


Nah, we've had this one on the drawing board for AGES.. and I mean ages. I remember us talking about it back on DBDN!

Personally I like the move, even though I will stay using DBPro, I'm quite happy that we're basically creating a game engine that you can select the style of language you want to use to interface with it (BASIC and C++ covered, who knows what to come?). I'm even more happy that DarkSDK 'bugs' cannot be fixed without in return fixing them for DBPro users (and hopefully we'll see this ramped up a notch now it's out). The speed differences I can live with, I'm never going to create Doom3 anyway and I guess it makes sense that Microsofts multi-million dollar compiler can out perform ours! I do think the SDK is going to need to be opened up more though, so you can really hook it into your own objects, etc, but it'll happen with time - at least this move is in no way leaving DBPro behind, it cannot exist without it.

Cheers,

Rich

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde
Richard Davey
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 17:28
Quote: "BTW the pic on the right of the home page still shows the 22nd newsletter"


Refresh your cache, the picture is uploaded.

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde
Peter H
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 21:28
Quote: "Refresh your cache, the picture is uploaded."

i'v never had to do that before

how do i do that?

"We make the worst games in the universe."

Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 21:58
Err, usually just click the Refresh button. But certain browsers have minds of their own when it comes to this.

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde
BatVink
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 22:10
Try Shift + F5, it forces a full refresh of the cache for the page.

BatVink
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Peter H
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Posted: 1st Dec 2004 23:20
Thanks!

Shift+F5 worked

"We make the worst games in the universe."

DARKGuy
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2004 00:21
Wow.. nicenewsletter, nice DarkSDK (It might help me to introduce me into the C++ world ), awesome compo entries and... YAY!! My demo is in the newsletter!!!!!!!!!!!!! *is all happy 'n such* Thanks glad you all like it!!!

Quote: "
-= 933 Mhz - SiS 630/730 8Mb - 128 RAM - 2.1Gb / 6.2Gb HDs - Sound: C-media CMI8738/C3DX PCI - CD-RW 52*32*52 - Windows 2000 =-
"
1tg46
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2004 06:50
Great newsletter, I do hope that DarkSDK will eventually work with Visual BASIC.NET.


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Zero Blitzt
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2004 08:07
DarkSDK would be cool if I had the money/time, but it seems like a waste after buying DBP (plus the fact that I am going to learn OGL soon)


"And C++ has 2 version Microsoft visual C++ and Bordland C++."
Avan Madisen
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Posted: 5th Dec 2004 07:16
I just realised, this newsletter came out the day after I posted the Lemmings update. Is someone at TGC keeping an eye on my project?

I don't suffer from insanity:

I enjoy every minute of it!

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