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I'm looking for something to rapidly prototype my game ideas with. Dark Basic looks like a good choice. I realize I'm going to get biased opinions here, but what other suites are out there, and what does DB have over them? I've heard of Div (which is strictly 2d, I'm interested in 3d), Blitz3d, Flash/Shockwave, others?

Why I'm leaning towards DB:
Div : 2d only, so limits prototypes I can make
Blitz3D: ? Not sure. Haven't looked into it much.
Flash/Shockwave: Seems like it would be generally more useful, but not as fast to prototype with...again, I need to study this more.

I'm looking to design games on paper, and then put something together that generates a proof of concept. If I have to worry about building terrain engines, and bsp trees, then that will become the focus of the programming instead of the design of the game. If I'm going to do this, I'll just program it straight in C++ with DirectX.

So let me know what you've tried and what other options I may have.

Outcast

It looks like DBPro is tailer-made for what you want.

With BSP's, it's just load and go. You just need a BSP level editor/compiler.

I can't comment on the rest, coz I've never used them. Unbiased enough for yah?

Flash is more for web-design purposes... Sure there are some shockwave games; they are nothing serious, just silly interactive cartoons really.

Do yourself a favor and download db and don't even think about Flash/Shockwave as a programming language, because it's not lol.

Other game engines are;
Game Creation System (GCS) from Pie in the sky Software http://www.psky.com/index.html. This is a template/click and drag system mainly for 3d shootem ups.
Very quick and easy to use, very limited and you can sort of tell if a game was created using it.
Jamagic from Clickteam http://www.clickteam.com/. Similar to darkbasic in that you can code whatever you want, based on a Javascript type of syntax which I believe is a bit more difficult to learn than a basic syntax. Not quite the same level of online support/tutorials/3rd party addons and communities as Darkbasic. It does however allow you to write games for Mac and Linux. I'm not sure about DB/DBpro?
3d game studio http://conitec.net/a4info.htm. Has a click and drag version and an IDE which uses C++(harder than basic to learn). There are 4 different packages, top of the line costs US$1250!.
I had a long hard look at these and thought that DBpro was better suited to me (I'm a noob) and better alround value.

theres a free beta 3d making software i found called crystal space 3d but you need to compile it.

http://crystal.sourceforge.net/drupal/

but i think dark basic is much better but crystal space has got potential!

Game Creation System:
Took the Pie team a little less than a year to update, & if you were to read the news section, they changed the date back to about 4-6 months after they last posted (which was one year ago this month.) I wouldnt go with their system, it can only make First Person Shooters, but is great for those who cant program.

Dark Basic Pro:
Fairly easy to use, easier than A5 (3D Game Studio) & a heck of a lot easier than Jamagic (couldnt use it, had no clue what I was doing,) but not easier than the GCS.

The Games Factory/Multimedia Fusion (TGF/MMF):
About as easy to use as the GCS, but can only make 2d games, some 3d engines were made, but they were only a few poor examples, which is top of the line for that engine (we are talking about wolf3d & a cruddy version of star fox (SNES version, but looks like it was made with the NES)

Your best bet, if you know C++ or even Basic (DOS), I would use Dark Basic Pro, but if your totaly new, I would try something less powerfull to start you off, but from what I can gather, you know C++, so I would try Dark Basic Pro.

I learned programing in Basic & I grasped the concept of 2d games in it pretty easily, I just couldnt make them very big, as this was the second to the latest that I learned in, back when 95 had just come out, before that, I learned text based programing in Basic, which I could make a choose your own adventure game in it pretty quickly.

Yeah, I know C++. I know Open GL, but I don't know direct X. I've got side projects with them as well, but I'm interested in designing games. With OGL or DX, you can spend literally months just getting the technology together before you can see if you idea is even any fun. Dark Basic and Blitz Basic allow me to test out my ideas much more quickly.

I've been spending most of my time with Dark Basic over the past two days. So far, I've been a little frustrated by the tutorial. I'm not sure how the author kept everything straight as there are magic numbers floating around everywhere. It's discouraging to just try and load up his lesson.dba and they don't even work.

BlitzBasic seems really cool. I'm a little worried that it doesn't have as large of a user group, and thus, might not be supported as heavily as Dark Basic. I've read it has some sort of bones system (their dragon demo seems to support this), but I haven't seen any BSP, which would be critical for any FPS testing.

All in all, I'm going to try both out for a while before I decide to buy a package.

Thanks for the recommendations.