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I've been programming for a long time, but haven't touched games for a loooooong time

The type of game I want to write is a step-time game as follows:-
1) You take your turn moving your team members (say 3-4 people). They can also shoot and change weapons during their turn etc. But eveything is done as part of "your turn".
2) After "your turn", the computer takes its turn and makes its move. ie: It moves all the enemies etc, and attacks if/where applicable.
3) View point should be either 2D, or if possible very simple 3D from above.
4) When shooting it should be done by selecting the target (during your turn) and the computer then working out on an odds basis if you indeed hit the target, and then what damage is done etc.
5) True line of sight - If an enemy is too far away or behind a wall etc, you should be able to see them. Same goes with the enemy and the player as well. Note: I've written algorithms to do this if necessary though!
6) Path finding. If an enemy sees you, it needs to work out how to get to you. Note: I've written algorithms to do this if necessary though!

This is pretty average turn-based gaming stuff. Now is just Dark Basic Pro enough? Or should I be looking at any of the other packages/plugins to achieve it, and/or make it easier?

Thanks from a noooob who doesn't quite understand what offers what!

Dark Basic Pro can achieve this, as well as Dark Basic Classic.

However, the extras I would recommend would be:

1) Dark AI - For the computer, to make it "smart" with as little programming required.
2) The Enhancements Pack - Just to have it, it adds lots of new features.

Welcome to the Forums NeilF.

Many thanks!

With the AI pack this should make path finding easy, be it for 3D or 2D? Any other benefits bearing in mind I plan on allowing the player to control all 3-4 of his team individually during the "player turn". Although it would be nice to allow a "defend" option for a character so it stays where it is, and simply shoots any any enemies approaching.


Out of interest, if I wanted night time based levels for my game, where light was at a minumum therefore reducing visibility:-
a) Would it be easy to detect if a player could see an enemy (cos it's in the dark)?
b) Allow players to have torches which they could point in directions to see if there are enemies there? And only see them then?

I believe DarkAI can do both.


With DarkAI you could do the "defend" thing, but it could also be coded pretty easily.


Yes, it would be easy to code, even without DarkAI.


That is possible.

Think of it this way...
Dark Basic can achieve anything you want (with a few limitations), it just depends on your skill.

Sounds like a turn based, team strategy shooter

DarkBasic could handle such a thing, fairly easily. I'm not sure if you're going to do it tile based (either square grid or hex) or if you'd be doing it freeform (point and click and distance based) but either should be possible.

I've not used DarkAI myself, but I hear it's rather good and quick to get to grips with. Even if you didn't get it - line of sight checks are quite simple in 3d, though a little trickier in 2d (you need to store the 'opacity' of a tile, and do your own line check).

Detecting the lightness of an enemy (for hiding in shadows etc) would be easiest done in 3d also - you'd put some lights into the world and do distance checks (simple square roots) and brightness comparisons to get how illuminated the agent would be. (You'd probably have to do line of sight checks to each light too, to make sure they're not behind something).

Directional lights, and spot lights can be done real time in DB, but you'd probably want to add some graphical effect to show off the beam of the torch.

Hope that helps - in my opinion, you might be best starting off in 3d (and using cubes as placeholder entities) to shortcut the line of sight checks.

If you wanted more complex line of sight, you could do a check between the head/eyes position of your soldier, and do several checks against random points within the bounding box of your enemies. That might help alleviate the old "I can see him, but I can't shoot him" problem.

JRock - Did you mean the enhancements pack or the extends pack?