Game Design: DarkBasic Goes .NET!!!

Go to DarkBasic web-site…

I have always been interested in the game development aspect of our field. Though I have never had much time to devote to the study of game creation I have spent many an hour researching the various aspects and components required to make a game.

I suspect that any technical professional be they man or woman who has a love for programming has probably been inflicted with the bug to try to write a game. Doing so from scratch can be an enormous and difficult task. And there is now a tremendous amount of literature, tools, compilers, and web-sites for the curious as well as the very serious who want to try their hand at this “black art”. If something successful is accomplished it can be a very satisfying and rewarding sense of fulfillment.

However, if you are like me, your day-job and the constant studying of new technologies keeps you too busy to invest time in game programming, unless you have chosen this as a hobby.

But that itch to try at least something, anything, to satisfy your curiosity may eventually drive you to find something that doesn’t require a full blown effort of study and, trail and error tinkering, and game programming itself. And there are tools for this avenue as well.

One of the more popular tools is the “DarkBasic” development environment. From “The Game Creators” in the UK, this software application provides a standard IDE with full debugging capability along with a growing suite of add-on products.

Primarily using the BASIC language as it once was, this UK company has taken it to new heights as all the required graphic calls and functions have been made part of this specialized version of the language thus making it far easier to begin developing a game than if one had to cobble together all of their tools on their own along with all the required studying.

“DarkBasic” takes a lot of the pain out of learning to program games as well as providing the capability to develop full commercial level games as well.

As a special treat though, “the Game Creators” have now just released the “DarkGDK.NET” library that allows you to use your favorite .NET language with VS.NET against the “DarkBasic” core without having to learn or use “DarkBasic” itself.

Even if you are just curious, I would take a quick detour across “the pond” and take a look at the “DarkBasic” web-site if only for some casual fun. However, if you are in the least bit interested in entering the field of game programming you may find your appetite whetted by the offerings.

More info on DarkGDK.NET…