@GubbyBlips and 3com . It's the original Direct X 8 Dark Basic, not Dark Basic Pro It's also an old version of it, I think there was a 1.9 update by the end of it's run (I only installed my original retail disk). I've yet to try DB Pro to see how much conversion this little progam would take, but I'm guessing not too much.

Apart from it's speed DB Pro is pretty capable (when it works on modern O/S's). And the same could be said even of GG regarding keeping up with modern games. If you tried the demo above, it should have ran pretty much at 60 fps and even if you hold down the boost key for ages it still keeps up at insane flyover speeds (it can start to look really trippy). And of course it is the original Dark Basic not Pro

Like I say DB has way less commands than GG, but what it does have give you way more options from a programming perspective. GG has many duplicate commands that effectively do the same thing and of course lots of AI commands that you would have to do manually with DB. It would be capable of an Open World type game, not up to today's graphics of course, but it has the tools available.

Eventually Pro was mostly as good with many more features and AGK is sort of it's alternative now. AGK is pretty good, but is not quite up to DB Pro in some areas. It is a lot faster though.

I just thought I'd put up an example that would either be impossible in GG, or at least a pain to make in comparison. You would have to place all the buildings down first, each with the right script on them. If you wanted to experiment with how many you need to make the scene look right, it's going to take a lot of doing in GG, whereas in DB etc it's just a couple of number or variable changes. I've had that same scene look more like the Death Star run in Return of the Jedi with some minor alterations Also the entire scene is generated by DB the only things loaded are textures and I could get rid of those in Pro or even possibly the update of DB.

I started in the last days of FPS and it jumps to Reloaded, then GG and now GGMax, no idea about how DB works, but if you can build a world just with code, that's amazing and less time consuming, since you can do your own templates and reuse it with some changes/addictions here and there, but you already have the basic, or I'm not getting the point right?

If you want to do that, then head on over to Steam and get AppGameKit Studio. It's on sale right now, too (45% off):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1024640/AppGameKit_Studio/

I do not own agk studio and have no experience using it, but from what I have seen in its showcase all the games are focused on RPG or platform games, this is not really my type of game preferred.
I'm more of a Syberia game type, TombRider, in every way.
And yes I know about amazing Preben's loader tool, but I'd rather wait to see what GGMax can offer us.

Then you don't understand what AGK Studio is. It is a programming platform that allows you to create any kind of game you'd like in AGK Studio's programming language. It's not for any one particular type of game. In fact, you don't even have to create a game using it, if you don't want to. Just because you've seen RPG or platform games does not, in any way, mean that you are restricted to creating those types of games. And you don't need Preben's loader tool, either. That's only for getting your levels from GameGuru into AGK.

You had stated you thought it would be amazing to build worlds from code. Well, you can do exactly that with AGK Studio.

In any case, to each their own.

Not sure if DB is easily available but DB Pro is around and free. A good start if you don't want to spend cash. But AGK and AGK Studio are both on sale and a number of combo packs I believe. There programming languages, you write games from scratch. AGK Studio has a more visual GUI which my be more familiar than AGK Classics wall of code.

The benefits are you have full control. The drawbacks are you have full control Depends on what game you want to write as to how complex it gets

Haha! Amen to that!

Guys, it sounds great!
So maybe it deserves a try when possible. Thanks guys for the tips.

Now getting some experience with UE4 to make my assets full compatible with; I'm surprised about the bunch of things you have to do into account to achieve it, I think if you want to be safe with UE4, you have to model meshes for UE4, from scratch.
So I have a long curve of learning if I want to sell meshes UE4 ready. Luckily there are many things you can do directly within UE4, anyway, I'm not so sure if I want to let this part of the job, to the user side. Ie: the lightmaps, taking into account the right texel density, otherwise the model does not reflect the right light and shadows.

I'm pretty impressed with DB over the last few days, really stood the test of time. Also probably helps that my PC, if I somehow had it back then, would have been AMAZING

A 20 year old+ DX8 engine by TGC. Running an infinite randomly generated scroller with random effects and player control; plus, 9 videos at the same time. FPS is down to about 25 or so, but in fairness, as soon as you add a video, the fps matches it in DB. It's both cool and slightly terrifying at the same time
So you can see why I get frustrated with GG, when this was available in 2000.

Yes considering GG was originally written in DB a lot could have been added without faffing with voting system at that time.

Getting error when trying to register me, since it is unsupported then that service doesn't work currently, so the registration process don't take place., therefore I'm unable to use the DB Pro.
Anyway it is curious since DB Pro is unsupported you have to jump to agk, but then why not jump directly to AGKS, conclusion, anyway, I end up with AGKS.

I'm curious about DB code just to take a look, I'm noticing a nice system in DB Pro to track the code workflow, even the vars behaviors, that's help a lot.



Edit: Forget to say than I already stop my AntiVir/firewall etc. with not to avail. So the message is nor the real cause, but because unsupported soft. imho.

This makes me quite curious now about DB-- maybe we should email Lee
and see what he says about the access to DB?

Does it work for anyone else? What's the requirements to load and run?

You have been able to get it here free since 2016
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/Dark-Basic-Pro

Ok, I've got it working via GitHub repository
I'm running fps demo right now, it recalls me of the FPS times.

If you already have it you can also go here ..
https://www.thegamecreators.com/account/serial/keys
At the bottom of your account you should find this ..

Now it works like a charm, thanks for the links, synchro.

Ditto. Thanks, synchromesh. Will check it out.

Glad your all checking out some of TGC's older stuff

This is the demo in action.

@ DVader
silly question: Do you tried some GG level with DB Pro?

@3com. Do you mean FPSC? DB Pro was compatible with FPSC stuff but not GG. GG wasn't even a twinkling in Lee's eye then

Actually I have a couple of old games I found out that have source but no exe for some reason. I was curious to try them out as it's been a long time since I saw them running. However the version of DB I am using seems to be too old to run them. Not been able to find any updates for DB either, only finding Pro stuff.

Anyone know where I can get the original DB updates?

I also found the version I am using is DX7 not 8 :0 So even more impressive

@Dvader- not sure if this is what your looking for but try this link. Doing this by phone so not sure how genuine link is:

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=18602

Edit: go to link and select upgrades from the archived TGC page on the left and try the download for 1.21 14/aug/ 2008. When I get to my pc eventually I will also try download link. I have original boxed classic but no recollection what versions I have/had so long ago.

@ DVader
Yes, I mean GG, but actually.
This might be the link BOTR is looking for.
https://web.archive.org/web/20151009043739/http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2030&page=upgrades
It looks like you need the original DB already installed.

Downloading it as I type. Thanks! I knew there would be one somewhere. Might get those old games running again See how bad they were lol.

Got this old game going

I realise this is not open world or even GG, but goes to show back in 1999 onwards we had the potential to make one with TGC products, they were called Dark Basic Ltd then. Needed a good grounding in BASIC coding, but you could make whatever you wanted. Or at least what you were capable of It also supported 3ds models out the box, which was useful for animated objects!

Edit- Found this old chestnut as well.

Would you look at that! Wow, they do say that evolution does NOT
always result in more complex organisms... 10 years in computer terms
is like a million years in Biological terms.
((BTW variety yields complexity)) FPZS is not high variety.
Your Commmando game, DVader is a trophy for any engine really.

I'm sure the results of this are from that capability to spawn any
of the objects whenever called up- no?
Today with GG, all your objects would have to pre-exist on the map
already from the beginning.

It is amazing to see how the video game industry has evolved in just 10 years.

Sort of. You could clone or make meshes from any model in the software so once you loaded the basic objects up you could clone them in code and reuse as needed. You could even delete the originals once you had cloned them to save memory. Very useful for certain situations.

@3com I know. You see some of the graphics and scale of games these days and it for certain puts you off attempting to even attempt to compete.

@ DVader
I know that feeling, I have experienced it myself many times when I watch games like Uncharted series or the last of us.
The bar is higher and higher, and it will be increasingly difficult to compete.
The secret is to be aware of your limitations and not try to achieve something that is out of your possibilities, this way you will save yourself a lot of disappointments and frustrations.
Furthermore, these games are not made by one person, but by many people, with a unique infrastructure, and all the money and time necessary to create masterpieces.
For this reason, everything we can do individually from almost the home garage with a Pentium 3, and with only 3 pence in the pocket, has a merit that we should not underestimate.

"The bar is higher and higher"

True, and true, not made by one person!
And surprisingly sometimes a little "8-bit" platformer or top down ((marketing label))
kind of game comes along, and gets quite a lot of attention- that is if the
game-play is nice and entertaining. I shouldn't even mention Minecraft
but I will Stardew Valley LOL And even free Steam demos release constantly
that the community seems to enjoy.
So if you could get a small team- GG (especially MAX??) should be able to come
up with something of that sort.

I don't like the graphics as pixelated as some of those "8-bits", but simplified low poly
can look pretty good under good artists talent.

They may be a small team, but all of them are very talented coders, so on that side, we are in good hands.

That sort of companies usually write their own game engine from scratch, ie: Naughty Dog wrote Naughty Engine 2.0

In the case, you mentioned artists usually rely on textures, and/or projection via normal or heightmap, working with low and high poly models.

I don't know it can actually look pretty cool

Looks better moving than in still shots I deliberately tried to make it look like an Amstrad 464 or C64 screen

This is an interesting topic. But, several years ago I put out a level demo, and it was a cyclical demo where the level was played and then the level went to start and played again and again and again. Each time the player rank was carried over to the next level, promoted or even demoted along with all other game data, until the top rank was reached. Never been any problems with carrying stuff over from level to level. The current game I am working on is a one level game, the sequeal, or the pre-queal to the level game released a few years ago. Just felt that this game story needed a beginning before the major release. Oh. And now MAX. God more game creation possibilities.

The use of scripted entity IDs are the only way that this current game can function. Although, it does not mean that every script for every entity needs to be written, it is a master script that does this and sends data to the other scripts. Each entity is individual. And works without faults. How can GG handle so many entities? It doesn't. It only handles the entities that are on visual display, all other entities are action-ed in the CPU and then when this area is in visual display is then updated. Well, will soon see. Of course, having a turn based system also helps a huge amount.

The way that scripts and the overall structure of a game in GG is formed determines the out come of the game. If the game in GG is just put together with ideas that do not form cohesive bonds between game sectors then the game is inevitably going to fail. Think of the time 30 plus years ago. A person gets an Oric or a Commodore or an Atari or even a spectrum, wow. Then that person finds BASIC. What does this BASIC do? Make games, make data bases held on VHS tape, the sky is no limit to the imagination of a curious person. Now GG is here and has been for some time, why not push it to the MAX. See what it can do. Got a problem then solve it, that is what the forum is about.

Many, many years ago, this chap had a commodore and had written thousands of lines of BASIC code for a game. He had even got a tractor feed printer to print out this code. Hundreds of pages of code. He said to me that he had a problem. I really could not think what the problem could be. But I took on this challenge. Found his problems and the game was produced. That was just one guy, with the ability to utilize what he had and the rest is history. This in the same stage with GG. We have this ability to adapt a game engine to do what we want, but we have to adapt what we want to do with what the game engine is capable of. Being realistic, as has been stated many times in this regard, makes the difference of having a game produced and having an embarrassment on the market.

Remember the guy with the BASIC game, he wanted to make sum-thing that he wanted, but the limitations of BASIC and the hardware at the time, could just not provide what he wanted. But understanding the limitation of both the programming and the architecture provided him with a sound understanding. Just my thought on this subject.

Yeah- great ideas it seems. Watch out for stand alone voids. Maybe it's all tested
and passed already for you?
For variety in old GG, I was thinking of mini games. I was considering asking the
forums if anyone had any ideas for mini games. This would consist of very simple
things like the 80's DOS game- play where you plunk around with simple arcade
effects. Maybe soon I'll ask if anyone has ideas because my new inspiration has
been running thin for a few weeks.

@GubbyBlips: Well so far, someone made a horse racing game, a top down "money making" sim, several short shootie shoots, a medieval plattformer, a cartoon plattformer... in fact there are probably more of them minigames. Just whatever idea you have, you can try it.

In fact, when I got started, a large chunk of game development communities where devoted to smaller games and mini games alike, and therefore more decent playable content per forum. Now most people getting into making games seem to want to drop the next fallout 4 which is of course harder to do.

Mini games are a source of entertainment for me I would say since having GG that has been more of interest I've written a shooter (I will release it at some point, just need to get the artists permission, he didn't like the graphics, I thought they were fine for the game myself and I'm PICKY!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZyccBMT9rI&t=18s
No idea why this won't embed properly
I've also made PONG, lol, and a very limited demo of Spyhunter.

Spyhunter demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73HPwHPfcu0&t=2s

Pong is in there
Currently working on a remake of the old Parker Brothers Empire Strikes back game for the Atari 2600. Still unsure if it will be finished, but it's looking good so far. Most my issues here are getting animated walkers going now and of course being GG some performance woes (mostly due to the terrain tiles and the mega poly AT AT's I have). The editor runs insanely slow with it, down to 1 fps or lower The game runs way better though.

Fun looking stuff.
That's something when the editor bogs down on a single HighPol
model AMD integrated graphics, so.... there ya go.

I have a 970GTX, the editor is more CPU bound I think. Still, makes trying to work on it a bit of a pain. Thankfully, most editing is all in code here. The tiles for the floor must be the main culprit, although the walkers are very high poly counts as well. Combined with them being multi texture not a good combo for GG at the moment.

I did some of them but with Visual basic, a lot of years ago. The first I did I can't remember his name, you should break the blocks, while they fall to the bottom of the screen, many of them give some bonus when you destroy them, the ball change to an insane speed when you destroy the appropriate block, others change the direction of the pad for some time.

Good read,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubKUMlEppAs

Slowly emerging from the bunker, generator up time is limited Never tested some un mentioned ideas in practice to exceed some limits.
Below would be my suggestions to avoid. Even in '15 contests, listed: PLEASE DO NOT lightmap your levels, this makes the FPM too large for easy testing. Avoid; player view of the end of level from the beginning, light mapper, mass running functions, textures on non important features.
Always good to read users on the boards talking about key options again a lot goes missing and then re hashed. Always prep first, never simply apply.

Hey Defy! We where worried about you on the discord! Glad to see you're back.

And hey to yourself and everyone else who visit this corner of the internet. Hope all is going well, great to have a read on the boards. Yes, we went into major lock down, lost net for awhile, and just wrapped up another assignment recently. Keep up the great work.