Should I choose AGK or AGK + Dark Basic?

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nickele

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Joined: 3rd Jul 2012

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Posted: 20th Jul 2012 21:04

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A big Hello to all game creators!

My question might seem a bit strange, but since I am a newbie in AppGameKit I thought this is the best place to ask.

I want to make a couple of simple 2D games and I am targeting 3 platforms primarily: iOS, Android and Windows PC.

Tier 1 perfectly fits my needs for covering these 3 platforms. I do however have a small question:

If I am correct, AppGameKit allows you to handle your game's resolution only once (when setting up your app initially). However, if I publish for Windows also, I would like my app to allow the user to change (from settings menu) the resolution from a small windowed mode, either to a bigger one, or to a full-screen one.

So I was wondering if I could do that in AppGameKit?

Otherwise, should I use AppGameKit for the iOS and Android ports of my games, while I use Dark BASIC for the PC port?

Please note that I only have knowledge of the BASIC language(s) syntax (that's why I made a tier 1 choice) and I wouldn't like to start getting involved with tier 2. It would be easier to use Dark BASIC in parallel with AGK.

Thank you for your patience reading this.

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Digital Awakening

AGK Developer

22

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Joined: 27th Aug 2002

Location: Sweden

Posted: 21st Jul 2012 01:34

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Not sure about your resolution question.

But I must warn you that AppGameKit doesn't have all the features that DBP have and vice versa. Also the commands and syntax is slightly different. Porting should be straight forward but you still have to go through your code line by line.

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MarcoBruti

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Location: Caput Mundi

Posted: 21st Jul 2012 15:16

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Only to give you a hint.
Before starting AppGameKit programming, I have been programmed about 1 year and half with DarkBasicPro, creating one 3D games and 4 2D games.
After the first game, I have realized that DBPro Sprite commands are quite annoying, so I created (in advance of AGK) a library of functiona of the kind: getSprite<XXX> and setSprite<YYY> in order to speed up creation and management of Sprites. I added a lot of other features too (creation of scrolling background, field stars, etc), but what is interesting is the similarity of my commands syntax to AppGameKit one. Moreover this commands rely on a custom type data structure that contains all informations about the sprite.
Only to give an idea, the list of function signatures can be found at http://darkbasicgames.altervista.org/GameLibraryHelp.htm.
This is my idea: to adapt this library to AppGameKit syntax, in order to make porting straightforward.
If you are interested, I can give you the code, for free of course, and you can adapt it. I think that for Windows, DarkBasicPro is much better, it generates self-contained executables and it is free.
I advice to start with DarkBasicPro, have some experience waiting AppGameKit product being a little bit more mature, stable and include 3D commands, and then buy AGK.

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FakeBlood

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Joined: 18th Nov 2002

Location: Alabama, United States

Posted: 21st Jul 2012 18:03 Edited at: 21st Jul 2012 18:03

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I ran into a lot of issues when I used DBPro...but mind you this has been quite a long time since I've used it and I'm sure a lot was fixed...regardless it's a quick, easy, language for prototyping or making commercial games if you dare.
To me the overall decision should be on your targeted platform..if you're going to do mobile devices get AGK...mostly Windows then probably DBPro...or just get both and use both! You can't beat the price anyway.

Now...if TGC would hurry and approve my order for AGK...finally decided to buy....25 hours and counting >_< lol
**hint hint*** hurry up TGC!!! lol

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victordavion

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Posted: 21st Jul 2012 23:45

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Quote: "If I am correct, AppGameKit allows you to handle your game's resolution only once (when setting up your app initially)."

I don't think this is true. I have a game right now that dynamically changes the resolution of the game depending on the current orientation of the device.

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Hodgey

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Location: Australia

Posted: 22nd Jul 2012 02:58

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Quote: "Quote: "If I am correct, AppGameKit allows you to handle your game's resolution only once (when setting up your app initially)."

I don't think this is true. I have a game right now that dynamically changes the resolution of the game depending on the current orientation of the device."

I could be wrong but what he may be referring to is changing the screen size and swapping from fullscreen to windowed mode (and vice versa). You can change the virtual resolution mid-program.

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nickele

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Posted: 22nd Jul 2012 22:52

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@ Hodgey: Yes, that's what meant. My apologies if I wasn't specific.

@ victordavion: Well, I was thinking of the feature that most PC shareware games have (like big fish, popcap, etc.) -changing resolution from window mode to full screen AND different resolutions from inside the game menu. Thank you.

@ FakeBlood: Very good advice, thank you!

@ MarcoBruti: Thank you very much for your help! I will study the two environments for a while and I will inform you in the future about using your code. Again, thank you for the kind offer.

@ Digital Awakening: I want to thank you also. As long as it is Basic environment, I don't mind studying both languages!

Again, thank you for your answers.

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