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Yep. Which one is easier? Unity? Or Dark Basic?

It really depends.

Theoretically, both are pretty easy. However, one has the ability to design levels visually and handles most of the difficult stuff for you automatically, like physics and collision detection. The other requires quite a few plugins to get the same results, but is arguably better to start out with because it will teach you more about the basics and fundamentals of programming.

However, from my personal experience...

If you want really easy, go with Unity. There's a ton of great tutorials, an amazing community to ask your questions in, tons of great features in the free version, and the multi-platform support really pays off in the long run.

If you want to do most of the work on your own, and learn way more about programming, go with DarkBASIC. It taught me so much about programming, at one point I was even very close to having a complete game with it, I had a level editor and everything set up, but I hit a huge bug and never got around to solving it. But it was a lot of fun developing it, that's for sure!

Those are my two cents, anyway. Good luck with whatever you choose!

I don't know Unity yet, but would I be correct in saying it uses C# ? If so, DBP will be significantly easier to code in as I found C#...yeah, there's a reason I still code in C... I do know Unity comes packed with all kinds of tools and things and I also know it is graphically superior to the current incarnation of DarkBasic. That said, DBP is cheaper than Unity for a commercial licence. Of course if you learned C#, you'd have a property marketable skill whereas basic...I've never seen job offers looking for basic coders. Why not try them both for free?

You can see my picture of comparison. Dark Basic is still better.

It supports C# and JavaScript for scripting behaviours.

As for which is "better"... well, Unity is an actual AAA engine so yeah.. That said I've always liked doing things myself and thus get to know things better than just calling some "magical" function in Unity and have everything work... until one day when it doesn't and you have no idea whatsoever what may be wrong

If you really want to learn to program I'd say go for DB. Chances are you'll just get stuck in the Unity swamp with "all the scripts and assets you'll ever need for free / a small fee" otherwise and never actually learn to do more than hack together other people's work like 90% of my classmates ...

Is Unity an actual AAA game engine though?

I wouldn't say so - it's widely used in Indie games, and there are a lot of Unity games out there - but my point is that the big AAA engines like Frostbite are head and shoulders above it. Unity actually reminds me of Ogre, and the attitudes that went with that... it can do this that this and that and this... but at the end of the day that's only useful if YOU can do this that and this etc, if you can't make maps or model or draw, why the hell would Unity interest you!, it's the same case with UDK. Unity really needs a team of people, in fact most systems need a team of people these days, DBPro does not.

Indie developers need to stay within their boundaries, because yes we'd all love to make the next COD or BF or LoL, but it's just not possible without employees! - if you are alone, or want to start a project with a friend, then dial back your expectations, trim off the unnecessary dinosaurs and sharks, and start a game you can actually finish. That might be Unity, but it might be AppGameKit or DBPro - it depends on the requirements, so long as the requirements can actually be fulfilled by the programmer.

Heck, if I was forced at gunpoint to choose between using GM8, UDK, or Unity, I'd choose GM8 - because I know I can finish a project in that without having to learn real game media production methods, or spend thousands on software and licenses, or have to be a tiny little fish in an infinitely massive bowl... I'd rather be this fish, in this bowl. It's not up to the engine to make our games look good, that's our job, that's your job, that's why tools like Unity are industry tools, they just aren't designed or even wise choices for soloists.
I think most people on the forum are better off meddling with the mobile indie market, where there's still some money left, where we could still make an impact, where there are still gaps in the market for us to fill, where we can collaborate, develop and publish without even needing any funding.

I think there are still gaps in the PC market. A game that is fun enough does not need to be shiny and an engaging storyline is a winner. I think that mobile gaming re Android/iOS/etc is a fad and it will quiet down once the novelty of touch devices wears off. As for portable consoles, they're a niche -- a large one, but still a niche -- and will always exist in their own world with tablet games probably joining them one day. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I honestly believe that a comfortable HID is at least half of good mechanics. It's why gamepads for PC have been growing more popular. Touch devices will never compete with that and if they do, I'll likely become even more bitter and cynical towards the industry. Of course, I don't play games on tablet or phone (I tried but it was a pretty bad experience on touch). I do sometimes still have this recurring nightmare where 17"+ tablets replace laptops and even towers, all preloaded with Android, iOS or Win8.x but after waking up in a cold sweat, I allow logic to kick in and have a good laugh. I mean, any portable game device lacks the immersive quality of a PC, at least for me.

It's 2 separate markets though, people need to remember (even Microsoft) that PC's will always have a place, even if gaming didn't exist, we'd still have PC's.

The issue with making PC only games is that there are so many of them, and getting noticed is nigh on impossible these days, not with Team Meat, Mojang etc making history the whole time.

There is always space for originality, and luck. If you can target all markets at once, then it's a no-brainer... it's like having all your egg's in 1 basket, or having free range eggs, I think that when we release a product, the bigger splash it makes the better, and it's increasingly difficult to make a big splash in 1 single market.

For example, I'm having PC issues - yesterday my new PSU blew, that's 4 days it lasted. Anyway, because of my PC downtime I'm using my mac, and decided to see what Steam could amuse me with, and found Don't Starve. Now - if Don't Starve was PC only, I'd not have bought it - I've seen some YT videos of it of course, but not enough to make me think I'd like it. But, because it's multiplatform I got it, and it's damn good. If it was available on iOS, I'd buy it for that as well, I actually checked.

nonZero, when you try a touch based game and hate it, doesn't that make you want to do something better? - don't you feel like you could come up with a better touch control scheme?
I know that touch control isn't ideal, but it does work well sometimes, but only when the game is well designed around it. I have an iCade controller, which is like a mini arcade cabinet with microswitched joystick, works on a good few iOS games, esp retro games. There are more and more controller options for Android and iOS. My point is that the mobile gaming market is going nowhere, it's a market all on it's own, just like console or PC gaming. People will always want to play games on the bus, and people will always want a big tasty gaming PC. The proof of that is just how many people with a gaming PC have a tablet or smartphone... I'm guessing pretty much all of them. The mobile market is significantly bigger than the PC gaming market... best to try and adapt to these markets I think, there is no point in fighting it. I don't like the way the mobile gaming market has ended up though - paying 69p for a game used to be great, a lot of developers made decent money that way - unfortunately now people don't want to pay 69p for a game, they want it for free, then their kid or someone or them while drunk will go and spend £10 on in-game credits and rubbish. All we can do is adapt as best we can.

@mr handy,

I love my rinky dink dbpro ways... when they work. when they don't I am on the never ending quest of reduction and simplification...

I very much identify with your image. My random collection of cogs and springs that somehow equates to a very loosely defined logic system... is something magical to me...

let my mad bike of insane illogic ride me over the horizon and to other things, somewhat in the realm of cabbages and kings...

@Kezzla
Yup. I will never swap my precious slovenly dbp for anything else.

Perhaps not. Lots of commercial game making studios use it for their projects in Sweden though (granted not the studios but still things that do in fact get published and make some money).


I disagree with you here, this is kind of exactly what it does in my opinion. Any dumbo can download the free version, follow some poor tutorial, get media and scripts from the asset store, put it in in a horrible mess and the engine is actually good enough that it for the most time just happily renders extremely over-the-top high poly scenes with dozens of lights, particle effects etc. at playable speeds. This of course leads to everybody laughing at my DBPro / etc. endeavours for "looking like something from the late 90's" but that's another story
Anyway, I wish it did take some more work to actually make games with Unity. As it stands it's really just drag and drop and maybe some copy + paste work. Sure it won't be a good game but it will still run and potentially look pretty amazing (which is apparently close to the most important thing these days... sigh) and as such there definitively is no shortage of such "homemade games" that are essentially just clones of each other and exist merely to dull people's interest in indie games as a whole.
Well... end of rant.


* Of course there are tonnes to learn to make the most out of Unity. I may also be slightly biased here on account of having recently been working on a project in Unity with some classmates, most particularly a "programmer" who insisted on buying pre-made scripts and tweaking them "until they worked" but without a shred of an idea of why it was actually working or thinking half a step ahead of how it would interface with the other parts of the system. And yes, he broke my 2-week node module beyond repair in an afternoon

@Van: You make some interesting poimts. I did not know a gameoad for iOS existed (I tried mine in my tablet once and it sorta reconised it as an HID coz I. could move desktops with the analogue stick). I guess I'm not the type that plays games on a bus, I listen to music. As for improving touch-screen games, I gave it some thought and concluded that removing the touch aspect would be best. Optimally, something like a Ninetendo DS would be best. Maybe a hybrid. I guess I'm just stuck it the days of geeking off on catridge consoles, blowing money at the arcade and making dreadful space shooters on my PC in Qbasic. Well, there are two game genres that works well on touch and that's the Visual Novel and Point 'n Click Adventure (very similar). Those I would consider developing.

As a Unity Pro user myself, i can honestly say that i really like working with it. As a previous Dark Basic Pro user, i can also say i liked it.

Whether you'd use DBPro, or Unity, or any other engine, you'll ALWAYS need the skills to either program, or make art, or both.

It's not that Unity is a simple 'click and create a game' engine. Sure, there are lots of premade packages to get you started in the asset store which you can buy (FPS, adventure games, platformer games, etc, etc...), but if you want your game to be really unique and the way YOU like it, you'll end up changing code, or even create your own from scratch.

I'd say that Unity is indeed a AAA engine, because you can truely create some impressive scenes with it. Maybe it's not as AAA as Frostbite or UDK, but it's surely in the top ten. Further more, it's not really the engine that makes a scene impressive, it's the ARTIST that does that. If your art looks like rubbish, then your scene will also look like rubbish, no matter what engine you use.

For learning game development, i'd suggest to start either with DBPro, or AppGameKit, to get a grip of things, and learn the workflow of game development. Plus, start with simple games.

Also, team up with someone if you really want to make bigger games. Especially if you'd use engines like UDK, Unity, Source Engine, etc...