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Introduction :  Game creation language (and roadmap) orientation
Learning programming using BlitzBasic :  Get a clear overview of all the Blitz tutorials on this website
More resources :  Where to go if what you're looking for isn't here



Introduction

Welcome!

On this website I have placed some of my helpful and in-depth tutorials, to help both novice and experienced programmers, to learn creating games (and programs!), using an easy-to-use programming language called BlitzBasic.

If you want to go straight to a descriptive list of things I have placed on this website, simply skip this section, or click here.

It is not required to use a common or complicated programming language to build games (or programs).
I have found many great development tools, which all have their own unique abilities for massively accelerating the development speed.
Some game creation packages are specifically for simple games, while others can be used to create advanced 3D multiplayer games.

The following development packages are primarily mouse operated, e.g. GUI driven:
- Blender Game Engine
- Game Maker
- ClickTeam's The Games Factory & Multimedia Fusion
- Torque Game Engine
- 3D GameStudio
- Unity (3D)
- 3DS' 3DVIA Virtools
- Adobe's Director, Shockwave & (Macromedia) Flash

And the packages below are primarily keyboard operated, e.g. language driven:
- FreeBASIC
- Brutus2D
- GLBasic
- BlitzMax (Intended as the improved edition and/or successor of BlitzBasic/2D/Plus/3D)
- Cobra
- ClickTeam's Jamagic
- DarkBasic

For more languages and development packages, check out the following links:
- Wikipedia's list of videogame creation software
- Wikipedia's list of game engines
- Google Directory listing for games programming
- Open Directory Project's games programming category

There are also a lot of other communities around for (game) programming, such as:
- Programmer's Heaven
- GameDev.net



Learning programming using BlitzBasic

In case you do not have BlitzBasic yet, you can grab the Blitz2D Demo which includes a lot of technical help as well.

Most of these tutorials are written in such a way that you can open them straight up in the BlitzBasic editor for conveniently reading and testing at the same time.
Some tutorials are written in a unique what-you-see-is-what-it-is tutorial style, which alleviates the mind from having to switch between common language decoding and simple logic decoding.

For a very thorough and indepth run-down on the BlitzBasic language, much of its capabilities, and programming in general, check out the BlitzBasic Full Foundation tutorial.
On that page you will also find a reference guide to quickly scan for specific language traits.
This may be all you need to learn programming, and to get started with creating your own games (or programs) from the ground up!

Are you having orientation problems in a game?
Don't know up from down or left from right?
Not sure how to move stuff around or how to make things scroll?
Relative Positioning in 10 steps will make all your relativity problems go away.

Maybe you want to see an example of a small game in action.
A frantic shooter with various ways of moving things around the screen is called Project Z - One.

You may still have some problems with basic motion in 2D space.
But no worries, Vectors and Sinewaves will give you straight forward answers.
Yes! Not just zooming in on motion but also discovering more about the related sine(waves).

Sometimes it seems like there's just no relation between things.
Being unable to calculate values from one scale to a completely different scale.
At the point where it all seems evil maths when the solution is just a simple equation.
The Conversion guide is the light at the end of the tunnel.

Are you ready to build a more complete game with sugar on top?
Take a look at Project Z - Two for an Asteroids type of game with a huge amount of tricks and techniques.

For those of you having problems with tilemaps - you know, those large (scrolling) backgrounds you see in RPG games for example - the Tilemap guide is here for your personal assistance!

And finally, for a walkthrough through an entire game creation (retro-remake) process of an old Amiga game, check out The making of X-NON.
This walkthrough is also an in-depth tutorial on how to easily and joyfully tackle various game building obstacles, taking you for a spin through many common classic 2D shooter elements.

If you're really serious about learning to create games from scratch, and you want to do it the fastest way possible, I recommend starting straight with The making of X-NON and actively using the laid out guidelines to show you your unique path.
It includes most of the related links, information and links to information needed to complete the full cycle of codership.

I've also added a libraries page with many helpful source code functions, snippets, tools, and systems, which were created specifically to make the life of a coder much easier.
Particularly cutting down development time, while increasing a game or program's power and speed by raising its efficiency, and also making code much easier to read, create and maintain at the same time.



More resources

If you're still hungry for more, you can try one of the following (partially) archived BlitzCoder sections:
- Articles & tutorials
- Code database (large amount of valuable code)
- Undocumented commands
- Links database

Some more links to Blitz-related communities and resources:
- SoCoder: A community that looks identical to BlitzCoder
- DBF: Dark Bit Factory - Demoscene Coding Forum & Website
- BlitzCodeBase: Large collection of code snippets

What about a Google translated version of BlitzForum.de's thorough commands reference, including many code examples and elaborate descriptions for even the most exotic and undocumented or unknown commands!

In fact, the official BlitzBasic website also hosts multiple forums for BlitzMax, Blitz3D and BlitzPlus, various showcases and tools.
It also has links to Blitz-related tools, specifications and utilities, and an immense amount of code in the Code archives.
Finally the online manuals for BlitzMax, Blitz3D and BlitzPlus can also be found there.

Heck, there's even a BlitzBasic item on the original wiki and a more elaborate item on Wikipedia.

For an amazing (large) list of (free or low-cost) tools to create media and content for your games, check out Morduun's Big Ol' List.

Although I highly recommend IDEal: Professional Blitz IDE (free!) to work with Blitz2D, Blitz3D and BlitzPlus, a guide to get Blitz to work reasonably comfortably under UltraEdit is available here: UltraBlitz

If you still can't find the answer, feel free to contact me

Enjoy, my fellow (BlitzCoder) artist!