Game building suggestion?

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    • Game building suggestion?

      Hi,

      After reading Game Coding Complete 2nd Edition, I think I can make video games now. :) I want to make a small 2D game at home for fun. There is no rush or deadline for the game to complete.

      Since I've been using C++ and other Microsoft languages for over ten years now, for server side stuffs though, I'm quite comfortable with the architecture and implementation shown in the book and demo. I very like the flexible, powerful and reliable side of C++.


      I only want to support DirectX 1.0, because I do not want to use any of the 3D or networking stuffs. Is it possible? Can still found download for DirectX 1.0 SDK?

      Have you ever heard about a tool called BlitzPlus? Does anyone use it for developing real games? I took at look at their demos of the language. Hard to believe I can use it to do anything serious. But, I do not know for sure. It does can take care of the DirectX implementations and support DirectX 1.0. Should I use it and apply Game Coding complete's architecture to build my home-grow game?

      What is your suggestion?


      Thanks, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
    • I would strongly suggest against using the DirectX 1 API. If you want to make 2D games, you're much better off using DirectX 9 with a fixed camera (I think XP shipped with DX9...). Their ID3DXSprite isn't bad and you can wrap all the 3D stuff without much trouble. Furthermore, you'll get things like sprite scaling & rotation (traditionally expensive in 2D) for free. You can also use some fun 3D effects like lighting, texture filtering, alpha blending, etc. with very little headache.

      If you're dead-set on using DirectDraw, you should at least use the DirectX 7 interface. If nothing else, it has many performance enhancements and bug fixes.

      I've never heard of BlitzPlus. It's definitely not something I've seen used in the professional gaming world, but it looks like it'd be perfectly fine for indie development. It sort of reminds me of SDL. If you want to check out a nice 2D game engine, have a look at SDL. It's the best free 2D engine I've seen and I almost ended up using it for my personal projects.

      Using the architecture from Game Coding Complete to wrap around an engine like BlitzPlus or SDL is absolutely the way to go. :)

      Hope that helps.

      -Rez