[LONG][RANTY] Roguelike in QBasic?

[aardvark]

This post/poll is mainly directed at the rpg/crpg/roguelike/geek population of this board.
If you don't know what a roguelike is, I suggest you at least have a look at this fascinating game concept. Go to Usenet group:
rec.games.roguelike.development
or, the home of my favourite RL,
www.adom.de
.

That said, I'll get to the point. Do you people think that it is possible for a 14-yr. old with no great mental capacity, but with the call to programming and roguelikes (programming roguelikes??) to program an excellent roguelike in QB? (I'm using 7.1, and you all should be too. )

I am relatively skilled in QBasic programming-- I started at the age of 7 on my Apple IIe and still do it because:
a) I like it. It is fast, easy and, well... cool. It works in DOS, which works with... well, everything the average Joe has. Maybe not portable to UNIX boxes, but hey, you can't please EVERYBODY.
b) It is fast and processor-efficient. Almost all QB programs will work on my Win3.1 486/SX laptop ($20.00, what a steal, "LOL")
c) I don't know C++ yet. And C++ is stupid. I don't WANT to say "Hello, World!" in five lines of code, I want "PRINT "Hello, world!". Not "#include<header.h>" crap. (BTW: How many of you QB programmers know C/C++? How did you learn? Textbooks?)

I won't go into the concept of Double Dagger (the aforementioned RL/cRPG/RPG) since it is very complicated. It aims to be. It aims to be more in-depth than ADOM. More items than NetHack. More "realistic" (well, a Fantasy/Oriental interpretation of 'realistic') that... some "realistic" game. (Please, oh PLEASE notice the inverted commas around "realistic"). However, it aims to have all of the computer players and monsters "play against" the character. They all eat, sleep, go on quests... just like the Player Character. They get hungry. They hunt for food. They form confederations, gangs and committees of concerned Senior Citizens. The world is not just a maze, but a living, breathing ecosystem (with some dungeons as residences for the monsters, of course )

I think I can do this-- I have hatched out a few thousand lines of code in my head. I just want to know, do you think it is possible? CAN IT BE DONE, by anyone?

[Agamemnus]

Hello aadvark,

I agree that you can do anything in QB if you plan it well enough. With ASM and C libraries (such as Grouchy Blitz's UGL library--pick it up before you do anything..), everything is both possible and fast.

Not that QB doesn't have its faults -- compiler issues, stupid limits on variables, no bitstrings, no redefining basic functions, no optional function syntax, etc etc..

C++: Yes, it has all the faults of its predecessor and then some. But it's not really THAT bad. It's the syntax...and the OOP... that is horrible.

EDIT: Oh, ok. Sounds fun. You can do it. But you must consider not going overboard.

[Ryan]

Sure, roguelikes are possible. Jocke and I had a discussion similar to this a while back on his web board. The only thing I might say, though, is I'm not sure if real life sims such as what you described are possible. ;-) Well, I guess they're possible but would take some nice coding acrobatics to get finished.

[Jocke The Beast]

Funny to see that there are other people also interested into the "great world of roguelike's".

To answer your question (if it's possible to program an excellent roguelike in QB?) I'd say Yes. I've seen some finished qbasic roguelikes and some in-development. I will not lie, so I also have to say that thoose roguelikes wasn't in any way as good as the great ones as Adom or Angband.

You seems to be very positive and I will not try to be too negative but when you describe your future roguelike-project, it seems to be a very hard task to actually do that. I'd suggest you try to make a more classic rogulike, like the old Rogue (ver 1.1/1.45 by Jon Lane/Epyx), before you attempt to make a super-advanced-one. And I can promise you, it isn't easy to make a Rogue-clone (clone of v 1.1/1.45) either, it's really a task which no one has made in qbasic yet (not that I know...)

I wish you the best of luck and I hope you decide to make a roguelike

[LooseCaboose]

c) I don't know C++ yet. And C++ is stupid. I don't WANT to say "Hello, World!" in five lines of code, I want "PRINT "Hello, world!". Not "#include<header.h>" crap. (BTW: How many of you QB programmers know C/C++? How did you learn? Textbooks?)

Yep C++ is stupid, if you want to learn one of the more powerful languages learn C or Java. You can say "Hello World" in one line of code if you want.

Code:

main() { printf("Hello World\n"); }

Is perfectly fine, the compiler will barf about printf's syntax being undefined and main not returing a value but it will still work. There are of course reasons for all that extra crap so its best to learn to use it.

I learnt C through a combination of textbooks (my C book is at Uni, but I can get the name if you want), Uni lectures and hands on experience. The last one is defenitely the best way to learn any language, experiment with making small programs and see if they work.

That said, I'll get to the point. Do you people think that it is possible for a 14-yr. old with no great mental capacity, but with the call to programming and roguelikes (programming roguelikes??) to program an excellent roguelike in QB?

Sure, start small. Dont try and have thousands of monsters, items and quests in your first attempt. Try making a game that will allow the player do eat, sleep and go on a single short quest to kill a monster and retrieve an item. Once you have done that you will probably have a much better idea as to how difficult and how much work your intended project will be.

Good Luck.

[DrV]

Hey, stop dissing C++, you lazy programmers! OOP is way cool.

(Don't shoot me, all you dedicated QBers...)

[LooseCaboose]

Im not dissing C++ for being OO. OO is very powerful and nice to use given the right time and place. Im dissing C++ for being a poorly designed language. As I have mentioned before, it suffers from ambiguous syntax problems (which should never have got past the grammar design process), mixed procedural and OO constructs (Should be one or the other, not both), attempted backwards compatibility with C which doesnt always work and multiple inheritence problems.

Java is a much better OO language derived from C, its clean, well documented and fairly self contained (all the components you'll need come with the standard class library).

[DrV]

Java is a much better OO language derived from C, its clean, well documented and fairly self contained (all the components you'll need come with the standard class library).

Heh... the last time I checked, Java's graphics support sucked... but that's just my opinion. :barf:

[na_th_an]

Java is a much better OO language derived from C, its clean, well documented and fairly self contained (all the components you'll need come with the standard class library).

Heh... the last time I checked, Java's graphics support sucked... but that's just my opinion. :barf:

I concur with LooseCaboose and disagree with you. The problem with people and Java is that they try to value it comparing it with C, being two different languages for different purposes. If you want to make games, learn C. If you want to have a nice OO language, the best is Java. In terms of OO, Java is way more pure and better designed than C++. It was designed to be used in embedded systems (and now it is being used in cell phones), not to make the next ID soft hit.

C++ is just a bunch of shit, it is a patched language, with some pastichio features. It is cool to make games if the coder is clever enough not to use the *bad* features included in C++ (such as letting the programmer use OO and non-OO techniques and functions IN THE SAME PROGRAM!!).

addvark: About learning C, it is not difficult at all. If you can code in QB, you only have to learn pointers. The rest of the language is exactly the same but with different syntax. And pointers are not hard at all. In fact, they are very useful. Pointers are your friends.

And of course a roguelike can be coded in QB. I can't see why not. In fact, I think in roguelikes as games simple enough to be flawlessly coded in QB.

[DrV]

Java is a much better OO language derived from C, its clean, well documented and fairly self contained (all the components you'll need come with the standard class library).

Heh... the last time I checked, Java's graphics support sucked... but that's just my opinion. :barf:

I concur with LooseCaboose and disagree with you. The problem with people and Java is that they try to value it comparing it with C, being two different languages for different purposes. If you want to make games, learn C. If you want to have a nice OO language, the best is Java. In terms of OO, Java is way more pure and better designed than C++. It was designed to be used in embedded systems (and now it is being used in cell phones), not to make the next ID soft hit.

C++ is just a bunch of s**t, it is a patched language, with some pastichio features. It is cool to make games if the coder is clever enough not to use the *bad* features included in C++ (such as letting the programmer use OO and non-OO techniques and functions IN THE SAME PROGRAM!!).

addvark: About learning C, it is not difficult at all. If you can code in QB, you only have to learn pointers. The rest of the language is exactly the same but with different syntax. And pointers are not hard at all. In fact, they are very useful. Pointers are your friends.

And of course a roguelike can be coded in QB. I can't see why not. In fact, I think in roguelikes as games simple enough to be flawlessly coded in QB.

Well, he said that "all the components you'll need come with the standard class library"... not "all the components you'll need to write embedded apps or something similar, so I took it that he meant that EVERYTHING was there... I do like Java's OO model, but it's a bit overdone IMO. Everything doesn't have to be an object.