QB Express: Issue #7

From The Editor's Desk

Written by Pete

"The QB scene is so boring now! you can smell the rot."

A few weeks ago, Mechman posted that on the QB45.com message forum. And honestly, when I read it at first, I was inclined to agree with him. On the QB side of things these days, there's next to nothing happening. QB is dying a slow death, and has been for years...and the QB scene has been just pathetic for about two years now.

But then again, there's a whole lot more to the QB scene than just QB. You see, there's this little thing called FreeBasic. And it's turning the Qmunity upside down. For the first time in years, "QB" people are really excited about programming again. I haven't seen the QB community this productive since the year 2000. I don't think in his wildest dreams did V1ctor think that FreeBasic would be as popular and successful as it has become.

And then there's QB Express. In just four issues, this magazine has gone from a dedicated QBasic / QuickBasic programming magazine to a predominantly FreeBasic zine. This month, we have a FB review, two games featured in the Gallery that are both written in FreeBasic, five tutorials specifically for FreeBasic (and several that apply to both FB and QB), a News Briefs section filled to the brim with FB news, and an article entitled "FreeBasic is our future. OUR FUTURE." I think it's pretty clear that the QB community has evolved right in front of us. And this magazine has gone along for the ride.

But that's what I always intended when I started this publication last August. The tagline of this mag is "A magazine by the QB community, for the QB community!" Nowhere does it say that it is a QBasic or QuickBasic magazine... it's a QB community mag. And the QB community wants FreeBasic. Honestly, it doesn't matter what language were coding in, we're still the QB community. It's the sense of community that keep us posting on message forums, visiting sites and helping each other out. QB may be a thing of the past, but the QB community is not.

So am I going to change the name of this magazine to "FB Express"? No. I'm going to keep it as "QB". I think it's important that we remember our QB roots. Besides, does it really matter what we call ourselves? I don't think so.

Anyway, I can safely say that this is the biggest and most useful issue of QB Express ever. I can't believe it when I say it, but there are ELEVEN different tutorials in this issue. ELEVEN. And that's not to mention all the other stuff. Everything about this issue is bigger and better than before, and it's clearly because of the invigorating influence of of FreeBasic on the Qmunity. When the QB community is active, everyone has a lot of stuff to write about and submit. And that definitely happened this month. Great job, guys!

But I'm not gonna keep you waiting any longer. Go ahead and get readin'. You're gonna probably have to come back to it a few times to read everything. This is one HUGE issue, and I want you to enjoy every last word.

Submit To QB Express

You all know the drill. This magazine can't exist without people SUBMITTING articles, editorials, tutorials, reviews, news and feedback. This is not just a solo effort by me... it's a group effort by people throughout the QB community. If you have anything to submit, or have time to write something, DO IT!

If you want to write about something, but can't think of a topic, or need inspiration, email me! I'm good at thinking of stuff to write about, and I know quite a bit about the QB community and about QB programming. If you're interested in getting your own monthly column or just want to write an article or two, by all means, do it! Anything that is submitted will be included!

I also want feedback and letters to the editor regarding this magazine. I want suggestions and critiques. What do you like? What don't you like? What could be done better? Let me know!

All submissions and feedback can be sent to pberg1@gmail.com. You can also PM me on the Pete's QB Site or QBasic News message forums. If QB Express is going to continue to be so good, YOU need to contribute!

-Pete

Letters

Letter From Lachie Dazdarian

Greeting Pete,

Like with all the previous ones, I enjoyed reading this last issue(#6) of QB Express. Especially because I was able to bring it home and read it in peace. To be honest, I think it came too soon. Don't get me wrong, I just wouldn't like you too overstress yourself for no reason. None of us in QB community would like you to burn out and get sick of editing QB Express.

Anyway, I liked the editor's desk and letters section quite a lot. It's always cool too see people expressing their love for QBasic. News section is something really great too, since not all important events in QBasic community appear on www.qbasicnews.com . I can only thank you once again for keeping track on QBasic community and warning us on all important things happening in there. That's more than useful to people like me, who are not online often. FB news section is another plus. Wonderful!

Michael Wechsler's article was very interesting too. Nice insight into your life. But I should warn you, it seems to me like your roommate has a little crush on you. Just don't be surprised if you wake up one day by a cold hand feeling your privates. :P And I don't belive you can do 100 pushups every morning. Maybe them sissy pushups, but legit ones...no. :P

I don't usually go too deep into tutorials section(lack of time and the fact I'm not a keen programmer) but I found Na_th_an's IF tutor very enjoyable to read. The fact I don't like IF games much proves even more how Na_th_an's article is great. Keep it up, Nath.

But now, I must turn to the things I didn't like. I don't like doing this since I don't contribute to the magazine but I just feel I should. My only interest is to help you make the next issue better. I don't know who is Nathan1993 but his tutorial was quite badly written. To be honest, it took me several readings to get that thing. Until I realized it speaks about things I figured out myself(after learning how to use external files for storing data) ages ago. It's obviously meant for novice programmers but sadly not written on "novice-friendly" way. Simply, sloppy work. Any tutorial that has sentences like "I'm too lazy to show you this so moving on the next issue..." sucks.

Rattrapmax6 comic is really a waste of space. I'm sorry that I need to be this harsh but that comic is screaming for it. Elementary grade spelling errors, mixed up speech bubbles(character speaking to himself), utter lack of humor and ridiculous graphic. And I could pass over all the cardinal sloppiness if the comic was funny. Like this, it deserves the lowest grade. I think this comic blatantly shows Pete, how you need to install a minimum quality requirement when reviewing magazine submissions. Man, don't put everything in the magazine you get. I don't know, maybe you declined a lot of things but I can't imagine anything being worst than this comic.

Also, I liked Oz doing another game review but it was really too short and too cold. Like some sort of quick game report. Add more juice in it Oz.

This, of course, brings me to the issue of me not contributing to the magazine. I can only promise I'll try to find some free time for a game review or some sort of contemplation on LONG development. It takes me a lot of time to write something coherent. Writing is not my thing, you know. You could say I'm an anti-talent when it comes to putting thoughts into words. It all depends how good I'll do on the several upcoming exams. If I fail them, I'll feel like worthless shit(motivation drops to 0) and will have even less free time.

Anyway, that would be it. Keep up the GOOD work. ;)

Lachie Dazdarian
( www.kentauri.cjb.net - I can't update my damn site :P )

Hey Lachie, I really appreciate the criticism. It seems that normally all I get is blind praise. I'm glad there's somebody out there reading with a critical eye.

In general, I agree with you about the poor quality of some of the writing in the magazine, and I would certainly prefer if everything that we published was of consistently excellent quality. But in a volunteer magazine where I don't make any money doing this, and everything is written entirely by hobbyists, I can't always settle for Pullitzer Prize worthy material. It's very difficult to fill up this magazine, and I will take just about anything I can get. I want to make a "complete" magazine every month, meaning that there is a large quantity of varied content that will appeal to a large selection of different people. No matter how bad an article or comic or tutorial is, there is always SOMEBODY out there who will find it useful or entertaining. I don't want to cut off any reader from an article that might be helpful or entertaining to them if I can help it. And because of the medium I'm using (a webpage), there are no real practical limits to including everything I get.

Besides, when I founded this magazine, I vowed that it would be an open magazine, dedicated free speech. Anyone who wants a voice, who wants to be heard, should be able to throught his magazine. All they have to do is write something down and send it in -- and as long as it's anything that could be remotely useful to anybody, I feel that it's worthy to publish.

Anyway, I see where you're coming from, and I appreciate your thoughts. I'll definitely take them into consideration (I already have). If there's something I can do to improve the quality of the articles that are submitted in the first place, I'll do it. Maybe your criticisms will be help my writers improve, since you point out some of the poorer aspects of the content they submitted. This is a much better solution in my view than excluding the writers. Helping the writers improve is the best option for everyone.

Oh, and about Mike's article... well... I'll let you take it for what it's worth. :) Anyhow, he's back again this month with a follow-up. Check it out, I'm sure you'll like it.

-Pete

Letter From Nixon

Hey mate.

Great mag. Keep em coming. Anyway I'm replying about DOS being dead. I have found out a very interesting fact. Even though DOS seems dead it is very much still alive in businesses. I have been taking a peek at the computers I see in stores. Their programs are always in DOS. Even Harvey Norman, A massive computer store uses DOS.

I'm guessing they use it because it is stable and cheap to get. Also you don't need anything great to run it. My dad Even uses a DOS program to store customer data and phone numbers and all that.

Heres the question, is windows as good as we think it is? Is it what every business needs? My opinion is that that windows is just the flashing light that attracts people, It has alot of useless things. In truth all we really need is DOS.

One other thing I found out just a few weeks ago was that Windows makes DOS run slower. I was making a game after Windows crashed on my computer. I had a FPS counter in it and it was running about 30, 000 FPS, partly cause nothing was happening much. But when I looked at the program again once I loaded up windows and had it running, It went down to 9,000 FPS. To me I think that, that is a very large drop. My computer is only 100Mhz And I think it would do this on any other computer, but the truth is I'm not sure.

Well I guess that's all I have to say, unless I can think of something else... nope, thats all.

-Nixon

I don't disagree with you on the merits of DOS, but the reason that many businesses still operate on DOS is because their computer systems are old, and they see no reason in investing in expensive new systems when their old DOS systems still do everything they need. It's the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Why spend large sums of money on new computer systems when the old ones that you paid top dollar for ten or fifteen years ago still work fine? It's not that companies choose DOS over Windows or Linux or Mac OS; when they got their computers, DOS was the standard. And upgrading to a new system has other downfalls aside from the cost, such as converting a decade's worth of databaes and sales records to a new software environment. It's just not worth it.

DOS will never die completely, because it is an extremly popular legacy platform with thousands of programs written for it. But like a lot of other oudated platforms, like Commodore 64, Super Nintendo and Windows 95, no serious professional is still creating new software in it. There might be a handful of diehard hobbyists (such as us in the QB community) that still enjoy tinkering with the old platform, but there's no money to be made and no real practical use. People will still have fond memories of the old platform, and most of the time will ensure that they're still able to use the old software (through emulators or virtual machines), but it's just for nostalgia or reference.

I love DOS as much as the next guy, but face it -- the times have changed. Its technical limitations make it just too ... limited.

-Pete

Letter From Lurah

Well well well...

As usual, your last QB Express were great work. I can see that you love for making it =)

Your answer to my letter and especially this part -" then on a whim one day, I logged onto the Internet and did a search for QBasic... And here I am today."-, make me think that how many other former QBasic coders there are somewhere who haven't typed "QBasic" for search? =)

"QB's only gonna die faster if people wait to program in it or make their websites."

That's partly true (IMO). I dont see point to make new QBasic site for now. There are few real great sites at this moment so instead of making own webby now, I think it's way better if I support those web sites that exists already.

There are few others "dying" programming languages...maybe some sort of union might help QBasic? Or sites like pure-text.com? Idea of pure-text is great, let's hope that it starts to "fly" :)

Maybe there aint coming no more any real big project what puts "new limits" for QBasic coding, but im pretty sure (and hopeful) that there still keeps coming new games and programs that peoples likes to play/use.

On the other hand, one coder said to me that he thinks, QB community and present-day computers have advanced out of QBasic and its "limits".

He though that everything what can be made with QBasic have allready done. And that present-day players wants graphics and sounds what game programmer cant offer with QBasic based code.

I fear that it's true. Maybe peoples aint interest about low level graphics, or even ascii based games anymore because computers of this day offers resources for so mutch more?

I told one of my friend that im making a ascii graphics based adventure game and he was amazed, "who on earth wants to play that kind of game anymore?".

Let's hope that it was stupid and meaningles comment :)

R. lurah

P.S.: My english ain't advanced since last time =D

K�yh�n piipahtamassa---> www.lemmikkini.net

There's not much we can do to make the non-programmers of the world understand the magic of QB, if they have become accustomed to modern computers with flashy new software. People who have been raised with modern computer systems have a whole lot less tolerance for the simplistic graphics and gameplay characteristic of QBasic. There's no way you're going to change that. That's the way it is.

People have become naturally conditioned to expect a minimum quality of audiovisual output from their computers, and if ASCII QB games fall below that minimum, they're not going to be impressed. I know I too have minimum expectations of what a computer can do (though they're certainly much lower than the people who dismiss QB because of its technical limitations). If I look at the very first personal computers which consisted of a few rows of light bulbs and a speaker that could emit a few different beeps, with no monitor and only a couple on/off switches for input, I would enjoy the novelty for a moment or two -- then be bored to death.

The people that enjoy QB either have nostalgia for the simplistic programs they used in the past, are interested in the novelty of ultra-simplistic, old-shool graphics and sound, or are able to see through the technical limitations and understand the creative potential of QB. I'm not surprised that your friends don't really "get" it. But hey, that's all right. To each his own, I guess. It's just a matter of preference.

-Pete

Letter From Matt2Jones

Pete,

Hey, no BBY this month but...

Here's an even more useless contribution!!!! (Editor's note: He's talking about his Music Composition Tutorial)

Well done on keeping the mag going without me though, me being the nuts and bolts that held the operation together... I forgot the punchline I had for that.

Unfortunatly I was dissapeared from the collective internet since before Christmas, because the phone lines were not connected to our house for a very long fucking time (thanks to private enterprise, bully for capitalism), so I was unable to keep up to date with QB, FB, QBExpress, all the webcomics, etc, etc.

Now when I finally got back online I was agast at the catching up I was going to have to do. Image three months worth of old forum enteries to see where everyone stands, and weeks later hearing about reveloutionary programs that came out when I was gone that I just completely missed. The anticipation of this pain was not pleasant.

Then, after finding out the Distillers Drummer quit, and the Leftover Crack Drummer died, I got the last two issues of QBXP (<- bastardised abreiviation) and now feel up to date.

Thank you Pete for making my rehabilitation so much easier.

matt2jones

Glad you like the maga! One of the main reasons I started this magazine was because I enjoyed reading the old QB magazines to find out what was happening in the Qmunity back a few years ago. I guess I'm just a sucker for QB community history. So I'm glad that this mag was able to bring you up to speed so well, now that you've returned from your two-month vacation from QB. That means that I'm at least I'm doing something right!

-Pete

News Briefs

This section contains news from all around the QB/FB community, about the latest games, site updates, program releases and more!

There's seriously waaaaaaay too much news this month for me to handle, especially on the FB side of things. I'm absolutely swamped. I wasn't able to be as thorough as I usually am this month, because so much is going on. But that's a good thing. This seriously is a renaissance in the Qmunity, and it's all thanks to FreeBasic. But then again is it even the QB community anymore?

Anyhow, I've decided that I need to recruit some news reporters to help me take care of this section in the future. I'm only one man, and an extremely busy one at that -- so I don't have the time to constantly monitor all of the QB and FB sites on the Internet. So if you are interested in helping me keep track of QB or FB news, drop me an email. Basically, over the course of the month, copy and paste all the important announcements and URLs you find into a text file, and when it's time for a new issue, just write up the stories into 1-2 sentence descriptions that I can post in the mag. It's pretty easy. Trust me, I've been doing it for seven issues.

QBasic / QuickBasic News

Site News

NeoBasic Switches Servers, Domain Name - Marcade's popular NeoBasic site recently moved to Wildcard's server, allowing him to get rid of his Communitech server and save money. In order to move servers Marcade also had to get a new domain name. According to Marcade, "www.neozones.com is *still* under Tek's control, thus meaning I cannot update the DNS settings .. and for some reason Tek doesn't let neozones.com expire so I can take it back over. Also since he didn't response to my mails, I just decided to get another domain name." As a result, Marcade moved NeoBasic to the new domain www.neobasic.net. Everybody update your links.

This announcement comes just a few months after Marcade shut down his Zext.Net server to save money. Zext.net was formerly a major source of free web hosting for QB sites, which have either moved elsewhere...or been taken down.
JacobPalm.dk Undergoes Complete Redesign and Gets QB GUI Reviews - A lot has happened in the last month at JacobPalm.dk, a relatively new QBasic site that was formerly criticized for being incompatible with FireFox web browsers. The new design is cross-browser compatible and much more pleasing to the eye. Additionally, Jacob has added over 20 QBasic GUI programs and done reviews of seventeen of them. That's no small achievement. Everybody go check out this blossoming QB site!
Mandelbrot Dazibao Gets New Domain - The popular graphics techniques website by Jark got its own domain last month at www.mandelbrot-dazibao.com. This site houses a treasure trove of tutorials, screenshots and example programs that explain graphical techniques like fractals and raytracing. Jark also announced "I still have this project for a Hi-Res Landscape renderer in QB..." in case you're interested.
V Planet's Overhaul Begins - It appears that V Planet! editor Nekrophidius has big plans for the site in the near future, because he has begun redoing the site's design and creating sections for FreeBasic Reviews, News and more. For some reason, though, Nek uploaded a work-in-progress version of the site, which is filled with broken links and is missing almost all of the huge library of useful content that former V Planet! editor Vance Velez and his staff created over the past five years. I'm not sure why he didn't finish the redesign and then upload it, but I wish the old content were still easily available.

In other news, the 2004 QBasic Gaming Gold Awards seem to be in jeopardy. After a poor voter turnout during the preliminary nomination round, Nekrophidius seems to have either put the contest on hold or just not gotten around to moving it forward. This is unfortunate, since this is probably the last Gaming Golds ceremony that the QB world will ever see, now that FB is taking over. I know that I, for one, would like to see QB go out in a blaze of glory, instead of just being abandoned.
Basic Network Shutting Down? - After a period of downtime in early January, followed by a redesign which involved the loss of all the site's old content, The Basic Network has had a significant drop in user activity. So much so, in fact, that there has been nearly no activity on the site since its reopening. Nekrophidius, the site's webmaster posted a message on the Basic Network forum announcing that he may shut the site down if there isn't a significant increase in usage in the next week. Otherwise, the site could go down for good on February 25th. If you're a fan of The Basic Network, this may be your last chance to keep it alive -- so get postin'!
Qbasic.tk Closes and is Replaced by Freebasic.tk - Once one of the most popular forums in the QB community, QBasic.tk had been declining in usage substantially in the past few months, as most of its main users switched to FreeBasic. Seeing this trend, the folks in charge of the site felt that they should close down the QB site and replace it with a more in-demand FB site. Since Freebasic.tk opened, it has quickly become one of the most active FreeBasic communities on the Internet.

Luckily, this important piece of QB history has not been removed permanently; all the old QBTK content has been archived and is still available. The compressed .rar archives for Qbasic.TK, which has recently been closed down, can be found here. There are 11 files, each around 5 mb, which sums up to a total around 50 mb. This contains ALL of the Qbasic.TK webcode (html, php, images, whatever), the Qbasic.TK database (all the phpbb2 posts and more), plus all the files that were uploaded to the forum (around 40mb goodies Razz).
New x.t.r. Graphics Site - Rattrapmax6 (Kevin) of x.t.r. Graphics has done a complete overhaul of his QBasic site. According to Kevin, he took up HTML after becoming "overly annoyed with AOL's WYSIWYG editor". The new site contains a few new features, including something called the "Links Town"... which I'll let you interpret for yourself.
Gordon's Freeware Site Revamped To Include 50 QB Programs - Gordon S. posted the following news at QBasic News a little while ago: "Having discovered, that amazingly there is still a very widespread interest in the dear old Qbasic in this forum, I have revamped the programs page on my site to include over 50 QB for downloading. I have included on the programs page my personal opinion on the four versions of Basic I have used. Feel free to make your comments for discussion, if you also have experience with these other Basics." You can visit Gordon's Freeware at: http://sionet.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk

Project News

New Inspiration Demo Released - A new demo of Wallace Software's First Person shooter, Inspiration was released recently. This FPS engine, which was featured in the QB Express gallery a few months back, looks phenomenal. Visit this topic for some release info. You can also take a look at Wallace Software, which is quite possibly the most updated QBasic site on the Internet these days. Wallace posts updates about his progress on Inspiration and his other projects very regularly. He is also developing some very cool effects for this engine, such as detailed dynamic lighting. Definitely worth a look.
Frantic Journey QB Source Code Released! - Adigun A. Polack, the head developer of the frenetic space shooter Frantic Journey, has released the QuickBasic source code of this program for a limited time. He posted the following at QBasic News on Feb. 15th: "Yep, you heard right, folks! The special Limited-Edition source code for FJ indeed is freely available to you as no less than a mighty little relic in QB gaming history, but you have *only* until the end of February 2005 to go to the Frantic Journey official pages and snag that rare sucker down!" To get this package, visit the official AAP Projects Squad site.
Structured Code and Bowling - There's an interesting post on writing structured QBasic code at Qbasic News, which centers around reformatting the code for a simple Bowling game. Check out this thread for details.
Barok's "MyRpg" Demo Released, Deceased - The engine demo of Barok's RPG engine was released recently. This project was begun in QB, but will now be finished in FB... hence the QB version now being "deceased". Check out the source code if you're interested.
Cool Minigame by QBN Poster's Stepson - Check out this post to try out a very fun QB minigame by a beginning programmer. I enjoyed this game quite a bit; hopefully you will too.
QBWIN QWshell 2004 (English version) Released - An ingenious GUI program for QB made by a chap named Hoker.bas has been making quite a stir on the QBasic News forums. This program can make very professional-looking DOS GUIs with little or no effort. Definitely worth a look!

Other News

QBXL Issue #4 Delayed Again, SJ Zero Goes on Exile - SJ Zero, the blunt and witty writer behind QB Accelerator Magazine has gone on an exile from the QB community as a result of poor grades in school. His leavetaking announcement came right before he was scheduled to release the new issue of QBXL which he has previously claimed is "99%" complete. However, SJ Zero has vowed that when he returns, the new issue will come and it will be something to behold: "I vow to everyone who waits for the new issue that when I finish my exile, the next qbxl will be ready, and it will be the greatest issue ever."
New And Never-Before-Seen QB Graphics Modes Discovered by Adigun A. Polack. Check out his announcement of his findings of new screen modes, many with 512 horizontal pixels (such as 512x350x16 color mode and 512x480x16 color mode). Interesting stuff, even if these screen modes aren't the most useful thing I've ever seen.
Z!re Begins QMunity Webcomic - Z!re, one of the most active members of the QB community, is at an ideal position to observe and comment on the Qmunity... Which I guess is probably the reason why he's doing just that. Z!re recently started a webcomic about the QB community, which you can find posted at FreeBasic.tk, here, or here. Currently, there are ten comics strips, and more could be right around the corner.

FreeBasic News

Site News

FreeBasic.tk Debuts - FreeBasic.tk debuted last month, and has become a major hub of the burgeoning FB community. But you already knew that, since I kind of mentioned it before in the QBasic.tk news story above.
Zap and Z!re Make FreeBasic FAQ at FreeBasic.tk - There have been many efforts to document FreeBasic, and this is the most recent. Zap and Z!re have begun a FAQ for FreeBasic programmers that could be quite useful. Check it out at this link.
FBIde Site Opened - FBIde developer VonGodric has created an official website for his at http://www.hot.ee/fbide. Check out the site for the latest FBIde updates, or visit some of the forum topics about FBIde.
FBXL: FreeBasic Extension Language - Nekrophidius has given his FB GUI Compiler a name, and begun its official site: FBXL.com. So now, instead of calling it "the GUI Compiler", we can call it "FBXL". Yay.
FB Tutorial Series by thegrogen - The first tutorial in a series of beginners' FB tutorials was recently created by a guy named thegrogen. He plans to create more in the future. You can find the tutorial website right here. Thegrogen said: "Also, I'm looking for freeBasic tutorial contributors, so if anyone has written a freeBasic tutorial, or is planning to, they can PM me and submit it and I will upload it to the site for all to see."

Program Releases

Dr_Davenstein Releases Awesome OpenGL FB Demo - Dr_Davenstein has managed to crank a high-quality, high-speed 3D engine out of FB using the popular OpenGL library that anyone who doubts the power of FB should really check out. In the demo, you can run and jump through tunnels, over bridges and on platforms, and there are several 3D objects to check out. Aside from some touchy collision detection and control issues, this engine is great. Here's hoping that it is developed into a finished game.

You can download the demo here: Freebio.zip
Jean Debord's FB Math Library - A Frenchman named Jean Debord has begun writing a math library for FreeBasic. You can check out the first version right here, or read the message forum announcement if you're so inclined.
OpenAL Ported To FreeBASIC - shiftLynx recently ported OpenAL, "a cross-platform 3D audio API appropriate for use with gaming applications and many other types of audio applications" to FreeBasic. According to shiftLynx, "It's currently being used by many commercial games, including Unreal 2, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Soldier of Fortune. (more titles...)." Visit the OpenAL news topic for more information.
FreeBasic Projects Galore - This topic is basically a list of a few dozen FB projects that people are working on. It's worth checking out if you want to see what other people in the FreeBasic scene are doing .
SJ Zero Releases Star Phalanx - Star Phalanx, a space shooter that SJ Zero began for his 48 hour FB programming competition last month, has been released.
RelSoft Will Port Space Impakto to FB - Rel announced that he will be posting his space shooter engine Space Impakto to FB. He describes this as "A space shooter engine written with QB+ASM as of now. Shows a cool and fast way to do homing, Pixel perfect collisions, ripped tiles and source included. Uses Rellib." You can find a demo of the QB version right here.
Sokoban By Retsyo - Retsyo has made a Sokoban game in FB that looks pretty cool. If you're not familiar with the game, here's retsyo's synopsis: "In this game, you are the man to push all horses into houses. You can only push the horse, but can not pull it. And you can not pull more than one horse everytime. If you or the horse is on the destination, red color is used, else blue color is used." The game is available for download here: sokoban.zip
Frantic Journey Will Be Ported To FB - Adigun A. Polack's beautiful space shooter, Frantic Journey will be rewritten in FreeBasic. Until this happens, though, you can pick up the Limited Edition version of the QB source code at the official Frantic Journey site. Adigun described his plans for the FB release: "I plan on even customizing this shmup to be very challenging and even as TRULY manic as ever. But also, I am to make this game really fair and as more fresh and exciting to play as the QB demo-version of this so that it is used and designed to be a blessing to you and to the shmup fans alike as well!!!" For more information, as well as a lot of screenshots and sourcecode downloads, check the website.
Angelo Mottola Releases Alternative FB GfxLib - QB legend Angelo Mottola is shaking up the FB scene, having just released a wonderful library that recreates many of QB's built-in graphical routines. Angelo describes the library as one "whose highlights are compactness (does not require external libs, goodbye SDL!), completeness (features all QB primitives, including arcs via CIRCLE, DRAW and PAINT) and compatibility with QB (doesn't require FLIP to keep screen updated as official GfxLib, and emulates modes 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13)." I highly reccomended this library to all FB programmers. You can find it on the Enhanced Creations++ website.
MystikShadows's FreeBasic IDE - MystikShadows joins the ranks of VonGodric and Nekrophidius this month, by releasing his own FB IDE which has many useful, unique features. Check out this post for screenshots or a download link.

Other News

MOoRPG Naming Contest - Z!re's running a competition / poll to help him come up with a new name for his upcoming FreeBasic roleplaying game, MOoRPG. So far, the suggestions have been pretty pathetic. Maybe you can help him out.
FreeBasic and PowerBasic Feud - FB programmers are rather territorial about their new baby, and they've recently been antagonizing PowerBasic programmers for using an "inferior" language. There have been numerous posts around both the QB and FB communities where people argue about which language is better. Here's one of them.

Gallery

Written by Pete

Every issue QB Express features a preview and exciting new screenshots from an upcoming QB game. If you would like your game featured, send in some screenshots!

This issue, we were lucky enough to receive information and screenshots for two upcoming FreeBasic games -- StarOdds32 by Na_th_an and Phantasm by Nekrophidius. So enjoy this special double-sized gallery!

StarOdds32 - Na_th_an

Na_th_an's FreeBasic remake of his point-and-click adventure game StarOdds is one of the best-looking FreeBasic games I've seen so far, with a simplistic cartoon art style that looks just splendid. (Check out the large screenshot below.)

Na_th_an sent me a very nice description of his upcoming game, so I've just pasted the entire thing into this article. (No point in recreating the wheel.) You can read the whole thing below. Enjoy!

-Pete

StarOdds was a game I coded during 1997 in my 486DX2. In that time, I didn't have Internet, so all I had was Qbasic 1.0 which shipped with MSDOS 6.0. Qbasic is really limited memory wise (even more than 4.5), and couldn't compile. I wanted to make a graphic adventure just like my fave games from Sierra or LucasFilms, and all I had to do it was Qbasic 1.0 or Moonrock 0.17 which I got from a magazine shareware CD.

A screenshot from the original 4-color version of Star Odds. Check out the review at V Planet!

Screenshot from the redrawn graphics made in 2000 (and then subsequently abandoned).

I tried to make it in SCREEN 7, i.e. EGA 320x200 in 16 colours, but as soon as I added more sprites I ran out of memory. Back in 1997 my coding skills were horrid. Probably it could have been done in 16 colours, but I just didn't know @�^$ about optimization memory-wise. So I decided to go even lower and use SCREEN 1, i.e. CGA 320x200 in 4 colours. Using PALETTE you could assign any of the 16 colours to the 4 attributes available, so it wouldn't look that bad, specially for me: I came from the 8 bits scene and I knew about lo-colour games.

The result was quite impressive, taking in account the tools I had to develop it. It featured a mouse driven interface with custom mouse cursors, point'n'click game dynamics, flicker free, fast GFX (even in uncompiled QBasic running in a 66 Mhz computer), big sprites, and "detailed" backgrounds which I made using 3DStudio for DOS v. 3.

I got internet in 1999 and, in late 2000, I discovered the QB/QBasic community through VPlanet. I thought it would be cool to send one of my best achievements to be reviewed. Mind you, "compiling" QB 4.5, graphics and sound libraries, EMS or XMS were things I could not manage using just QBasic and no internet, so this game was a true Achievement. I sent it in and after a while I discovered it got a "6"... 6 out of 35... It looked like Vance had an issue with lo-colour grapics. :)

I began redrawing the GFX, with a simple idea in my mind: using my recently discovered DirectQB and the QB 4.5 compiler to make an enhaced version. I made a bunch of GFX, but the last one in which I was working on got screwed when I had it almost finished due to a power failure. Then exams came, and I forgot about the project.

(You can view all of those old gfx here, if you are interested.)

This point-and-click adventure has great cartoonish graphics, as you can see in this screenshot. (I cropped off the bottom, since it was just black.)

In January, in the just middle of the fB craze, I remembered StarOdds in a conversation at QBnews forums, and found the reworked GFX. I thought it would be cool to make the new version in fB...

By the moment, all I have done is porting a GIF loader, making some auxiliary functions, and reworking a bit the GFXs. They suffered from really newbish defects, and used too many useless colours. I've been somewhat fixing them. I reduced the colour count to 16 for the backgrounds and 8 for the sprites. Now it looks great, and very retro. Check the screenshot above.

I plan using this thingo to develop a nice point'n'click engine in fB, which aetherFox and I will use for a bigger project. All I can say it is called "Backdoor Explossion" and that you will die laughing... when it's done.

Phantasm - Nekrophidius

Six or seven years ago, games like Nekrophidius's latest project, Phantasm were a dime a dozen. Back in 1998-2000, at the QB community's peak, RPGs were all the rage. Everyone and their mother was making one -- but it was very seldom that any game got past the engine demo phase. But at least people were coding stuff.

Somewhere along the line, the number of QB RPGs that went into development trickled to a handful, and then finally to almost none at the moment. It's been a long time since we've seen a new RPG... but now that FB is around, it looks like Nekrophidius is ready to start up the RPG hysteria again.

Nek's game, entitled Phantasm, is the first serious FreeBasic RPG I've seen in development, and so far it's looking pretty spiffy. Although so far there's just a simple engine demo available, the demo features attractive, colorful graphics, some nice music, and a solid walking engine. It's certainly nothing amazing, but it's a good foundation to build a game on.

NPCs will say different phrases to you depending on who you select as your lead character.

Nek began this game with the lofty goal of completing the entire thing within two days, kind of like what DarkDread used to do with the Secret of Cooey games a few years ago in his quick-and-dirty RPG coding competitions. Anyhow, here's the word straight from the man himself:

"This is an RPG I was cramming on to compete in SJ Zero's 48 hour FB compo. I didn't finish the game within the time frame and it's still unfinished, but here it is in its raw, in-progress form. It's a little primitive, okay it's very primitive, but it was a quickie so whaddyagonnado. :D Anyways, it uses PTCXL and is compiled in windowed mode so screenshots should be far too easy to take. [Thanks Nek, they were.] There's only one interesting feature about this game, and that's the lead character can be changed by going to the ingame menu (press ESC while playing) and selecting "Switch". Some dialogues change depending on who's the lead character, and the lead character gets party initiative in combat."

You can download the demo at: http://www.nodtveidt.net/phantasm.zip. "It's 3.96MB, but hey, it's from me so it's expected to be big. :D"

Will it ever get finished? Well, there's no timeframe in place, but maybe, just maybe it will get done: "I'll finish this game someday, I promise...hehehe :)" says Nekrophidius.

We need games for future Galleries! Send information and screenshots to Pete to have your game featured.

FreeBasic is our future. OUR Future.

Written by SJ Zero

The wheels of fate which are so apt at rolling merrily along against the wishes of those who would enjoy things to remain as they were continue to roll along, in all things. Both FreeBASIC and the passage of technology from 16-bit DOS to 32-bit Windows are unstoppable, and it's about time the community realized it and instead of fighting against the tiny, pathetic minutae which makes FreeBASIC only 99.9% compatible with old QB code, we start doing what we do best -- making do with what we have.

In the case of FreeBASIC, we have a LOT. Full windows and linux multimedia APIs including 3d graphics and sound(with more being added by the week), pointers, function pointers, full support for nearly every non I/O QB keyword(and most I/O commands too, now), math rivalling C in terms of speed, compilation on at least 3 OSes, we've got a LOT.

The black FreeBasic stallion rides in to save the day.

That said, I'm absolutely sickened by those who are throwing away this opportunity, one which 99% of communities like ours never dream of getting, to move into the future and get a fresh start (with all our code intact), over literal trivialities.

So far, the community's best coders have stepped up to plate to address every single concern that has popped up. Version .1 of FreeBASIC didn't come with a QB compatible graphics library. A library is now included which even allows you to use the old syntax in commands, such as line (x1,y1)-(x2,y2),colr. Another graphics library, code compatible with QB programs, doesn't even require flip() to be used. With all this, a single, ancient, largely useless(in the context of a quasi-modern game using page flipping, certainly) command has kept people from making the jump.

When FreeBASIC first came out, there were no decent IDEs for it. VonGodric stepped up to plate and gave us fbIDE, which tries to do a reasonable job of reinterpeting the QB IDE in Windows and largely succeeds. Some people didn't like it because the /wrong F-KEY was used for compile and run!/ It's madness, pure and simple. I have to wonder if, when Nekrophidius releases his IDE, we'll have people demanding he cease support for multiple file projects?

Programmers throughout the community seem to be forgetting they're programmers in many cases, and complaining about trifles which in nearly every case could either be coded by those complaining (many of freebasics coolest features weren't written by v1ctor! .11s new sdl tertiary lib support(ie. sdl_net, sdl_ttf, etc...) were done by people who just wanted those libs running! The qbgfx lib which ships with it was done by someone else who wanted to see a qbgfx lib as well!), or are fundamental differences between 16-bit and 32-bit code which cannot be reconciled without using QB in DOS.

Speaking of DOS, some have seen FreeBASIC, with it's win32 and linux support, as an attack on the venerable platform. Whine no more, my luddite brethren, because FreeBASIC has also been ported to DOS.

Perhaps I'm just cranky. Perhaps I'm out of line. Perhaps I've just seen what Open Source can do in the hands of QBers and I'm excited for the future of the community for the first time since 1999. Whatever it is, it's making me wish I could just tell everyone clinging to QB over such things to GROW UP, because unfortunately, the age of dos, such as it was, is over.

QB is dead. Long live QB through its bastard son, FB.

SJ Zero

P.S. Read my post on Qbasic News concerning QBXL. I'm sorry. This is actually my last qb related message anywhere until the situation is resolved. I vow to everyone who waits for the new issue that when I finish my exile, the next qbxl will be ready, and it will be the greatest issue ever.

Scorched Planets Review

Written by Zap

INFO

Scorched Planets by Joakim can be played either versus the computer, or versus another player on the same keyboard. The download is 351KB, which includes nicely commented source code, and a readme file to get you started. You can download the game at this address.

GAMEPLAY

If you've ever played Scorched Earth, or a similar game, the idea behind this game will be easy to grasp for you. Basicly, you aim your gun, set the velocity of your shot, and shoot. Your goal is to hit the opposite player, either computer controlled or played by a friend.

This particular game has a number of things to make this concept more interesting. First of all, it's set in outer space, but most joyful is that you can't just shoot in a straight line nor an arc, because the pull of gravity from the planets that exists in the playfield influence the flight of your shot.

Phew, saved by gravity. I drew the flight of the bullet so you can get an idea of how it works.

That feature makes the game a hundred times more fun to play, since you really have to think of how you will get to shoot your opponent, who will often be hidden away behind one or more planets. The first few time you play Scorched Planets, you will most likely have a hard time shooting the other player, but by trial and error you quickly grasp the concept of it all, and you will soon be able to have the bullet make intricate paths through the space towards its goal.

The playfields you fight your battle on are ofcourse randomly generated, which makes sure you will always be challenged when you play this game. Sometimes the playfields are sparse of planets, and sometimes there are alot, but I have yet to experience that there were too few or too many planets to be able to complete in crushing the other player.

There is one feature I miss, for all this good stuff I have just mentioned, and that is the possibility to upgrade your weapons between plays. Implementing that feature would have made this a really good game, but as this game was made for a short-lasting competition, I think it's perfectly understandable that it was not included, although I still miss it ;)

Gameplay Rating:
⁷/₁₀
It's fun, addictive, but is missing some aspects to make it perfect.

GRAPHICS

Minigolf in outer space anyone?

The graphic side of Scorched Planets is around what you'd expect of a game created quickly for a competition. You don't get too many details of the playfield, for example there are no background stars or anything, but what there is, is pretty well done. The planets looks good and realistic, with shadows and all. This brings me on to a bad thing about those planets: There are only three different kinds. In the beginning you don't think too much of it, but later on looking at the same planets over and over can be a bit anoying. Again, I don't think the game should be blamed too much for this lack, becourse of the time-schedule within it was created. I'm just mentioning it as a thing that would be nice to see changed in a future version, if such a one is to be made.

Staying in the line of bad things about the graphics, I want to mention the space "ships" that you control. They look nice and all, but I'd expected to see them having a gun barrel or something like that, and got disappointed when I saw that all there were, were two red circles... Actually, the way you shoot off your bullet kinda reminds me of a game of minigolf.

The auther did implement a particle system, though, and that is pretty successful, although it would have looked even better if he had used some more particles when one of the players are hit. That part is a bit too "silent".

Graphics Rating:
⁶/₁₀
Average, the images are good, it has effects, but it's lacking here and there.

SOUND EFFECTS & MUSIC

The first many times I played Scorched Planets, I played it without sound on, and it was fun. Then, I got to this part of the review section and figured that I would be better able to review the sound if I had actually heard it. So I turned up my sound and fired up Scorched Planets.

At first I got disappointed. The music, well, it is good, but it's really bad picked for a game of this type. It's silent, easy going, slow, "fine". Just not suitable for an action game.

Then I went on to play the game, and I got positively chocked this time. The sound effects are just as I had hoped. They really draw you into the game, heightens the fun, and makes you feel like you're in the middle of a dog fight in outer space.

SFX Rating:
⁹/₁₀
Almost perfect. It hightens the gameplay a lot, and draws you into it. Music Rating:
³/₁₀
It's there, it sounds nice, but it was picked for a wrong game... Or the other way around.

CONCLUSION

This game has both arguments for and against - Overall it's well carried out, it's fun and addictive, and the sound effects boosts all these. On the other hand, the music seems totally out of place to me, and there's an importent feature that would give this game a gameplay among the bests, that isn't there. Im speaking of the ability to by improvements to your ship, here.

I know that you might not think it's fair to expect this feature to be included, because of the fact that this game was made for a short competition, but I think it is fair, since otherwise it might get a higher rating than a game that was actually finished, and that would be messy ;) So I've rated this game as-is.

Overall Rating:
63%
Fun, addictive, well carried out, although incomplete and flawed in some parts.

Download this game, or visit Zap's website, FreeBasic.tk.

Realistic 3D Modelling in QBasic: A Tutorial

Written by Mike Wechsler

"We were pinned down and it didn't look good."

We were pinned down and it didn't look good.

"Pete," I whispered, "if we don't make it through this, I want you to know that it's been a pleasure being your roommate."

"Don't talk like that!" Pete barked back as he gave me a sharp slap across the face.

I came to my senses and realized that Pete wouldn't let anything happen to me, not if he could help it. And I had a feeling that he could use QBasic to get us out of this bind.

That night was over 6 months ago, but I still remember it like it was just yesterday. It was our first night of school; Pete saved my life. I won't bore you with the details though, I am sure you have a healthy enough imagination to figure out what happened. Suffice to say, though, that it took a long night of coding, several "all-flavors-combined" Slushies and a startling awakening with a cold hand on my privates before I knew we were in the clear.

Some of you may be asking yourselves what this has to do with QBasic� Well I'll tell you: it has EVERYTHING to do with QBasic. After all, isn't there a little QBasic inside all of us? Isn't QBasic the common bond that we all share, from the lowliest level one dungeon troll to the highest level 14+ dragon mage? Isn't QBasic as described by Obi Wan Kenobi in the famous movie Star Trek, the Return of Khan, an energy field created by all living things that surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together? I think if you search within yourself you will find that the answer to all these questions is "yes".

Just the other day, I was driving my automobile when I saw a bumper sticker that seemed to sum up what I was thinking: "Don't mess with Texas!"

Now it's not that I have a particular affinity for Texas, in fact, the most I have seen of it is its rather lackluster airport. The fact stands, though, that 49 out of 50 states (roughly 98% of the country) know which state in particular not to mess with and I respect that. The only change I would make is that it would read "Don't mess with QBASIC!!!!!!!!1 LOLOL OMG!" because if there is one thing in life I know not to mess with it is QBasic� and I'll tell you why.

Several weeks ago, Pete and I had a falling out. I will take full responsibility for it; I should have known better than to interrupt him during his morning meditation. This was only the first in a long list of mistakes I made, though. Later that day I accidentally insulted Pete's favorite stand up comedian: Jeff Foxworthy. Pete had some harsh words with me but sent me on my way with only a tongue lashing. The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, though, was when I accidentally "messed" with Pete's pride an joy� QBasic. You see, I was only experimenting, but I made this mistake of installing C++ on my computer. Somehow Pete found out about this and he was livid. You see, he won't allow any rival programming languages within 20 feet of his computer. He is not afraid; he just says QBasic could act up if it comes into conflict with other languages. I have always just trusted him on this point since he is the expert. Pete sent me to bed without dinner and did not talk to me for the next two weeks. He was really mad.

Finally, though, I figured out a way to win him back. You see, Pete is a sucker for colonial era wood carvings. I just so happened to come across a certain colonial era woodcarving that he was looking for to add to his collection. When I gave it to him, wrapped in a bow and tissue paper, I could see the tears in his eyes. Pete is a man of few words, but from the firm handshake he gave me, I could tell that we were friends again.

Some of you may be wondering what Pete's favorite websites are. Well, obviously Pete's QBasic Site is one of them. But after that, he really enjoys EricZapakin.tk, a website that he and I founded. Eric Zapakin is a friend of ours who we care about very much. Also, Pete encourages people to help me get myself a free item at http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=13995716 since he says he would give me anything I wanted if he could afford it. Pete also likes http://www.catsandrabbitsandmore.com for all his information on cats, rabbits and more!

In conclusion, I invite your feedback, but please send it to Pete to give to me since I am not allowed to use the computer after it gets dark outside. Next month I will attempt to answer reader questions if I get any and if not I will make some up and then answer them possibly.

Mike's not allowed to touch a computer after dark. To respond, email Pete at: pberg1@gmail.com

Chess Move Generator Competition

Organized by Neuro

In the past, QB Express has run its own competitions -- which have been a mild success thus far, but they haven't been as popular as we would have liked. Perhaps the reason is because there are just far too many competitions going on in the QB scene, and too few people to participate.

So instead of spending a lot of time starting and running a whole new competition, I've decided to back Neuro's new "Chess Move Generator" competition over at QBasic News. Check it out and enter it -- this is a cool challenge! Although technically it's a QB challenge, FB entries should be acceptable. Besides, the code will be virtually identical between FB and QB, since it's all text.

-Pete

This challenge can be found at this forum topic. Go there to ask questions, respond or submit your entries!

Alright here is the challenge:

Write a program which takes as input a chess board, like so:

rnbqkbnr
pppppppp
........
........
........
........
PPPPPPPP
RNBQKBNR
castle=KQkq
enpas=
turn=W

And then outputs all legal moves for that position, taking into consideration castling and en passant.

The input is shown from white's perspective (in other words, A8 is upper-left, H8 is upper-right, A1 is lower left, H1 is lower right)

A chess board from white's perspective.

castle= tells about castling legalities
K=white kingside legal, Q = white queenside legal,
k = black kingside legal, q = black queenside legal
enpas= tells which (if any) file en passant is legal on, e.g., enpas=C mean en passant is legal on the C file.
turn= tells whose turn it is (so don't check for white's legal moves if it's blacks turn). Can either be W or B

and for the pieces:

K=white king, k=black king,
Q=white queen, q=black queen
R=white rook, r=black rook,
B=white bishop, b=black bishop,
N=white knight, n=black knight
P=white pawn, p=black pawn,
. = empty square

The output should be a list of moves, seperated by either comma or new line (at your leisure).

And the output may be in coordinate notation, or, if you're really feeling up to the challenge, in Algebraic notation.

For example, for white castling kingside, E5-E7 is acceptable, the proper way, however would be "o-o"

Algebraic notation would be like this:

e2-e4 (pawn move) would just be e4
e4-d5 (pawn capturing) would be exd5
g1-f3 (knight move) would be Nf3

In algebraic notation, captures use a "x" instead of "-", and you use the name of the piece moving rather than just coordinates (e.g., Nf3), unless the piece moving is a pawn in which case all you need is the destinateion coordinate (e.g., e4).

Also in algebraic notation, en passant moves have a little "ep" at the end (example: exd3ep).

Also, if more than one piece of the same type can move to a given square, it must disambiguate by specifiying the unique rank or file of the moving piece (example: Ng-f3 which reads "knight on G to f3)

And, kingside castling is marked as "o-o" and queenside as "o-o-o"

Also, obviously it must print all the legal moves, and only the legal moves, so if it's white's turn it should not show moves that put white in check.

This would be an example output from the input shown above:

Legal Moves:
a2-a3
a2-a4
b1-a3
b1-c3
b2-b3
b3-b4
.....
h2-h4
end of list

Obviously this requires a basic knowledge of the rules of chess (not to mention an interest).

By the way, if you're wondering, I'm not trying to get anyone to do my homework for me (I've actually already completed this challenge but found it to be pretty fun and really get the mental juices flowing).

So... good luck

Peace
-- Eric / neuro

Visit the Chess Move Generator challenge thread to enter!

I.F. Games Tutorial, Chapter 2

Written by Na_th_an

Last time we chatted we were discussing about how an IF engine works, and I explained the Parser and the Location Manager. Now it's time for hardcore stuff: the Objects Manager.

1.3. THE OBJECTS MANAGER

Remember last chapter, when we talked about exceptions? Yeah, those "special" things, what actually builds your adventure. Well, the Objects Manager deals with everything that's not an exception, i.e. with everything "normal". For example, when you type "open box", the Objects Manager will make that box open. When you type "examine rock", the Objects Manager will take care of it and show the description.

The Objects Manager is like the brains of your Interactive Fiction game. It is the true engine: makes everything work.

1.3.1. THE OBJECTS DATA TYPE

To begin with, we need to define some data types. The Objects Manager deals with objects in your game, so you need a powerful data type that's able to hold all the information your objects need. Not just their name, but also things like their description and some flags to tell whether the object is a light source or not, whether it is a container or not, whether you can wear it or not, whether it is a weapon or not... and things like size or weight, if you are really into making a complex engine.

For example, we could use something like this:

Const MAXOBJECTS = 255                  ' Enough? :P

Type ObjectType
   id As Integer   ' an unique identifier.
   n As String * 20   ' object's name.
   d As String * 255   ' object's description.
   Lc As Integer        ' where the object is located.
   Cont As Integer   ' if the obj. is a container, where it contains.
   status As Integer   ' status flags
   Weight As Integer   ' object's weight
   Size As Integer   ' object's size
   Capacity As Integer   ' if the obj. is a container, object's capacity
   GN As Integer   ' gender/number.
End Type

Dim Shared objs(MAXOBJECTS) As ObjectType      ' Objects array.

This needs a bit of explanation. Let's go field by field explaining what's it for.

id as Integer

This will identify your object in the game. Every object should be assigned a unique number. You can be wondering... doesn't the array index suffice? The answer is no. You may use the array index, but using a separate id allows you to do some nasty stuff as many objects behaving similar or to categorize stuff easily. Leave it there, it may be useful in the future. We'll use it as a unique identifier in this tutorial.

n as String * 20

Your object's name, or how it will be called in the adventure. This has to be a word that's in the dictionary, so the parser understands it. For example, you have a green rock, name it rock, and add rock to the dictionary, as well as green. When the Objects Manager looks for an object the player has specified in his or her input, it uses this field.

d as String * 255

Your object's description. It should be a short text telling something about the object. This is the text which is displayed when the player's command is "examine object". Try to be gentle with descriptions. The player usually likes to read

Lc as Integer

This field tells the manager where the object is. It can be a valid location number (as defined in your locations file), or a special location. Special locations can be your inventory, the clothes you are wearing, your weapon, or another object. For example, I use "0" for the inventory, "-1" for your clothes, "-2" for your offensive weapon" and "-3" for your deffensive weapon. This way, if some object's Lc = 0 that means that it's in your inventory, if its Lc = -1 it means that you are wearing it, etcetera.

Cont as Integer

This is the location where an object contains another, if it is a container. This may sound puzzling. "the location where an object contains another", what the hell is that? You just read that every object has a Lc field telling where it is. Well, if we have an object "case" and an object "pen", you could put the pen inside the case. What would the pen's Lc field contain in such a case? i.e. where is the pen? you can put a 0 or a location number here, you need something special. Well, that's what "Cont" is. If we set the case's Cont to 1000, when the pen is inside the case its Lc will equal 1000.

Note that you can't reuse location numbers. 0, -1, -2, and -3 are reserved. Then you have your room numbers. That's why I always start containers location from 1000. I don't think I will ever need 1000 rooms, so that's fine.

Let's see another example: You have a room, which location id is 23. You have two objects, the pen and the case, which have Lc = 23, so they are in that room. The case is a container and has Cont = 1000. If you get the pen, its Lc will become 0, as it will go to your inventory. You get the case, its Lc will become 0 as well. You drop the pen, its Lc will become 23 again. You put the pen inside the case, the pen's Lc will become 1000. The case's Lc keeps being 0. You drop the case, the pen's Lc keeps being 1000, the case's is now 23. Get it?

Status as Integer

Status will contain the status flags. We will be using it as a binary flags container, using each of the number's bits to give information about the objects features. You have to decide which bit is for each feature. For example:

bit 0 if set, object is a container
bit 1 if set, object is open (this bit only makes sense if bit 0 is set)
bit 2 if set, object is a light source
bit 3 if set, object is turned on (this bit only makes sense if bit 2 is set)
bit 4 if set, object can be worn, i.e. it is a hat or a t-shirt
bit 5 if set, object is an offensive weapon, for example a sword or a gun.
bit 6 if set, object is a deffensive weapon, for example a shield or a helmet.

You can define more features, for example you can use a bit to tell if the object can be fired, i.e. it is a gun so it can be fired against someone, or whatever you want.

Obviously, you have to know how to work with single bits inside an integer value. It's not very hard. The formulae are easy to find and understand:

For example, to check if bit "n" is set, you check if (status and 2^n) = 2^n, i.e. to check if an object is a light source you have to check if (status and 4) = 4.
To unset a bit, you just do status = status and (not 2^n). For example, to "close" an object you have to unset bit 1, so you do status = status and (not 2).
To set a bit, you just do status = status or 2^n. For example, to "turn on" an object, you have to set bit 3, so you do status = status or 8.

To toggle a bit, you just do status = status xor 2^n.

Weight as Integer

The object's weight. This can be extremely useful. We don't expect that the player can carry everything he or she wants. If you are carrying a big sword, by no means you can carry a heavy chair. Callibration can be difficult, and the best way to solve it is trial and error. For example, you can make a wallet weight 1, then make a chair weight 10. Everything is relative.

Size as Integer

This will specify how big your object is. This is used when attempting to put an object inside a container. By no means your engine should allow to put that heavy chair inside a wallet. When the engine is in the process of attending a "put a into b" command, it checks if the a's size is smaller than b's capacity. If that happens, it checks also if there's room inside b for a. You can have a wallet with capacity 5 and 10 pens with size 1, that menas that you can only put 5 of them inside the wallet.

Capacity as Integer

As mentioned above, the object's capacity. Of course, this only has a meaning if the object is a container, i.e. if bit 0 in its status field is set. See how everything works together?

GN as Integer

The objects gender/number. Gender is not needed in English. It is in Spanish, that's why I considered it - heh. Number is important. It will affect the engine so it builds the messages in plural or singular. For example you can consider 1 = singular, 2 = plural. That way, if you take a box, the message will be "you take it". If you take a pair of trowsers, the message will be "you take them". This is just cosmetic, but I consider such kind of details very important. Remember that the player will be reading a whole lot.

You can think about many more fields to add, depending on how your game will be. You could, for example, add a bit to the status variable for translucency, and a field for the degree of translucency, or you can reuse the capacity field for things like how much light a light source throws. For example, a match will suffice to light a small location, but it will fail to light a cave.

1.3.2. USEFUL GLOBAL PARAMETERS

You need to define some values as well which can be considered global. For example, how much weight your character is able to carry at a time, which object is he using as an offensive or deffensive weapon, and stuff like that. As I stuff everything inside a module, I use SHARED variables for this. Those only have meaning inside the module, but if you need them outside (for example, you could make your player get stronger using an exception), it's wise to write a SUB to modify its value from outside and a FUNCTION to read it:

Dim Shared maxWeight As Integer

Function GetMaxWeight () As Integer
   GetMaxWeight = maxWeight
End Function

Sub SetMaxWeight (newMaxWeight As Integer)
   maxWeight = newMaxWeight
End Function

That way, if you need to modify such values from outside, you just export the declarations to your module's .bi include file (i.e. add Declare Function GetMaxWeight() As Integer, etc... to ObjectsManager.bi). This avoid the need of having to declare inter-module globals which is not a very good practice.

1.3.3. DOWN TO THE MUDDY WATERS OF DESIGNING CODE

Basicly, the Objects Manager is built of a bunch of procedures, one for each possible command allowed in the game. Those procedures do the pertinent checks, and perform changes in the objects fields.

1.3.3.1. Checks.

For example, if the player writes "put pen into case", a procedure for "put" has to be called. In this procedure, several checks are done first:

Both pen and case exist in the game.
Both pen and case are reachable. What does that mean? it means that whether they are in the current location, or they are in the inventory, or they are inside an object which is open, or they are inside an object which is inside another object and both are open, and you can go on infinitly until the stack is flooded (hint: recursive call).
The case is a container, i.e. its bit 0 is set.
The case is open, i.e. its bit 1 is set.
The pen fits in the case, i.e. its "size" is less or equal than the case's "capacity".
There's enough room for the pen in the case, i.e. the sum of all the "size" fields of the objects that are inside the case plus the pen's "size" field is less or equal than the case's "capacity"

(You may consider that the two last checks can be done with the latter, but this is done that way so the "error" messages (given if the condition fails) are more clear)

1.3.3.2. Action.

Once everything has been checked, the engine will put the pen inside the case, i.e., it will set the pen's "lc" field to the value which is in the case's "cont" field.

1.3.3.3. More procedures and functions.

As you may have noticed, there are some checks that have to be performed always, for example, checking if the objects are reachable or if the objects exist in the adventure. It's good practice (and sometimes it is completely needed, as we'll see very soon) to put these checks in easily callable functions of procedure.

For example, you need a recursive function to check if something is reachable from the current location. If you define it correctly, it won't harm your stack very much, and it will be fast enough. Note that there won't be many recursions in the average case. The pseudocode for that function would be something like this:

- Check if object is in current location id.
- If not, check if object is in the inventory.
- If not, check if object is worn.
- If not, for each container which is in the current location or in the inventory and is opened,
-> call recursively this function passing the object's "cont" field as location id.

1.3.4 OBSERVERS AND MODIFIERS

You need those to be able to code the exceptions. The objects array is private to this module, so it is good practice (and will come really handy later) to write a modifier and an observer function for each parameter you feel necesary. For example, you may want to add a couple of functions to modify/check every object attribute:

Sub SetContainer (objId as Integer, value as Integer)
   if value = 1 then
      objs(objId).status = objs(objId).status Or 1
   else
      objs(objId).status = objs(objId).status And (Not 1)
   end if
End Sub

Function GetContainer (objId as Integer) as Integer
   GetContainer = objs(objId).status And 1
End Function

Exporting the declaration to these functions to the .bi file will allow you to alter or to check the attributes of your objects from any module.

And we are done by now. On next chapter, we'll see everything working together alongside a small and simple implementation in BASIC of everything which has been explained - i.e. a little game coded using these techniques. Stay tuned!

Na_th_an can be found at the QBasic News Forums, or you can visit his website.

Playing WAVE Files Through The Windows API

Written by aetherfox

I have seen many programs written with VB that want to have a 'beep' or 'ding' and they actually add a control and bust up the size of the program by an insane amount. Fortunately for clever people like me or you, the API has a nice little function that will do the work of playing a wave file. And with little enhancements to the function, you could even use it in a simple game!

The API call you need to use to access this magical function is as follows:


Private Declare Function sndPlaySound Lib "winmm.dll" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" (ByVal lpszSoundName As String, ByVal uFlags As Long) As Long

The function has two parameters:

ByVal lpszSoundName As String [the wave file to play]
ByVal uFlags As Long [how to play it]

The second parameter of this function is very useful to play your wave file in different ways. Maybe you want it to loop, maybe you want to play it once - this is how to do it. Most API calls have handy-dandy constants to make life easy, and the ones for this are:

Const SND_ASYNC = &H1
Const SND_LOOP = &H8
Const SND_NODEFAULT = &H2
Const SND_SYNC = &H0
Const SND_NOSTOP = &H10
Const SND_MEMORY = &H4

If we wish to use more than one of these constants in conjunction, we link them with an "or" statement so that both constants will have an effect. For example, it is best to use SND_ASYNC along with SND_LOOP to ensure that the program can continue functioning while the looped wave file is playing. If we used SND_SYNC with SND_LOOP, we would never get control back to our program!

Example:

sndPlaySound App.path & "\ding.wav", SND_ASYNC or SND_LOOP

The constants do the following:

SND_ASYNC - plays the wave with the ability to interrupt all currently playing waves. This is to ensure that the wave is heard.

SND_LOOP - loops the wave file.

SND_NODEFAULT - makes sure that if the wave sound is not found, no other sound will be played in it's place (the Windows 'ping').

SND_SYNC - plays the wave file without returning control to the program until the wave is finished playing.

SND_NOSTOP - plays the wave file but ensuring that if another wave file is playing, not to interrupt it. This is a good way to make sure you never play a sound halfway through another one.

SND_MEMORY - plays a wave file that is stored in memory. Storing a wave file in memory is easily done by using Get.

So to play the sound 'monkey.wav' that is stored in the '\sounds' folder of the application path by looping it, I would do:


sndPlaySound App.Path & "\sounds\monkey.wav", SND_LOOP

To use more than one constant, then link them with Or to make sure they will have an equal effect.

While this method is simple, in many cases it will suffice. For advanced handling of sound, use DirectSound. This method however, will work on every language that can handle the API (the way to call the API will obviously be different). The major example here is freeBASIC; instead of using FMOD to play a wav file, you can use this method.

aetherFox
avinashvora [at] gmail [dot] com.
http://avinash.qbxl.net

Download this tutorial, or contact aetherfox.

Music Composition

Written by Matt2Jones

Dun - Dun

Part I - Justification

This is probably gonna be the hardest part of the article; Explaining why the fuck I wrote it. What useful purpose could an artical on score-composition serve in... Now - the era of sequencers and excessive samples and [insert other technicle buzzwords]... I dunno, EQ pedals and shit?

Realisticly it's not gonna be of use to most of you. I only know of one music program that lets you write the notes onto the musical stave thing, and thats a midi program for windows 3.1, which is technically redundant and unfashionably 'retro' at the moment, and if any of you have a more advanced program that allows for musical notation, you know more then I do about the subject.

Never the less, I persist. Basicly I find this shit interesting and explaining it to someone else is a good way to figure it out for definate yourself (paraphrased, see Jaxom, White Rider), and, for those of you who share my interest, midi's can be, with just the touch of a button! (thank you marketing devision), converted to really sweet sounding wav's/mp3's using all your amazing samples and EQ pedals...

I mean, if they were good enough for Beethoven/Tchaikovskii(Jesus christ how do you spell his fucking name?)/Motzart... and to a lesser extent Bach, old-school score's should be good enough for you, the modest *B coder.

See the '*' is a wild card, indicating either 'Q' or 'P' or 'F', which I here has pretty much converted the entire nation while I was gone, and while I don't want to leave QB, I don't want to unnessesarly offend someone today either, so I play it safe - that's Politics!.

PART II - Rudiments

Here be basic knowlage of music to Jnr cert standard.

I Should explain. Everything contained her-in is the stuff I have learned in the past year and 4 months since I took up music for leaving cert in my school, cause they wouldn't let me leave a blank spot on my time table (power tripping bastards...). Because I'm doing it as an examination subject I'm not getting a complete musical education, I'm just being told what they're gonna ask me in June, so that's all I can tell you. Any 'topics' I skip I skip because I don't need to be taught them. Apologies all round.

Now to the shit:

Notes:

Musical 'sounds' are divided into seven (really eleven) notes, which loop infinatly. The seven musical notes are:

A B C D E F G

Wow, that was patronising.

Well, actually the notes are

A C# B C C# D D# F F# G G#

Notice that between each pair of notes (eg. A and B) there is a Sharp note (#), except for Between B + C, and E + F. This is a peculiarity that exists in reality, but when you're writing the score you don't have to worry about it.

This is so stupidly simple you may not understand it until you see the point of it.

Keys:

Every song starts with the First note. How Profound. The first note you is then followed by a second note, and then a third (come on, you've all heard music before), but how do you choose what the first, second, third etc notes are? Which will sound good? Is there any way of knowing? [I can't think of a way to conclude these rhetorical quips so I'll start a new paragraph]

The first note of a song will allways sound good, because in music what your hearing is not the notes, but the differences between the notes (I remember there was a speach in Angle about this once), so the first note will always sound fine. However, once you've played one note, you are now limited in choice as to which notes you can follow this with without the music sounding dissonant, and after choosing that second note, your choices for a third are even more limited, often in different ways. The Concept of a 'Key' is an easy means of predicting which notes can come next, taking into account all the previous notes.

In a Concice, Memorable, Simple and Obvious (but also kind of wrong) nutshell, it is this.

If the first note is 'C', then you are in the Key of 'C', and the notes that can pleasently follow are

C D E F G A B ... repeating on...

Look familiar? Thats because its the alphabet you retard.

Anyway, one of the proporties of the key of C is that all the notes that sound good when played after it are 'Natural' notes (ie. Not Sharps #'s or Flats b's).

If you look at the spaces between these notes, ie. the notes from the eleven mentioned earlier that have been skipped, you will find a pattern:

skip one, skip one, don't skip any, skip one, skip one, skip one, don't skip any

This is the pattern you can apply to any note from the eleven, to find all the other notes in it's Key. For example: the Key of A is

A skip one B skip one C# don't skip any D skip one E skip one F# skip one G# don't skip any

A B C# D E F# G#

These are the 'intervals' for a Major Key, Ie. one that sounds happy, and can be applied to any note to get the notes in its Major Key. Its important to remember that the "Key of C" is call the "Key of C major", even though the major is omitted, because there are other types of Keys, with different intervals between the notes, and mixing them up would be disasterous.

To Recap:

The Key is the first note you play, which determines the notes you can play afterwards in the song.

Chords and Harmony:

So far we've discussed Notes, and playing notes one after another so that they sound good in sequence, but what about playing notes at the same time? This is called Harmony, and a simple way to get good results is to use Chords. Anyone who knows anything about music is laughing so hard at me right about now.

Think of a Chord like a Key for the moment, like a stencil you plonk down on a note to reveal what other notes would sound good played at the same time (I'm proud of that similae), but while the Key was a stencil you... No wait, lets call them bitmasks! We're all coders here after all... (wow, I'm really getting into this...)

Anyway, while you AND the KeyBitMask with the ListOfNotes... Okay this is stupid. While the stencil for the Keys was laid over the list of all notes to reveal the notes in the key, the stencil for the chord is laid over the list of notes IN THE KEY YOUR IN to reveal all the notes in the Chord. As follows:

Key of C


C D E F G A B
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

So C is the 1st note of the key, D is the 2nd, E is the 3rd, F is the 4th, G is the 5th, A is the 6th and B is the 7th.

Now the Chord of C consists of

C E G  ... Repeat indefinatly
1 3 5

Now look at the Relationship between these three notes, in terms of the Key of C. The first one, C, is called the Root note, so this is the Chord C, the middle note in the Chord is E, this is called the '3rd' because there is a '3' under it, and the last note is called the '5th', because there is a five under it. In terms of the key the intervals between each note in the chord are:

skip one, skip one, skip two

Why skip two? To get back to C again, in the Octave above (ie. Second iteration of the notes 1 to 7).

This is now the formula you use to get the notes of a chord, from the notes in a key.

Examples:

Key of C:
C D E F G A B

Chord of F:
F A C

Chord of G:
G B D

Now lets examine the notes in the chords further.

Key of C Chord I - C C E G

The 'intervals' between (Notice I am putting intervals within inverted comma's, this is because I am not talking about actual musical intervals, which are specificly defined, but the word is useful to help describe this phenominon) actual physical musical notes, relative to the list of eleven notes I gave earlier, not the notes in the key are as follows:

Skip three, Skip two, Skip four

Now lets plonk the chord stencil down on the next note in the key, D, and see what the 'intervals' are between the notes, relative to the list of eleven I blah blah blah.

Key of C

Chord II - D

D F A

Skip two, Skip three, Skip four

Oh Fuck they aren't the same. Whatever are we to do.

They formulae I've given you are not wrong, and the 'intervals' between the notes in the different chords should be different, and this is the explanation.

There are patterns of 'intervals' that, when applied to a note result in other notes which sound harmonious when played alongside the Root. Like keys, which I'll explain more of later, there is more then one pattern which can be used, and each of these patterns has the desirable side effect of evoking an emotional reaction from a well balanced human being (or you). This is how films manipulate you with sound so easily. The four 'patterns' of 'intervals' that I know of are:

Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented

Which are, as I mentioned, names for styles of Keys and styles of Chords.

Now unfortunatly, while a C Major chord sounds nice and happy by itself, and a D major chord sounds equally happy and nice by itself, together they sound shitty. Why? Lets examine it.

'Intervals' for Major Chord: Skip three, Skip two, Skip four
Chord C -- C skip three E skip two G  -- C E  G

Chord D -- D skip three F# skip two A -- D F# A

Now, in the Key of C, there is no F#, so playing C major, followed by D major in the Key of C, would sound all fucked. So what Chords can you play on D? Only One it turns out. Minor.

Now to save me the trouble of working out every fucking chord and note and key I'm gonna tell you straight up.

In a Major Key, the Chords are as follows

Chord I  - A Major Chord	-	eg. C
Chord II - A Minor Chord	-	eg. Dm
Chord III- A Minor Chord	-	eg. Em
Chord IV - A Major Chord	-	eg. F
Chord V  - A Major Chord	-	eg. G
Chord VI - A Minor Chord	-	eg. Am
Chord VII- A DIMINISHED Chord-	eg. Bdim

What does this mean for you? Well, it doesn't effect how you write the music at all, thanks to the wonderful invention of keys, but its nice to know that when you play a chord on D, in the Key of C, that its a minor chord, and so on.

Note:

Major Chords sound happy

Minor Chords sound sad

Augmented Chords sound "away in the clouds", (ie. don't ask me!)

Diminished Chords sound suspensful

Use this knowlage to your own dramatic effect.

Okay, I actually think thats it for the Rudiments. You know have the theory to understand the next installment of the tutorial, which involves actually writing music.

For the record the following chapter should be:

1. Rudiments

2. Introduction to Scores (key signatures etc), Using Winjammer.

3. Chord progressions and writing 'left hand'/'lead' music

4. Modulating, Writing Bass Notes, writing with Up Beats, Writing drums

Matt2fuckingjones.

Email me with comments/critisism/questions: Matt2jones@yahoo.com

And on a Serious Note:

For anyone with actual musical knowledge, if I have made any major fuck ups in my explanations I would, first of all like to be notified, but secondly I would prefere to be notified by email, cause its private and I'd like to fully understand the situation before I publicly embarass myself, looking forward to your (inevitable) co-operation,

Download a formatted RTF version of this tutorial.

Text RPG Tutorial

Written by Nixon

Making a Text RPG can be very easy. You need to know exactly what you want it to do though. Things like is it real time or turn based. Can you shoot, can the player pick up things, are you going to have a map editor. These effect what kind of map data you use. Some are easyer then others because they allow less code to move around, and are easier to understand. Some are alittle difficult to use and have more code.

I have programmed as many possible types of maps that can be used. These can be combined to make use of different features. They all hold the same practical idea.

I will start with a simple one. If you copy the code and paste it in a new text file and name it "textrpg.bas". then open it in QBasic it should work unless you screwed it somehow, If you didn't it could have been me.

CLS
'gets map ready
DIM map(100, 100)
FOR y = 1 TO 10
        FOR x = 1 TO 10
                READ map(x, y)
                IF map(x, y) = 0 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 2: PRINT CHR$(176)
                IF map(x, y) = 2 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 6: PRINT CHR$(176)
                IF map(x, y) = 10 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 10: PRINT CHR$(6)
                IF map(x, y) = 11 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 7: PRINT CHR$(111)
        NEXT x
NEXT y

'sets player x and player y
px = 2
py = 9

'start of big loop
top:
'gets what is behind player
bg = SCREEN(py, px)
bgc = SCREEN(py, px, 1)

'puts player on the screen
LOCATE py, px: COLOR 15: PRINT CHR$(2)

'checks to see if a key is pressed
DO: P$ = INKEY$: LOOP UNTIL P$ <> ""

'clears player off screen and replaces with background
LOCATE py, px: COLOR bgc: PRINT CHR$(bg)

'checks to see if a certian key was pressed so that the player x  or player y
'can be moved to a new location.
IF P$ = "8" AND map(px, py - 1) <= 9 THEN py = py - 1
IF P$ = "5" AND map(px, py + 1) <= 9 THEN py = py + 1
IF P$ = "6" AND map(px + 1, py) <= 9 THEN px = px + 1
IF P$ = "4" AND map(px - 1, py) <= 9 THEN px = px - 1

'goes back to the top
GOTO top

'map data
DATA 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,11,02,02,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,02,02,02,02,10,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,02,10,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,02,02,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,02,02,00,10,00,00,10,10
DATA 10,00,02,00,10,10,10,00,00,10
DATA 10,02,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10

Simple huh?

Most of this makes sense. The only thing you might be confused about is why I use 00,02,10,11 in the data instead of using 1,2,3,4. Well if you look at my code in the keys part you will notice it checks the map for something. "map(px, py - 1) <= 9" This checks to see if the position it wants to move to is a walkable tile or a wall. I have used 00-09 as walkable tiles and 10-99 as wall tiles. This way I'm setup for when I add more walkable tiles. If you really want to be safe you can have 0-50 as walkables and 50-whatever as walls.

If you wanted to make items laying around then you should use a fake and chck when the player ontop of it by using

IF map(px, py) = 3 THEN map(px, py) = 0: bg = 176 : bgc = 2: score = score + 1

Put it after the keys so it happens as soon as you move onto it. It checks to see if the place where the player is a 3 on the map and if it is then it sets that part of the map to a normal walkable tile.

Now that you have taken all that code in you are ready to see the next map type.

CLS
'gets map ready
DIM map(100, 100), tiles(100)

'reads tiles data
READ amount
FOR i = 1 TO amount * 4
        READ tiles(i)
NEXT i

'reads map
FOR y = 1 TO 10
        FOR x = 1 TO 10
                READ map(x, y)
                LOCATE y, x
		'Prints right tile in right place
                FOR i = 1 TO 100 STEP 4
                        IF map(x, y) = tiles(i) THEN 
                                COLOR tiles(i + 2)
                                PRINT CHR$(tiles(i + 1))
                                EXIT FOR
                        END IF
                NEXT i
        NEXT x
NEXT y

'sets player x and player y
px = 2
py = 9

'start of big loop
top:
'gets what is behind player
bg = SCREEN(py, px)
bgc = SCREEN(py, px, 1)

'puts player on the screen
LOCATE py, px: COLOR 15: PRINT CHR$(2)

'checks to see if a key is pressed
DO: P$ = INKEY$: LOOP UNTIL P$ <> ""

'clears player off screen and replaces with background
LOCATE py, px: COLOR bgc: PRINT CHR$(bg)

'checks to see if a certian key was pressed so that the player x  or player y
'can be moved to a new location.
IF P$ = "8" AND tiles((map(px, py - 1) * 4)) = 0 THEN py = py - 1
IF P$ = "5" AND tiles((map(px, py + 1) * 4)) = 0 THEN py = py + 1
IF P$ = "6" AND tiles((map(px + 1, py) * 4)) = 0 THEN px = px + 1
IF P$ = "4" AND tiles((map(px - 1, py) * 4)) = 0 THEN px = px - 1
IF P$ = CHR$(27) THEN END

'goes back to the top
GOTO top

'map data
'Tile data
DATA 5

'tiles (Tile number, ASCII Character, Color, 0=walkable 1=wall)
DATA 1,176,2,0
DATA 2,6,10,1
DATA 3,177,6,0
DATA 4,176,9,1
DATA 5,111,7,1

'The map

DATA 04,04,04,04,04,04,02,02,02,02
DATA 04,04,04,04,04,01,01,02,01,02
DATA 04,04,04,04,04,01,01,01,02,02
DATA 04,04,04,04,01,02,01,01,01,02
DATA 02,01,04,04,02,01,01,02,01,02
DATA 02,01,02,01,01,03,03,03,03,02
DATA 02,01,03,03,03,03,05,01,02,02
DATA 02,03,03,01,01,01,02,01,01,02
DATA 02,03,01,01,05,01,01,01,02,02
DATA 02,02,02,02,02,02,02,02,02,02

This one is a little more complex. I only just came up with it. This one makes it easier to make a new tile. The tile can be any number and it doesn't effect the where the player moves. The 0 and the 1 change that.

DATA 1,176,2,0

The 0 at the end tells the player that he can move onto it, if it was a 1 then the player could not walk on it. This is the code it uses to check if it can go somewhere.

IF P$ = "8" AND tiles((map(px, py - 1) * 4)) = 0 THEN py = py - 1

Looks the same as the the code in the 1st program. It really is very much the same. It goes and sees what tile number is in the position and then if the tile has a 0, if so then the player moves.

Those two are pretty good but I still have more. Heres the 3rd one. It is kind similar to the one above.

CLS
'gets map ready
DIM map(100, 100), walls(100, 100)

FOR y = 1 TO 10
        FOR x = 1 TO 10
                READ map(x, y)
                LOCATE y, x
                COLOR VAL(MID$(STR$(map(x, y)), 1, 2))
                PRINT CHR$(VAL(MID$(STR$(map(x, y)), 3, 6)))
        NEXT x
NEXT y


FOR y = 1 TO 10
        FOR x = 1 TO 10
                READ walls(x, y)
        NEXT x
NEXT y



'sets player x and player y
px = 2
py = 9

'start of big loop
top:
'gets what is behind player
bg = SCREEN(py, px)
bgc = SCREEN(py, px, 1)

'puts player on the screen
LOCATE py, px: COLOR 15: PRINT CHR$(2)

'checks to see if a key is pressed
DO: P$ = INKEY$: LOOP UNTIL P$ <> ""

'clears player off screen and replaces with background
LOCATE py, px: COLOR bgc: PRINT CHR$(bg)

'checks to see if a certian key was pressed so that the player x  or player y
'can be moved to a new location.
IF P$ = "8" AND walls(px, py - 1) = 0 THEN py = py - 1
IF P$ = "5" AND walls(px, py + 1) = 0 THEN py = py + 1
IF P$ = "6" AND walls(px + 1, py) = 0 THEN px = px + 1
IF P$ = "4" AND walls(px - 1, py) = 0 THEN px = px - 1
IF P$ = CHR$(27) THEN END

'goes back to the top
GOTO top

'map data (color + ASCII character)

DATA 01176,02176,03176,04176,05176,01176,02176,03176,04176,05176
DATA 02176,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,04176
DATA 03176,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,03176
DATA 04176,00000,00000,06176,06176,06176,00000,00000,00000,02176
DATA 05176,00000,06176,06177,06177,06177,06176,00000,00000,01176
DATA 06173,00000,06176,06177,05178,06177,06176,00000,00000,00176
DATA 07176,00000,06176,06177,06177,06177,06176,00000,00000,01176
DATA 08176,00000,00000,06176,05178,06176,00000,00000,00000,02176
DATA 09179,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,00000,03176
DATA 10176,09166,08156,07176,06136,05176,04176,03176,02124,01176

'wall data

DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
DATA 1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,1
DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

Nice eh? This makes use of moulding information together. This has saved space. I could have blended then wall data into the map data by changing the data in the map to "101760" which breaks up into


color: 10 
character: 176 
wall 1/0: 0

As a challenge you might want to do that and also make an editor to make maps. I recconmend that you make an editor for that data, because it aint all that much fun to put in. If I get enough e-mails(lets say 1) I will wright a tut on editors and make one just for this.

This code is a little different for when it displays it. it first has a look at the first two digits of the number

COLOR VAL(MID$(STR$(map(x, y)), 1, 2))

this tells it what color it will be. The next line finds out what the last 3 digits are and uses them with CHR$()

PRINT CHR$(VAL(MID$(STR$(map(x, y)), 3, 6)))

When the player moves it checks the 2nd map to see if there is a 0 on the position it wants to move too. If it is a 1 it won't move there, thus acting like a wall. Simple huh?

I'll give one last example of a map and then show you how to link up a couple of maps and store the data of each map in a tidy easy to use way.

CLS
'gets map ready
DIM map(100, 100)
FOR y = 1 TO 10
        FOR x = 1 TO 10
                READ map(x, y)
                IF map(x, y) = 0 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 2: PRINT CHR$(176)
                IF map(x, y) = 2 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 6: PRINT CHR$(176)
                IF map(x, y) = 10 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 10: PRINT CHR$(6)
                IF map(x, y) = 11 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 7: PRINT CHR$(111)
        NEXT x
NEXT y

'sets player x and player y
px = 2
py = 9

'start of big loop
top:
'gets what is behind player
bg = SCREEN(py, px)
bgc = SCREEN(py, px, 1)

'puts player on the screen
LOCATE py, px: COLOR 15: PRINT CHR$(2)

'checks to see if a key is pressed
DO: P$ = INKEY$: LOOP UNTIL P$ <> ""

'clears player off screen and replaces with background
LOCATE py, px: COLOR bgc: PRINT CHR$(bg)

'checks to see if a certian key was pressed so that the player x  or player y
'can be moved to a new location.
IF P$ = "8" AND SCREEN(py - 1, px) <> 6 THEN py = py - 1
IF P$ = "5" AND SCREEN(py + 1, px) <> 6 THEN py = py + 1
IF P$ = "6" AND SCREEN(py, px + 1) <> 6 THEN px = px + 1
IF P$ = "4" AND SCREEN(py, px - 1) <> 6 THEN px = px - 1
IF P$ = CHR$(27) THEN END

'goes back to the top
GOTO top

'map data
DATA 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,11,02,02,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,02,02,02,02,10,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,02,10,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,02,02,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,02,02,00,10,00,00,10,10
DATA 10,00,02,00,10,10,10,00,00,10
DATA 10,02,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10

Now this one is almost the same as the 1st program. The only difference is that instead of check the map to see if it can move it checks the screen. This can useful sometimes but others useless. If you printed character 006 randomly over the screen and did not have a map for it then this is useful. It would create a forest type type effect also. You could put any other character on the screen and you would be able to walk over it because it is not character 6. To change that just change the sixs in the keys part to anothe character, for example 219

IF P$ = "8" AND SCREEN(py - 1, px) <> 219 THEN py = py - 1
IF P$ = "5" AND SCREEN(py + 1, px) <> 219 THEN py = py + 1
IF P$ = "6" AND SCREEN(py, px + 1) <> 219 THEN px = px + 1
IF P$ = "4" AND SCREEN(py, px - 1) <> 219 THEN px = px - 1

Instead of checking the character yo could check the color. to do that all you have to do is add a 1. Like this

SCREEN(py - 1, px,1) <> 4

If you use that instead you will not be able to walk on anything that is dark red.

Now for the end of this. I will show you a program that can change to different maps easily. After all it would be stupid not to show this in a RPG tut, because thats one of the main features.

 
CLS
'gets map ready
DIM map(10, 11, 11)
FOR m = 1 TO 3
FOR y = 1 TO 10
        FOR x = 1 TO 10
                READ map(m, x, y)
        NEXT x
NEXT y
NEXT m

'sets player x and player y
px = 2
py = 9
'sets the map you start on
m = 1

'draws the current map you are on
redraw:
FOR y = 1 TO 10
        FOR x = 1 TO 10
                IF map(m, x, y) = 0 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 2: PRINT CHR$(176)
                IF map(m, x, y) = 2 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 6: PRINT CHR$(176)
                IF map(m, x, y) = 10 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 10: PRINT CHR$(6)
                IF map(m, x, y) = 11 THEN LOCATE y, x: COLOR 7: PRINT CHR$(111)
        NEXT x
NEXT y

'start of big loop
top:
'gets what is behind player
bg = SCREEN(py, px)
bgc = SCREEN(py, px, 1)

'puts player on the screen
LOCATE py, px: COLOR 15: PRINT CHR$(2)

'checks to see if a key is pressed
DO: P$ = INKEY$: LOOP UNTIL P$ <> ""

'clears player off screen and replaces with background
LOCATE py, px: COLOR bgc: PRINT CHR$(bg)

'checks to see if a certian key was pressed so that the player x  or player y
'can be moved to a new location.
IF P$ = "8" AND map(m, px, py - 1) <= 9 THEN py = py - 1
IF P$ = "5" AND map(m, px, py + 1) <= 9 THEN py = py + 1
IF P$ = "6" AND map(m, px + 1, py) <= 9 THEN px = px + 1
IF P$ = "4" AND map(m, px - 1, py) <= 9 THEN px = px - 1
IF P$ = CHR$(27) THEN END

IF px = 11 THEN
        px = 1
        IF m = 1 THEN m = 2: GOTO redraw
END IF
IF px = 0 THEN
        px = 10
        IF m = 2 THEN m = 1: GOTO redraw
END IF
IF py = 11 THEN
        py = 1
        IF m = 2 THEN m = 3: GOTO redraw
END IF
IF py = 0 THEN
        py = 10
        IF m = 3 THEN m = 2: GOTO redraw
END IF

'goes back to the top
GOTO top

'map data
DATA 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,11,00,00,00,00,11,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,02,02,02,02,10,00
DATA 10,00,00,00,02,10,00,02,02,02
DATA 10,00,00,02,02,00,00,00,00,00
DATA 10,00,02,02,00,10,00,00,10,10
DATA 10,00,02,00,10,10,10,00,00,10
DATA 10,02,02,00,00,00,00,00,11,10
DATA 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10

DATA 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,10,00,10,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,11,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10,10
DATA 02,02,02,02,00,00,10,00,00,10
DATA 00,00,00,02,00,10,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,10,00,02,02,02,00,10,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,11,00,02,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,10,10,10,00,02,00,10,10,10

DATA 10,10,10,10,00,02,00,10,10,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,10
DATA 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10

The big difference in this program is the 3 different maps. To switch from map to map all I had to do was change m to the desired map number so that that map data was used. When you reach the end of the map it checks to see what map you are on and then send you to the map that you need to goto. You can have many more levels and to change to a different map you can change what m equals. eg instead of going to map 2 you could change the

IF m = 1 THEN m = 2: GOTO redraw

IF m = 1 THEN m = 3: GOTO redraw

This would take you to map 3 and put you ontop of a wall because map 3 was not designed to link to map 1. All ya have to do is change the map data to make it look like you can.

Experiment with all of these and mix and match the map data use. This way you will be able to understand the code better and make better things. Try adding extra features to the programs like in the last one, try adding more maps. Make more tiles. Even try to make NPC's, people or monsters walk around on the map as well.

I hope this has inspired you, or at the least made you consider making a text RPG, or anyother text game. I hope to release another tutorial on Editors or AI's next month. I can't believe I wrote all this in one afternoon.

If you have any problems e-mail me at cant.get.nixon@gmail.com

or visit Pure Text and post on the forum www.Pure-Text.com

-Nixon

Download this tutorial: textrpg.txt

Z-clipping Triangles

Written by Shashi Ponraja

I decided to write this short tutorial to make absolutely sure I didn't forget how to clip 3d triangles. Then I realized I could post it on QB Express as

I decided to write this short tutorial to make absolutely sure I didn't forget how to clip 3d triangles. Then I realized I could post it on QB Express as well! So why the hell not.

Z-clipping Triangles

Whenever you have a point in 3d space, it will either be in front(z >0), behind you (z<0) or on you (z=0). The easiest way to eliminate this problem would be to make sure all points of a triangle are visible, so if one isn't visible the triangle isn't drawn. Of course, as I discovered, this looks terrible for large polygons, creating dumb-looking see through glitches. So what's the remedy? Remove the parts of the triangle that are not visible, leaving only the visible parts. I suggest for the code you use double-precision(defdbl a-z for the poly clipping sub), I used that cuz sometimes errors occurred that I thought might have been because of accuracy.

Starting off....

Let's say you have each point of your triangle in an array of vertex(3) as vtxinf
where

 	type vtxinf
        x as single
	y as single
	z as single
	u as single  'x-coord in texture map, I use between 0..1 but you can use whatever is appropriate
	v as single  'y-coord in texture map, I use between 0..1 but you can use whatever is appropriate
	end type

The 3 points are in vertex(0), vertex(1), vertex(2). (The extra element is there for a reason.....as you might expect)

To simplify coding this routine, we could start off by arranging it so the vertex with the largest z starts at the top, like this

 If vertex(0).z < vertex(1).z then
swap vertex(0).x, vertex(1).x
swap vertex(0).y, vertex(1).y
swap vertex(0).z, vertex(1).z
swap vertex(0).u, vertex(1).u
swap vertex(0).v, vertex(1).v
endif

And so on and so forth until vertex(0).z is highest, and vertex(2).z is the lowest.

Now to quickly test whether any portion of the polygon is visible on-screen, just check this

 if vertex(0).z > zclipplane then polyvisible = true  
'where zclipplane is the minimum z can reach. Think of it as a line that extends to forever, and if a poly is behind it, it can't be seen

Since vertex(0).z is now the highest z, if that's not visible no point is. Anyway now we go into the actual z-clipping.

Just to give you a picture of what's going on, draw a triangle on a paper. This is your poly top-down. Draw a horizontal line(the z clip plane) that removes two points from the poly. If you did it right, you'll notice all that needs to be done is make the two edges to intersect the z-clip plane. Now try the same thing, but this time make the z-clip plane remove only one vertex. You'll see to get the visible poly you'll need to add an extra vertex, resulting in a 4-sided poly.

Since clipping when 2 points are invisible is easier, I'll show you that first.

If vertex(1).z < zclipplane AND vertex(2).z < zclipplane then
'start off processing the first edge....
dx = vertex(1).x - vertex(0).x
dy = vertex(1).y - vertex(0).y
dz = vertex(1).z - vertex(0).z
du = vertex(1).u - vertex(0).u 'necessary to recalculate the new texture co-ordinates because otherwise it gets warped
dv = vertex(1).v - vertex(0).v
'find the positions the edge intersects the z-clip plane
'zclipplane = vertex(0).z + t * dz   rearrange to find t

t = (zclipplane - vertex(0).z) / dz
'now find the new x, y, z, u and v co-ordinates
vertex(1).x = vertex(0).x + t * dx
vertex(1).y = vertex(0).y + t * dy
vertex(1).u = vertex(0).u + t * du
vertex(1).v = vertex(0).v + t * dv
vertex(1).z = zclipplane 'if zclipplane <> vertex(0).z + t * dz there is an error in your code somewhere

'repeat the above line of code, but change the vertex(1) to a vertex(2)
end if

There. Now the array vertex cont

Section	Votes	Percent	Graph
Tutorials	10	43%
Articles / Editorials	3	13%
News Briefs	5	22%
Gallery	2	9%
Blast From the Past	1	4%
Competition	0	0%
Comics	2	9%
Other	0	0%
23 Total Votes

QB Express

Issue #7 ~ February 20, 2005

In This Issue

From The Editor's Desk

Written by Pete

Submit To QB Express

Letters

Letter From Lachie Dazdarian

Letter From Nixon

Letter From Lurah

Letter From Matt2Jones

Express Poll

What was your favorite part of QB Express?

News Briefs

QBasic / QuickBasic News

FreeBasic News

Gallery

Written by Pete

StarOdds32 - Na_th_an

Phantasm - Nekrophidius

FreeBasic is our future. OUR Future.

Written by SJ Zero

Scorched Planets Review

Written by Zap

INFO

GAMEPLAY

GRAPHICS

SOUND EFFECTS & MUSIC

CONCLUSION

Realistic 3D Modelling in QBasic: A Tutorial

Written by Mike Wechsler

Chess Move Generator Competition

Organized by Neuro

Comics

By Kevin (Rattrapmax6)

QBasic and What It Means To Me

Written by Brad Milison

I.F. Games Tutorial, Chapter 2

Written by Na_th_an

1.3. THE OBJECTS MANAGER

1.3.1. THE OBJECTS DATA TYPE

1.3.2. USEFUL GLOBAL PARAMETERS

1.3.3. DOWN TO THE MUDDY WATERS OF DESIGNING CODE

1.3.3.1. Checks.

1.3.3.2. Action.

1.3.3.3. More procedures and functions.

1.3.4 OBSERVERS AND MODIFIERS

Playing WAVE Files Through The Windows API

Written by aetherfox

Music Composition

Written by Matt2Jones

Part I - Justification

PART II - Rudiments

Notes:

Keys:

Chords and Harmony:

Text RPG Tutorial

Written by Nixon

Z-clipping Triangles

Written by Shashi Ponraja

Z-clipping Triangles

Starting off....