QB Express: Issue #21

From The Editor's Desk

Written by Pete

This past month, there has been a lot of speculation and a lot of conspiracy theories that QB Express is "dead" or "dying," that I don't care about the magazine anymore, and that nobody is submitting articles. Well, to quote the great Mark Twain, when his obituary was erroneously published:

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

QB Express is not going anywhere. Sure, things have slowed down the last few months, and the issues have started coming out on a bimonthly basis -- but I am still dedicated to publishing QB Express as often as possible, and always doing the best job that I can. Ideally, I'd like to pump an issue out right on schedule on the fifteenth of every month, but sometimes life gets in the way...and the issues always end up taking far more time to write/compile than I ever expect them to take. But rest assured: As long as you, the readers, continue to submit content, QB Express WILL come out, sooner or later (preferably sooner), and it WILL continue to maintain the same high quality that it has always had. That is my promise to you. And I take this very seriously.

I'd like to rebuke some of the jabs people have made at QB Express lately, particularly in this thread. In that post, the moderators of ASCII-World (MystikShadows, lurah and mennonite) announced the creation of a new QB magazine, entitled "PCOPY." When I heard about PCOPY, I was happy, and wished them well...I believe that there's room for many more QB magazines in the community, and the way I see it, the more activity, the better. But some QB Express fans started questioning the new magazine, saying it would hurt QB Express and that there was no need for a second BASIC magazine. Hearing the criticism, mennonite went on a tirade against QB Express. Here are some of his claims -- and my responses:

1. QBE is becoming something most members of the qmunity (my qmunity) have no reason to post to. it is becoming too specialized, and although pete says he will publish anything about qbasic/freebasic (indeed, thanks to his server he can publish just a little more than pcopy can) the fact is that most things will not FIT there. what? i mean contextually. qbe is becoming a magazine for the highly skilled, mostly. that can change- it should!

I disagree completely -- QB Express is a magazine for EVERYBODY in the Qmunity, of all skill levels. Very few people who read QB Express are "elite" coders. I myself certainly am not a good QB/FB programmer... Besides, a lot of the tutorials in QB Express are *very* basic. I mean, we've had a half dozen tutorials that introduce people to the PRINT command!

There have always been tutorials covering a wide array of topics, for both beginners and advanced coders. And that's the way it should be. Why should I pander to one specific group when I can deliver content that will appeal to everyone, whether they're a beginner or an expert? If you aren't skilled enough to understand a tutorial, skip it. Passing on one article doesn't ruin the experience of reading the entire magazine. My hope is that there is something in QB Express for everyone, and I think we've succeeded so far.

2. the main reason no one is sending stuff in to qbe is because (i think, and at least two others have suggested something like it) is that there is an unconscious feeling it won't be published anyway. i mean pete's been busy...the damage is done- three months is a long time to see qbe get irregular!

First off, QB Express still gets plenty of submissions. The submissions were a little bit slow this month, and we have had bigger issues in the past, but this issue is still huge. I mean, there are NINE tutorials this month, FIVE comics, one of the biggest news briefs sections ever, and a ton of other articles! Before QB Express, it was unheard of for a QB magazine to have more than four or five tutorials a month...I just think that QB Express' huge success has made people have hugely inflated opinions of how much content a magazine needs. Honestly, I don't know what you're complaining about.

Second, becoming a bimonthly magazine for a few months instead of a monthly isn't going to kill QB Express. I'll be the first to admit that the magazine's lost a little bit of momentum, but it's not like QB Express is down for the count. I hope to get back to the monthly schedule if I can find the time. (That's the hard part...keep in mind that Pete's QB Site is one of a dozen other websites that I run; that I work 60+ hours a week for Actual Reality Pictures; I produce a cartoon called Unicorn Boy and I'm planning a new reality show that I will produce in the fall; I'm writing a feature-length screenplay and spec scripts for TV shows; I do work for my parents' company, Thunderbird Atlatl; I live in Los Angeles, where I spend at least an hour stuck in traffic a day; I've got many other hobbies that I pursue...and I also have friends, family and a social life.)

3. something needs to change anyway. i've tried changing pete's course before, it doesn't work. pete's gonna do his thing, (and if you were in pete's shoes, wouldn't you?) i don't think the way pete is doing things now is gonna work, and i want there to BE a qbe 22, 23, 24... and this might make him see he needs to change something fast, sooner. this is the best kick in the ass i can think of, and i swear, it's at the right time. this has been planned for a while.

Considering that QB Express is the longest running and largest QB magazine ever, I think I'm doing something right. Look at the archive. We've published more articles in QB Express than almost every other QB magazine combined. What needs to change? My system has worked better than any has in the past, and QB Express is by far the single most productive website in the QB / FB community. I challenge you to name any other site that has more content posted to it on a regular basis.

Maybe I haven't been running QB Express perfectly, but you can't say I haven't done a decent job.

And so, those are my retorts. If you, the readers, are worried that QB Express is done for, go ahead and jump ship. Now that there are other magazines for you to submit content to, you've got choices. I know some of you aren't happy with what I've been able to scrape together every month and a half or so, but I ask that you cut me some slack. QB Express is a shitload of work, and it's work that I don't HAVE to be doing. It's a hobby; it's something that I do for "fun" (even though it's not really all that fun, especially with all these people ripping on me). And I don't make a cent for the dozens of hours of work that I put in. Just put yourself in my shoes. That's all that I ask.

Enjoy the issue.

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, check out the "Official QB Express Article Requests" thread! There have been quite a few articles requested -- and even if none of them strikes your fancy, we can help you come up with something that you would like to write about. 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 MystikShadows

Hi Pete,

I had to make my coffee first to read this edition ;-). WOW is just about the only word that comes to mind reading that ;-). You know, there's something to be said about the day QB Express is finally made available. I, for some reason, picture the community suddenly quieting down, sitting down at their PCs and starting to read. Almost like sunday church ;-).

Maybe I'm the only one that thinks that though I don't know. But you know the feeling I'm trying to explain? hehe. what I do know is that I like to plan my reading ;-). I don't try to read it on a day where it just won't work. I'll look at the table of contents, see what's on the menu so to speak and then know what i'll be reading next when that time comes. So I'm a motivator huh? I can live with that ;-) hehe...Although it's not just a bout motivating per se, but if it's one of the side effects, I can open up a MystikShadow Cult or something hehe.

I'd like to talk about Lachie's (2 month worth) letter. well especially about the part that concerns me (as in me not doing my job). Well first off, for the last 2 issues (hence 3 1/2 to 4 months), he's right. I have to admit, I've been neglecting the newsbrief side a bit. But as he'll read in this issue #21 I am back on on the chain. And i'll be sure to make sure to be sure he never needs to say that ever again ;-). Also to help his problem, I would strongly recommend atleast 256 Megs of RAM to run Windows XP, 512 would be even better. XP is a resource hog with no precedence and no limit to what it can eat. so if he can upgrade his ram it would be great. if not, I would recommend reverting to Windows 98 with driver and Direct-X upgrades. Should make things run alot smoother.

A word about my MIDI series, I haven't been able to finish it for this issue. This month has been weird for me to say the least, always outside doing something, so my time got cut short. it's started but not completed (as most know, I've been busy with my FB Elite project (see the newsbriefs in this issue), The 4th installment of the MIDI series should be available in QB Express #22. I'm also looking for other subjects (midi and/or music) related to write about that I might not be thinking about at the moment (since the series seems to be good so far, let's push the bar and make it the single most complete MIDI reference work available anywhere. So if any of you readers have an idea, feel free to let me know. As a Part 5 I want to describe everything about the SoundFont format (getting popular today) and how to use it. After that I'll let the readers decide ;-) (and yes, digital audio is on the schedule with things like special effects and FFTs (Fast Fourrier Transforms). But I know there's so much more :-).

And now comes the letter itself. First off, your express poll, when I saw the list, I was amazed (and somewhat dissapointed at myself) at how many names I didn't know in there. makes me mad to not have been there back in those days. I'm glad I arrived when I did, in a way, in another, I wonder where I would be in gaming today, if I would have arrived a heck of a lot earlier in the QMunity than I did ;-). This is also why I emailed you all these questions and posted about it on your forum. Hopefully, someone will clue me in on everything I missed since the beginning of the QMunity. It's one thing to read about some of the stuff, it's another to have experienced it and tell me about it :-). Come on guys make me live these classic moments ;-).

Now, how about that news section huh? I know I didn't participate in it but like wow, there's a whole lot happening still today as I can see. There's really alot going on, seems not as many people are talking about it though or actually announcing it, some of the news happens on threads not destined to be announced as news. So you gotta look everywhere to be sure to get it all. But it's still awesome to see that so much is still happening. Things are alive and well as we can see from that news section. I bet you there's even more happening that we're not aware of.

I have to admit I was a bit biased in my suggestion for the awards. The reason I suggested Jace Masula's website was well I like the design of course, crisp, clean, easy to nanigate, professional looking, you name it. But I really like his ASCII Quest game creation system too. As for Piptol, well you named the reasons very well. He really does deserve a lifetime achievement award for all his contributions to the QMunity.

Cyber Chick, wow, so far it's shaping up to be one of the best 2D games I've seen (any language). I love the graphics, I love where the game seems to be going. Things look great on all the screenshots shown. I mean wow. I think more games like those should surface, I love them (yes, I don't just love text ;-) but this is a prime example of the type of 2D game I like. Great work on the part of the creator. I'm looking forward to hearing more about that project and eventually playing that game.

I enjoyed lurah's first ever game review. I'm still laughing when he said that playing that game was suicide in every possible way (lurah killing lurah as in the screenshot lol. Good ole lurah has a great way with words even if his english isn't as good as he wants it to be, he does a great job at expressing himself. And I think, for a first review, he did an awesome job at it too. Three cheers for lurah. I want more of those :-). More articles too, so far, I've found every article he's written to be very through provoquing and true. C'mon lurah, get busy hehe.

Pritchard's making a QB or FB site article, I thought, brought out some good tips as to what you should do before you make the website. I think it might even be the reason why alot of QB/FB website projects have failed in the past as well. It's one thing to do a QB/FB website that has everything, it's another to do a QB/FB website that has things no one else has. In that regard, I think Pritchard did an outstanding job at bringing out information to those that want to make a QB/FB website that just might make the difference whether their website succeeds or not. Great work and I enjoyed reading it a lot.

Nathan's article about Creatively Writing Game Story Lines, I think, was one of his best article, though short, it seemed to be enough to bring the reader to think alot before making their next story based games. looks like he covered alot of grounds with that small article which is, in effect, quite a feat of strength considering the subject matter. So I had to point that out here. I'm wondering how good nathan93 would be on a subject that requires a more detailed article, but I think that if he likes the subject enough, he might surprise us and maybe even himself. Great work there.

Moneo's "The Fallacy of Meaningful Codes" explains an age long issue in the professional software developement industry (specifically in IT (Information Technology). It's obvious Moneo has had plenty of experience in the subject, the article does nothing else but show all that experience. Now, when you think about it, making sure each record of a database can be uniquely retrieved can definitaly be applied to games (more complex games at that too). So if some of the game coders out there think that this doesn't apply to them, the best thing I can tell them is that wait till you have a couple 10s of thousands items to deal with in your game of which only a few can be worked with depending on where you are in your game's world, etc etc...and maybe you'll see the usefulness of having meaningful codes implemented. I think this article is worth it's weight in gold for the IT industry and for any industry that might need to deal with a large amount of data.

What's to say about Immortis' "What Not to Do as a Programmer" article. Can you imagine, in 3 rather short categories, he explained over 40 years of computing issues with the programmers in pretty much all it's gory (but true) details. Not being in one of those 3 categories is what makes a good programmer, end of discussion :-). I'd sure like to see Immortis tackle other great subjects like this one. I really liked his way of explaining things in a dead on target, in your face with diplomacy (I define diplomacy as sending someone to hell in such a way that they can't wait to make the trip hehe). But All true and those that fit in one of the categories will see that he's absolutely right. Awesome work.

Always glad to read ratt's comics, they are so consistant, and he's definitaly getting better at the humor behind the comics. I don't agree with Lachie on his comment about them at all. It's a nice break from the magazine, in the magazine (who sais QBE doesn't offer everything now huh HUH?) hehe. It's also great to see the other 2 comics. I mean come on, what's the new york times without it's sunday morning funnies? hehe. Myabe QVE should be released on sundays only to give these comics their due value? hehe. I liked them all.

Optimus' "Polar Plasma" explained to me something I've been wanting to know for a good long while now, for a few years, I've always seen plasma demos, but I never quite studied code or looked at anything in enough details to actually understand how they work per se. I'm glad Optimus explained it here. It's alot clearer in my mind now. So a big thank you to him for writing on the subject, I for one definitaly appreciated the effort and am tremendously glad to have read it.

Fuzzypig's "Making Good Sound Effects". What can I say, I love sound and music, digital audio or MIDI files (as some might have noticed by now hehe). Whenever I see a title with sound, music or sound effects in there, my eyes open wide and i'm ready to absorb all I can from the contents. It's clear to see fuzzypig's knowledge in the field, and I would like to thank him right here for taking the time to talk about it here on QB Express. One of the best readings I've had personally. I might email him with a good set of questions now that I know someone that know that much about digital audio and FX. A great read.

Well I was hoping lachie would do a follow through to his "How To Program A Game With FreeBASIC" and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was there. I gotta say, there's no denying lachie's knowledge in that field. he's one of the best and certain one with the abilities to share that knowledge clearly with the readers. So i'm glad he took it upon himself to share that knowledge with the readers. I'm learning alot from him and well I can't wait to read more about it. Keep on writing Lachie, I'm waiting hehe.

What can I say, the reason why I'm such a big (err motivator, yeah that's it ;-) ) is because there's so much to motivate about :-). Look at all the great contents it has and the great people contributing to it. I shouldn't be the only one with the pom poms here hehe.

MystikShadows
Stephane Richard

Haha, looky here! Another fantastic letter to the editor, as we've all come to expect by now. :)

I love reading your take on *every* single article in each month's issue -- you're always so positive, and so motivating, and I guarantee you that the writers really appreciate the kind words. Maybe I should buy you some pom-poms, because you're one heck of a cheerleader. :)

You've mentioned many times that you wish you had been around to see the QB community in its infancy, back in the mid-to-late '90s -- back in the proverbial "golden age". I wish I were able to able to satiate your hunger on the topic, but I'll tell you, the reason why I'm still hanging around the Qmunity now is because I had so much fun in those early years. I'm sure I have a gilded memory of the Qmunity back then, considering I was an enthusiastic 12 or 13 year old, and we tend to remember fond childhood memories as even better than they actually were.

But still, I think the Qmunity as a whole was a whole was a lot more excited to be coding back then. We were younger, the World Wide Web was still new, and this concept of sharing your little game programs and talking to each other online and running your own website for the world to see was just new and exciting. Now, I think a lot of us take it for granted. The newbies that are joining the QB community have grown up with things like high-speed internet access and message forums, so this stuff doesn't seem revolutionary to them. For me, on the other hand, the QBasic community was the *first* online community I ever interacted with, the first message boards that I visited, and Pete's QBasic Site was my first website. I didn't have Internet access at home until I was 12, and that's also when I really got interested in computers and programming.

Anyway, how can you find out about the Qmunity back then? Don't expect the "veterans" that are still hanging around to be able to give you the full picture. I suggest you go back and read through the huge amounts of "historical documents" that are still online. The Zines Archive is a good place to start. And there are hundreds of old QBasic sites from the '90s still lurking on the Internet, waiting to be explored. It's a veritable treasure trove, and I'm sure you can find out more than you ever thought you'd find if you take the time to look. :)

-Pete

Letter From mennonite

hi pete, i have questions on my mind, and i thought i'd run them by you.

you might not like these questions, you might think i'm being a dick, i really can't anticipate your exact reaction.

all the same, i thought i'd get your opinions first, since for one, you're certainly involved, and also, because as you've said before, this isn't even about programming for you anymore- it's about the community. i think among a few others, you might be best fit to address these questions. and forgive me being longwinded... you probably noticed it's the only way i write, and it's never on purpose. i try to explain my questions to make sure it's not misunderstood what i'm asking.

anyway, here's a start: who rules the qmunity?

has v1ctor usurped him or does the qmunity rule v1ctor?

does the qmunity have a ruler? is it z!re? do people rise to power, as shadowwolf says, "there are a few people like Z!re with in the community that can pull of this type of thing... they got this type of power by winning flame wars and climbing the political ladder so to speak."

also, if there was a ruler of the qmunity, what would he be like?

personally, i think the qmunity is better off without a ruler... more like with leaders... who lead not just one, two, or three people around, bullying newbies, (which never happens, so forget i said it!) but someone who really creates what you used to truly be able to call a "community" that is... a community of *people*, vs. just a "community," of individual persons, as i suspect things are moving towards.

but all the same, lets look at some "person"-types, and decide who's best fit if we're all stuck with him (or her.)

is this person someone with an image to maintain, verses a real sort of "thing" about integrity, or is it someone who simply abuses everyone to maintain an "image" of superiority? (i don't think at the end of the day one person is actually superior to another, but our society is undoubtedly full of such false images.)

is this person someone who's so full of himself that he can't tell or even notice when other people are making substantial contributions to the qmunity?

or is this person more of a puppet... a mouthpiece for the real leaders of the qmunity, one that says one thing now, another later... as long as it's what the community expects to be said at a given time? someone who will bow to anything, the ridiculous, the profound, whatever strikes the mood of the masses? a lapdog leader- do any of us want or need one, or can we say for ourselves what is on our mind and render such a figure worthless?

do we want someone who is so completely busy with projects that he doesn't have time... similar to someone who is merely too full of himself... but not in terms of ego, merely someone who is too preoccupied? would this make a suitable leader, if we had one? or would a newbie with a new hobby (that is, programming) be better suited? admittedly, in *most* instances such a newbie would NOT be fit at all. still, i'm asking.

then again, most people simply (and without any reason to be ashamed of it) have something better to do. what's being the leader of a band of geeks (i use the term affectionately)... even a loosely defined sort we belong to now, compared to who knows what else?

again, i don't think a leader is needed, per se... but i think we might be stuck with people "rising to the top" as it were... and i'm not sure that alone is a problem. as long as an ideal is created where people trying to crush each other isn't the main goal of "belonging," and where the priority becomes... i dunno, helping each other in a real way, and not making newcomers sorry they asked... i think there won't be any consequence of a leader, other than the occasional (and welcome) extra topic or project being discussed.

in other words, a community that values people (as a whole) won't pay much attention to a leader anyway. too busy being a true community. and that's good enough!

i put this idea forward at a time when people are jumping out of line to disapprove of this or that... sometimes someone goes too, too far in attempting to destroy another person. actually, seph comes to mind, but there's no telling who i am referring to. you may think i am referring to pete, who felt compelled to trash seph personaly for whatever reason in qbe #20. i am of the impression (perhaps mistaken, to be sure!) that seph did nothing of any sort to pete... that pete only decided to trash seph as a bandwagon sort of thing- but perhaps seph, as i once did, managed to rub pete the wrong way in an email- i dont know.

i could also be talking about z!re, in her inability to wish seph and his new family the best, only to take yet another opportunity to say he's essentially unfit to exist. i could be talking about that.

or, as they often are to me, these could merely be part of another trend i see, and wonder about. it may seem very silly, even absurd to even ask these questions, or admit they've crossed my mind.

but as long as they have, i thought i might try to find out what others think. whether i truly and ultimately care, or whether i don't- i'm honestly curious.

is there a particular mission left, or common ideal left in this community? what ideal would that be, and who is best fit to help others see that goal to fruition?

and don't say v1ctor... because really, everytime someone asks him anything like this, he just sort of ducks away. and that's not bad- maybe we all should do just that, but as you must know, sometimes i can't help myself.

i had to ask.

Who rules the Qmunity?

That's an easy one: NOBODY

The Qmunity is an autonomous collective; nobody has any real control over anybody. That's not to say that some people don't rise to the top and influence how people behave. But it's not because they have any special rights or privileges; it's because they earn a little something called respect for what they contribute. The people that make the biggest contributions become our defacto "leaders" -- but they are leaders because other people value their works and their ideas, not because they have any real power.

I know why you wrote this letter. You're disgruntled because the so-called "leaders" of the Qmunity have different opinions than you...and you don't like where the Qmunity is headed. You wish you could call the shots. The thing is, nobody calls the shots. The way you "lead" the Qmunity is by making contributions and thus, earning respect! Then people might actually listen to you. But instead of actually contributing something, you complain and browbeat and personally attack our most productive and respected members. That's not a very good strategy if you actually want your opinions to be heard.

Let's review some of your posts this past month: You lambast V1ctor and the choices he made about *HIS* compiler (just look at your childish and exceedingly rude posts at FreeBasic.net); you personally berate MystikShadows (this post); you accuse me of "killing" QB Express, running an "elite" magazine, and marginializing certain members of the Qmunity; and now you attack me, Z!re and others for dismissing Seph's failed attempt to organize a community-wide mutiny when he was banned from a forum for being a jerk.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of it. In the past few months, my opinion of you has dropped through the floor... You're just trying to stir the pot and cause controversy, and you're making all of us very angry. You're convinced that everything is some grand conspiracy, and you take everything way too personally. And the way you go about expressing yourself makes you seem like a jackass. For someone who claims to hate flaming, it seems to be one of your favorite hobbies.

mennonite, there's a reason why you don't get any respect in this community. It's because you talk and complain a lot, but have hardly contributed anything. I think the opinion of the Qmunity is best summed up in Cha0s' response to one of your posts:

"Go
Code
Something
Useful"

I'm sure I've offended you (whether you like it or not), but I think you need some chewing out. I hope you take Cha0s' advice and roll with it. PCOPY is a great start, if you guys are able to get it off the ground. But we're not going to cut you any slack until we see some sort of concrete contributions...and a little bit less attitude. As I said last month, "I guess most people on QB/FB forums just want to....(gasp)... get along."

-Pete

Have a letter for the editor? Send all your rants, raves, ideas, comments and questions to pberg1@gmail.com.

News Briefs

News from all around the QB community, about the latest games, site updates, program releases and more!

QB / FB Site News

QB Express Gets Some Competiton: PCOPY and FreeBasicNews.net

It's about time! QB Express has been the ONLY QB or FB mag to publish regularly in the past two years (and with the exception of one issue of QBXL in March 2005, the ONLY magazine)... This is a far cry from the "golden age" of the Qmunity in 1998-2000 when there were four or five magazines going at once.

But it looks like that's all going to change. In the past month, two new BASIC magazine projects have been announced: PCOPY, an joint effort by the staff of ASCII-World, MystikShadows, lurah and mennonite; and FreebasicNews.net by Pritchard and Mr. Match.

PCOPY will be a magazine dedicated to covering all dialects of BASIC, beyond just QB and FB, and it hopes to tailor toward programmers at all levels (including articles written by newbies, for newbies). FreebasicNews will be focused solely on FB programming, and will likely have a focus on the happenings of the Freebasic.net forums. Both magazines will be released irregularly (though there have been claims that there may be bimonthly releases). Since neither magazine has actually released an issue yet, we still don't know exactly what to expect. Currently, PCOPY has an issue in the works; FreebasicNews is still doing preliminary work on designing their website.

If you'd like to read up on the mission statements and debate surrounding both magazines, you can check out these forum threads: PCOPY thread and FreebasicNews thread. The PCOPY thread in particular elicited a heated debate over my handling of QB Express, and also whether another magazine was appopriate. I addressed this in my "From The Editor's Desk" article, so I won't go into it again, but you should know that I fully support both magazines -- and no matter how well these magazines turn out, QB Express is here to stay.

On behalf of QB Express, I warmly welcome our new competition! I hope that both magazines succeed. It would be nice to see someone give us a run for our money!

News Brief by Pete

Beginner's Guide to FreeBasic by Rick Clark

Rick Clark wants to teach all you newbies how to code in FB...the right way. Here's a news brief from the man himself:

I am working on a beginner's guide to FreeBasic. You can find the details here if you are interested:

http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3910

There is a preview in pdf format that I update as I finish content in the first post. This is a wip, of course, so the preview isn't really polished at all. :)

Rick Clark

http://rdc.ascii-world.com/

News Brief by Rick Clark

Mystery Solved: The October 1999 Pete's QB Site Shutdown!

In October of 1999, Pete's QBasic Site was shut down by my free hosting provider, Hypermart, for distributing illegal copies of QuickBasic 4.5...even though the files weren't hosted on my server, and I was merely linking to another QB site that was distributing the compiler.

According to Hypermart, somebody had filed a complaint that my site had breached its contract and broken U.S. copyright law. Hypermart suspended my account and shut down my website, without a single warning. Needless to say, I was pretty mad about the whole situation... and I thought I'd never find out who the "perp" was that filed the complaint. But a few weeks ago, I was startled to receive this email:

This is something that is probably long overdue. I was sitting here at work when someone mentioned soemthing about DOS and it brought up some old memories from my young Qbasic days. I went to Qbasic.com, then to qbtop50.com, and followed on to your site. I was curious of who still owned it and I started reading the history page. And then I came across this:

"Then at the end of October '99, it almost all came to an end. For the last couple of months, I had been offering free downloads of QuickBasic 4.5 in the "Compilers" section of my site. Hypermart somehow found out about it and terminated my account. Immediately, a witch hunt broke out, with everyone on the message board blaming each other for reporting my site."

I'm not proud of this at all, but I did it. I was 13 going on 14 years old at the time and I owned a competing (stupidly, that's how I saw it) website. You might recall someone owning Quickbasic.net, and then also buying QuickBasic.com. That was me. I called it the Quick Basic Network, or the QBN. This was how my nickname was formed on most of the message boards as theqbn .

It was entirely immature and heartless for me to have done that and I apologize. I never thought that emailing that complaint to the Hypermart abuse department would have led to deleting your entire site, but I was wrong.

I am now in my last year of college for my Networking and Security degree and I own a real estate brokerage firm in Eastern North Carolina. I gave up the domains several years back as I lost interest. I seemed to generate a lot of criticism in the QB community back then and I thought it was about time for me give up.

I just wanted to shed some light on this and I wish you the best of luck.

Thanks,

[NAME REMOVED]

Although this shut down almost led to the downfall of my site, I was able to sweet-talk Hypermart into restoring my account -- so in the end, nothing was really lost except for a few weeks of updates that I would have done if my site were online. I wrote the guy back and told him there were no hard feelings. Here's my response, if you're interested:

Don't worry about it, I'm not mad. It happened so long ago, and Hypermart restored my site, so it's all water under the bridge. Besides, if I recall correctly, I kind of enjoyed the month-long vacation from updating my site. :)

It seems like your early interest in internet security must have paid off, considering you're about to get your degree in "Networking and Security"!

Thanks for the email,

Pete

Mystery solved!

News Brief by Pete

Preview of Lachie's QBasic Games Directory!

Lachie Dazdarian never ceases to amaze me with his knowledge of and dedication to preserving and promoting QBasic/QuickBasic games. You're probably familiar with Lachie's reviews of QB games and his "Searching For The Unknown" series for QB Express, but those articles are nothing compared to his latest project. The QBasic Games Directory is a huge undertaking, and you absolutely have to check out the preview version Lachie's got up:

http://games.qbasic.com

Lachie's goal is to "collect, archive and offer to public" all "worthy" QBasic games that have ever been released publically. ("Worthy" games being quality titles, and preferably not engine demos unless they're really good.)

So far, he's really lived up to that goal. Lachie's got close to 500 games entered in the database, most of them with screenshots. He's also written up a description and rated every program, and everything is entirely searchable because the site is custom-built with PHP. To my knowledge, this is the best and most thorough archive of QBasic programs ever assembled. Some archives may be larger, but they're not of anywhere near the same quality...and they usually have a lot of "unworthy" games clogging up the collection. This directory is the real deal.

Unfortunately, the actual GAMES have not been uploaded yet, but that should be coming soon. Lachie asked me to give Mark Wilhelm, the owner of QBasic.com and hosting provider, a little bit of prodding: "The site is still not 100 % ready since it's taking EONS for Mark to set it up but maybe you can write a small line about it for the News Brief." Well, Mark, here's my "small line" of motivation: get to work!

With the games uploaded, and maybe a little bit of restructuring/redesigning, this could very well become the most important QBasic website on the Internet. Lachie, we thank you for your amazing work, and we can't wait to see the final product!

News Brief by Pete

Fuzzypig Launches New Website

Fuzzypig, a regular over at Freebasic.net, has launched a new website of his own: Fuzzypig's Domain. So far, it's just got a few of Fuzzypig's own programs, links, an empty forum, a new blog, and a design that hearkens back to 1997 GeoCities websites. It's not much to look at yet, but you should bookmark it and check back...who knows, it could become amazing. A lot of of great QB/FB sites started the same way.

News Brief by Pete

FreeBasic.tk Moves

FreeBasic.tk, formerly hosted at FBTK.net, has now moved back to its predecessor's domain, QBTK.net. Apparently, Sumo Jo let the domain name expire, and he doesn't want to pay a penalty fee to get it back. So now if you want your FBTK goodness, you'll have to visit: fbtk.qbtk.com. Or, I suppose you could use the domain name that the site is actually named after: freebasic.tk.

Anyway, head over there and post something! The once-active forum has been DEAD for the last few months.

News Brief by Pete

Project News

New Zero GTR Demo: Mindblowing

Prepare for your mind to be blown. Syn9 has released an engine demo of his upcoming "Anti Gravity Racing League" game, entitled Zero GTR, that is the single most professional piece of work I've ever seen come out of the FreeBasic scene. If you haven't checked it out yet, now is the time.

Although it's still just a one-track engine demo, Zero GTR looks and feels like a game you'd play on a modern console, not something that a hobbyist made in his spare time in...BASIC... Syn9's got a real gift for graphic design -- the world he creates is made up of simple geometric shapes, and has far fewer polygons than anything you'd see in a current racing game, yet its simple stylistic look is absolutely gorgeous. This demo is proof that it's not the complexity of the graphics that makes a game look "modern", but good design that really makes all the difference.

Syn9 has also registered a domain name for Zero GTR: http://www.zerogtr.com/ It's just a placeholder right now, but it looks like he's planning to do some major promotion of this game when it's finished. Since Zero GTR will feature online network play, zerogtr.com will most likely be the hub for players to communicate.

This is really exciting. I think that of any FB game so far, Zero GTR could be the one that attracts mainstream gamers to the FB community...and to FreeBasic. I can't wait to see the game get developed over the next few months, before its estimated Winter 2006 completion date.

Here are the links to try out the demo:

Download the demo: trackTest2.zip
Download the updated/improved program file: core.exe

News Brief by Pete

New "Seamless Tactical RPG" by Xerol

You've got to check out this awesome project:

I don't have a full name for this yet, but STRPG is just a description of the "genre": A seamless tactical RPG.

The main beef I've got with TRPGs (like FFTactics, Disgaea, etc.) is that 99% of the action takes place on limited battlefields. STRPG will remove this restriction, but bring in new features to compensate for the seamless nature of the world and still keep the tactical nature of the game.

It's still in its very early stages; so far we've just started working on our first battle demo (which doesn't explore the 'seamless' part of the game just yet) so all you're gonna get for now is these screenshots:

As you can see we're using temporary models for now because we don't have a character modeler. This is a paid position that is open to the first person who can demonstrate they have the abilities to meet the requirements of this job. The game will be published (under the Level Ground label) and sold online. Obviously at this early stage we can't give any estimates for when a final product will be available, but we expect to have a playable demo out within a week. (Already you can battle, but there are a ton of issues that need to be worked out, and the code is patchy at best.)

Anyone interested in the modeling position can email xerol3@yahoo.com or contact us on AIM:lggaming.

News Brief by Xerol

The Long-Awaited Official Release of FreeBASIC 0.16b

On June 12th, V1ctor announced the release of version 0.16b of the awesome FreeBASIC compiler. IF you read the changelog you can see that alot of corrections and additions have been made, once again which is great news. always good to see the FB team working so hard to bring us a highly efficient and usable programming language.

According to some users, some project that compiled with version 0.15b might not work as is with version 0.16b however, following the changelogs and making the appropriate changes in the code seems to be all that is needed to get them to compile properly.

Three cheers for the FB Team!

News Brief by MystikShadows

MystikShadow's FB Elite IDE project

On June 3rd, I announced a project I've been working on for a few weeks. It's called the FreeBASIC Elite I.D.E. It's an IDE with a more than familiar look and feel (see the screenshot for details). The object is to make an IDE reminescent of the QB family of compilers. Here is a list of the main features planned for the project:

Split view editing (like the QB IDEs have).
Syntax Highlighting (colored FB code like all of today's IDEs).
Syntax Checking while editing option (just like in QB)
FreeBASIC Consultant (to play the role of the QB Advisor)
Ability to load more than one file at a time (.mak file support).
Immediate mode code interpreting (again like all QB environments).

Here's a screenshot of the editor showing the FreeBASIC Consultant with the help for the PRINT statement just to give you a taste of what's ahead.

I'm currently working on the file open/save dialogs and other standard editing dialogs like search, replace and the likes. After that I start on some of the bigger engines like debugging options, interpreter and the likes.

Here are links to some of the comments I've gotten so far on the project: My post on the freebasic.net forum and My post on the QBasicNews forum.

News Brief by MystikShadows

Rattrapmax6's ASCII_Drop_Player Announced

On June 6th of 2006, Rattrapmax6 made this this announcement about his newly created MP3 player. It is designed to be very simple to use, just drop an MP3 file on the icon and it will start playing.

As he states in his post, the player currently can only be used by dropping an MP3 file on it, there's no playlist (but perhaps it would be a good thing to add.)

News Brief by MystikShadows

Vector X FB Port, Courtesy of Lachie D.!

Here's the latest game release from the ever-newsworthy Lachie Dazdarian: Vector X 2006.

It is, as Lachie describes it, it's "a port of a rather unknown 3D QBasic game" originally released by Dan McFadyen in 2001. The game uses wire-frame graphics, and you control a space ship flying down a narrow passage, trying to avoid or destroy enemies, mines and landscape features along the way. There are five levels, and at the end of each level, you must destroy a specific structure to advance.

Check out some screenshots:

"Of course," Lachie explains, "my port is not just a simple port but more, what is to be expected from me." Compared to the original QB version of the game, Lachie completely overhauled this version, adding music / sound effects, improving the graphics substantially, adding backgrounds, new menus, improving the control and a whole lot more. Lachie says this release falls somewhere between being a port and a complete remake.

I gave Vector X 2006 a spin, and I was very impressed. It feels quite polished -- the menus, the presentation, the music, etc. -- which is something we've all come to expect from Lachie's work. The game was pretty fun to play, once I got the hang of it. I managed to get to the third level, and I really liked the little touches, like the destructable terrain and the placement of the mines. It's a challenging game, but it is pretty well-balanced in terms of gameplay (I never felt like I was cheated by the enemies).

However, I found the wireframe graphics to be confusing -- While I liked the simplistic style of the graphics, I was never sure where in 3D space my ship was in relation to the ground and the enemies. (If the surfaces were opaque, this wouldn't be as much of a problem. Also, a shadow on the ground directly below the ship would be a huge improvement, in my opinion.) I also found the pop-in of new ground on the horizon to be distracting.

Overall, though, this is definitely one of the most "worthy" FB games I've had a chance to play, and I encourage you all to check it out. It's in my top ten favorite FB games so far, and that's saying something!

You can download the game below:

Download VectorX_2006.zip (2762 KB)
Download VectorX_2006Lite.zip (no sound version; 880 KB)

News Brief by Pete

Pritchard Releases Geometry Library

As announced in this freebasic.net forum thread Pritchard has created a geometry library for FreeBASIC. The library was created to offer some 2D/3D based geometry calculations (including 2D and 3D collision detection routines). Here are some of the highlights as expressed by Pritchard himself:

The Lib Supports the Following:

Tested on Version .16 Unstable, so no guarantees for you .15'ers
1D, 2D, and 3D Trigonometric Functions with Single Digit Precision
Spherical Against Line Segment Collision Detection for All Dimensions Supported:
Code: Collision_Detection_Dimension(Boundary Type, Boundary Start, Boundary End, Object Position, Radius)

Boundary Type is the value of which normal to use.

Spherical Against Spherical Collision

A ton of other stuff, really (function list below) :P

From what people are saying, this is a very fast and efficient library and I have to agree to it after I've tried it on my PC.

News Brief by MystikShadows

Finally! True DOS Networking Routines For QuickBasic

Mike Chambers has created a method to do TCP/IP networking in QB...something that people have been working on for years with only marginal success. Here's the news from Mike:

Anybody who has ever wanted to use TCP/IP networking in QuickBASIC under true DOS can now do it using Mike Chambers' TCP routines. All you need is an ethernet packet driver. You can download the routines with documentation here: http://rubbermallet.org/qb/index.html

It is also on Pete's QB site under the misc downloads section.

If you find a packet driver that wraps to winsock.dll you could also use this under Windows.

News Brief by Mike Chambers

Wetspot II Ported to Windows

Randall Glass has followed up Adigun A. Polack's "Wetspost 10th Anniversary Remix" and given the same treatment to Angelo Mottola's classic WetSpot II. Here's the news:

For all you Wetspot II game players; Wetspot II has been converted to Windows !

Have you ever tried to run the Dos version of Wetpot II but could not get it to run because of ems problems on you modern computer.

Well fear no move. Wetspot II has been converted to Windows using FreeBasic.

It is an improved Wetspot game in play ability and and improved documentation.

And new cheat codes !

You can download the game at this Simtel.net page, and relive the memories from what is widely considered to be the best QB game ever made!

News Brief by Randall L Glass

Deleter's FreeBasic Bitmap Font Library

Deleter has released a useful library that could save you some time the next time you're, say, coding a game in 24 hours: routines to incorporate your own bitmap fonts! Here's some more info.

Description:
A small static lib in freebasic that does some pretty simple printing routines. While not particularly ingenious, it nevertheless makes it really easy to use custom bitmap fonts and saves time for the fun stuff when coding a game. It works with any bit mode so whether you need a fast fix for custom fonts on that retro arcade 8-bit classic, or if you are making a slick, high-tech app, this lib has what you need. All the code for the lib is available, so if you want to peek at or even modify the internals, go right ahead. There is a small test program available for both 8bit and 32bit mode that explains all the functions.

You can download the library and fonts at Deleter's website.

News Brief by Pete

Mind Maker QBasic Version 1.1

I got an email from Corey Yeates (who asked me to refer to him as "Corey Yeates ==> evil_chicken"), asking me to include one of his simple programs in this issue of QB Express. The program, entitled "Mind Maker", is a compilation of several very simple programs. While I didn't have a chance to actually check out the program, I did scroll through the source code, and I saw a series of ASCII art drawings of a sailboat getting destroyed by a giant wave, as well as text like "You Lose A Man From The Impact Of The Wave." This could be interesting!

http://geocities.com/coreyyeates/PROGRAM_EDITION.txt

You can also visit Corey Yeates / evil_chicken's homepage at this link.

News Brief by Pete

Wallace Releases Visual Editor, Continues Work On Inspiration

Wallace Software has continued working, quietly, on his upcoming FB first person shooter, Inspiration. If you check the Wallace Software homepage, you'll see the latest updates on Inspiration -- which come every few days.

Some noteworthy quotes from the last month:

"All of the bugs in the weapon editor have been figured out and its looks fantastic, so far I've created a double barrel shotgun and a sword."

"I'm still hoping that a cross FreeBasic will go cross platform so that I can test it on my main computer, but the Acer is very fast. I'm making my Virtual PC on my iMac the standard for speed since it is fairly slow going there. I think on my Acer Inspiration will blister around 250 FPS so I'll have a LOT of room for advanced effects."

"Map Editor chugging along. I've decided because of the complexity of the sprite portion of the maps that I will be splitting the map editor into two programs. One will edit the static parts of the map like the walls and floors and stuff, while I will have another editor for the sprite map. I have also decided that the main map, light map, and sprite map will be three different files, that way I can use the same wall set for multiple levels of the game and change the lighting arrangements of them without making whole new maps. I will soon start working on the engine."

Wallace also released the Wallace Visual Editor 1.2 back in June, which is being used to create assets for Inspiration. Groovy!

News Brief by Pete

Lynn's Legacy Undergoes Beta Testing; Final Release Imminent!

Josiah Tobin and Cha0s' action RPG, Lynn's Legacy, is coming along very well, and in the past month and a half, a private demo has been circulated to a group of beta testers. (You can read all about it in this thread). Already one of the most promising games in development for FB, it sounds like it's really starting to come together:

On May 29th, Cha0s wrote: "We currently are about half a day's work away from finishing the first chapter of the game. That's 3 dungeons and various sidequests. There's about one hour worth of game play."

But the real big news came this morning (June 16th), when Cha0s announced:

We will be releasing a final version of Lynn's Legacy to beta testers this week, and plan a full public release next Friday.

Just thought you might like to know. ;)

This is fantastic news. Lynn's Legacy is one of the most-awaited projects of the year, and the entire Qmunity is frothing at the mouth to get their hands on the final version. Friday (five days from now) can't come soon enough!

News Brief by Pete

RelSoft Updates Genso's Junkyard

RelSoft, the king of the FB graphics demo, has just posted SEVEN new demos on his website, Genso's Junkyard...and they are all stunning:

I think the gfx demos speak for themselves...check them out!

News Brief by Pete

"They came... We shot them down!" by Lithium (and others)

Last month, Lithium released an awesome shooting game entitled "They came... We shot them down!" that is one of the most fun FB games I've played. Take a look:

You control the jeep in the picture, and it's your job to protect the little green people walking the streets below from the constant alien bombardment that falls from the sky. It's similar to "Missile Command", except your jeep is mobile, and the alien attackers have some new weapons and tricks up their sleeves. This game is mouse-based and handles really well. With a little more polish, it could become something really great.

You can find a 75% complete demo of "They came... We shot them down!" at Lithium's page (which, by the way, has recently gotten a really cool redesign).

News Brief by Pete

"King's Land 2" by Jace Masula

Jace Masula has released a second version of his QB strategy game, King's Land, and it looks really great. Check out the animated screenshot and description below:

King's Land is a simple turn based strategy game similar to warcraft and age of empires. The game takes place during the middle ages and has 3 levels of difficulty. each campaign focus different aspects of strategy. Its a cross between chess, stratego... and warcraft i guess.

I'm in the process of writing a game manual... but it is fairly self explainitory and anyone can figure out how to play in 15 minutes. anyway, it worth a look if you enjoy old school cheesy strategy games. please report any bugs or constuctive suggestions right here.

For a pure-QB game, this is very impressive (and it's also one of very few new QB games that has come out in the past year). Definitely worth your time! You can download King's Land and find out more info at Jace Masula's QBasic Lab.

News Brief by Pete

Eclipzer Previews New Voxel Viewer

Eclipzer has posted a screenshot of a new Voxel Viewer that he's working on. In case you're unfamiliar with voxels, they are essentially 3D pixels (the term itself stands for "Volumetric Pixels"). Voxels are a less common method of creating 3D graphics, but it leads to some really cool effects.

According to Eclipzer, "Eventually this will be a full blown editor, once more of the core programming is completed."

I spoke with Eclipzer regarding what he plans to do with the voxel editor / viewer once it's completed, and he mentioned that he was interested in possibly remaking Alias' QB game Attack of the Blobeteers. (In fact, the model that you see in the Voxel Viewer screenshot above is from AotB.) Unfortunately, Eclipzer has been unable to find the original sourcecode of the game. If you have a copy of Attack of the Blobeteers, or know where to get it, please get in touch with Eclipzer!

News Brief by Pete

Some Other Cool Projects / Posts

Here are some other neat programs that are worth a look. I'd write up full news briefs for them, but I'm exhausted and just want to get this dang magazine published!

shockwave has released some cool demos this month: a 6 Hour blobs Demo and a Realtime Fire Demo. Nice!

phycowelder made a simple maze game called Hedge Row Maze.

speedlemon released a game called Gem Hunt with the following notice -- "Warning: This game barely has any food in it." Watch out!

Rick Clark created a simple graphics editor called Glyph32 Maker, which outputs your graphics in the form of DATA statements.

thesanman made a Flight Simulator program, and is also working on a 3D first person shooter entitled Realms of Darkness.

mennonite posted some Qmunity stats that he collected and charted, regarding the number of forum views versus replies. Check out this thread to see the graph and his analysis.

Rattrapmax6 moved his website, x.t.r. GRAPHICS to a new server and off of AOL. He also did a nice redesign of his website, and has kept up with regular updates.

Clyde made a graphics demo called Gravity - Electro. Yum.

TheAdventMaster created some TextBox and Font Routines, which could be very useful if your FB program uses text or text boxes (and it probably does)...

Adigun A. Polack posted the results of the 2nd FreeBASIC Ultimate Demo Compo. The winner? A cool music player by Clyde and DBF: Camouflage Music Disk. The Music Disk has a really nice interface, and I would recommend taking a look. Also, while you're at it, visit the DBF-GVY Demo Code Forum, a fairly active forum about graphics demo programming with a FreeBasic section.

Ryan (rmann05) is working on a program called Test Master that will help students study for tests. You can find it at his website.

Rick Clark has started giving out something called FreeBasic Outstanding Contributor award. The June award went to cha0s: "Cha0s is always willing to help those who need guidance with excellent explanations and helpful code examples. Thanks cha0s." Congratulations!

News Brief by Pete

Other News

Lachie Updates His FB Game Programming Tutorials

In the last two issues of QB Express (#19 and #20), we have featured excellent and extensive FreeBasic programming tutorials by Lachie Dazdarian. However, being the perfectionist that he is, Lachie wasn't completely happy with how they turned out. As a result, he's released corrected / updated versions of both of them:

Lesson #1: Download Lachie_GFXlib_Tutorial_1.zip

Lesson #2: Download Lachie_GFXlib_Tutorial_2.zip

If you are wondering about mistakes the biggest one was in the first lesson where I incorrectly gave instructions about using 24 bit graphics in GFXlib. I said you can't get transparency with sprites saved in 24 bit mode in a GFXlib program that uses 24 or 32 bit screen color depth. I realized later that this was caused by my incorrect way of converting 8 bit graphics to 24 bit color depth mode. In the second it was only one word but kinda important(I refered to a variable with an incorrect name). And several nitpicks(of course).

These were already AMAZING tutorials, and now they're even better!

News Brief by Pete

Got news to report? Send it to: pberg1@gmail.com!

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 month, we feature THREE previews: LONG: Legend of Noname General by Lachie Dazdarian, a Super Smash Bros. Clone posted at FreeBasic.tk by "someusername," and FieldView by Z!re and company.

LONG: Legend of Noname General

In development in QB since 2002, Lachie Dazdarian's point-and-click adventure LONG is living up to its name, having quite a long development cycle. But this summer, Lachie plans to port it to FreeBasic and finish off the game once and for all. LONG will also receive a huge graphical upgrade from the QB version, which you will be able to see in the following before/after screenshots that follow.

But first, here's a little more info on the game's premise, straight from Lachie's website, Kentauri:

The Legacy Of Noname General is a point and click adventure programmed in QuickBasic [and soon, FreeBasic]. Since i don't want to create just another point and click adventure I'll try to create a unique graphical design and interesting story.Story will be mixture of D.Lynch Lost Highway and R.Zelazny "pocket world" motif.

The graphics are indeed pretty stylistic. Check out some of the old QB screenshots that really showcase LONG's graphical stylings. But in the FB version, the graphics will look even nicer, according to Lachie:

I decided to make LONG a 24 bit graphics game. The reasons are not really relevant but it's important to say this should(I can't promise) advance the look of the game. This is still in testing phase but "the tests" I did so far are very promising. I've sent you 5 scene images and if you want to make news of this PLEASE PUBLISH ONLY THE FIRST THREE IMAGES(long_new1, long_new2 and long_new3)! Others appear really later in the game and I don't want for all the community to see them before the game is out.

Here are some before/after shots. I wish I could show you the other two screens Lachie sent me (they are much more impressive than the three below), but he was very clear that they were for my eyes only.

BEFORE	AFTER

Lachie also sent me a mock-up of what the new FB version's user interface will look like:

"The 6th image represents some of my ideas on how the new game screen might look like. It's all still testing, the very screen is not operable. In this screenshot I also show how 24 bit graphics will allow me to enable some really cool translucency scene transitions. Fell free to show this image to community too."

So when will LONG be released? I'm guessing this fall, or perhaps at the end of this summer. Lachie just recently graduated from college, and he has informed me that he will be without internet access for the rest of the summer...and that he will also have plenty of free time to work on various projects. He hopes to complete the FB version of LONG during that time. After that though, who knows what will become of the Lachie that we know and love:

So LONG at least should be ported during this period. It will be the last summer of Lachie Dazdarian, as I call in my head. Huge changes must and will happen in my life after I finish college and even if I keep making games like I did so far I will be living a different life. I hate being a grownup. :P

Don't worry. My feelings are that we will keep seeing Lachie around for years to come. Someone as dedicated to game programming as Lachie will find a way to be part of the Qmunity. Like they say, "Once a QBer, always a QBer!"

Super Smash Bros. Clone

AKA "Super Smash Brothers 7: Kirby Gets Frisky"

Okay, I really don't know anything about this game, but I think it looks really cool. Being a HUGE fan of Super Smash Brothers, I thought I'd share everything I know about it, hook, line and sinker. I have not spoken to its creator, (a guest at FBTK calling him/herself "someusername"), and aside from a few posts in this thread, I haven't seen anything else posted about this game. When someone asked someusername about his identity, he replied: "Who am I? Well, I've been programming in Basic/QB/FB during +10 years now, and I've always lurking in all QB/FB communities so far, never posting. I think this is (probably) my first post ever!"

As for the game, here's what someusername has said the following:

It is a 2D clone of Super Smash Brothers, and uses the original Nintendo characters.

"So far I only have that stage, and one character (Kirby, d'oh!) with half of his movelist finished."

"I'm planning to change the font to fit with the rest the game, as well as adding lightning effects and such."

On June 14th, someusername posted: "I just finished implementing YAGL. I need to tweak some minor details, finish a basic movelist for Kirby (the only character so far), and a demo will be released. Maybe in a week or two."

Sounds (and looks) like it will be a very fun game! I hope the demo does indeed come out soon, because I'd love to give it a go.

But anyway, enough talk... time for a flood of screenshots! (I apologize that I'm doing a rather half-assed Gallery here, but I never bothered to do any research on this game. Therefore, this article will live up to the "gallery" name and feature a lot of pictures...and not much else.)

That's all, folks! Visit the original thread for more info.

FieldView

Z!re and her team of developers are busy at work on the massive online open RPG in the works, entitled FieldView. This uber-ambitious project aims to be by far the biggest and most intricate FB game ever created (though most of the features outlined so far have not been developed yet, and are thus "vaporware").

This month, Z!re sent me a work-in-progress version of the FieldView manual to share with you all. Although this "gallery" article does not include any screenshots, I figured that this would be the best place to include this document.

But first, here's some info from Z!re:

FieldView / Plantasy Studios Official Site
The latest release is always here: http://fieldview.mine.nu/download.php?id=1

In most cases the auto-patcher will handle the updating just fine though. People can see for themselves whats going on and whats added.

As always, questions or bugreports are to be sent to muhdev@gmail.com

We're especially looking for gameplay/ingame questions such as the ones described in the manual.

-Z!re

And now for the FieldView WIP manual:

--General Info--

FieldView is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, or MMORPG for short.
It is set in a medieval fantasy world where players are allowed to live out their lives folowing whatever path they choose.
Various pieces of history regarding the lands found within FieldView is available ingame in the form of books.

--The Goal--

FieldView aims to allow players as much freedom as possible, within 'reality' rules. For example players will be able to construct buildings, chop down trees, become smiths, merchants, bakers. Or simply wander off into the wild looking for some game to hunt.

--Starting Up--

When starting for the first time players have to create an account, details on this can be found by following the onscreen instructions.
After an account has been created you can create or load a character, once again onscreen instructions explain how to do this.
If you start a new character a tutorial mode will start that explains the basics of the game.

--The Gameplay--

There is no difference between a player and a NPC.
FieldView offer no "mobs" or "creeps".
There is no automatic respawning, nor pre-defined spawnpoints.

In FieldView players can perform various tasks ranging from, as previously mentioned, baking bread to fighting savage hordes of beasts.
Players are also able to gather enough fame that other players, or NPCs, join them in a common cause, creating a clan, pack, army or empire if you will.
Such leaders are able to issue abstract orders to his followers, much in the sense of many Real Time Strategy games.
As previously mentioned players can gain followers, this is not limited to non-animal followers.
This means that a player can gain the trust of a dog, which will then follow the player around.

FieldView is a class-less game, meaning that you do not pick a class and thats what you get. Instead players are able to excel at the skills of their choosing.
Skills are learned as they are performed, or learned from experienced players, much like a master trains a novice.
There is no levelup system for your character as a whole, instead you train your skills.
In addition, items such as swords do not have an innate damage, the damage you do with your sword depends on your swordsmanship skill and what type of sword it is. In addition, your strenght plays in telling how hard you hit.
Attributes such as strenght are dynamicaly shifted towards the one you use the most. If you carry a large stone, your strenght will go up, lowering your other attributes.
All players have the same amount of health, if you want to fight, wear armor.

--What Happens if You Die--

If you die in FieldView you will become a lootable corpse. Your spirit will be transported either to the celestial or abyssal planes.
Your corpse remains lootable until your spirit has performed the tasks given to them.
Spirits that do not perform their tasks and return to the body will be hunted by spirithunters.
Death on Elite difficulty will make you loose 50% of your skills.
Elite difficulty gains 100% skill increase, Normal difficulty gain only 50%
It is possible to change to Elite at any time, but not possible to change back.
Normal players suffer no penalty from death other than the possibility of having their items looted by other players/NPCs.
Spirits can ressurect with their body either by possessing their corpse, or by going to the temple of their most favored god.

--List of Playable Races--

Players will be able to play any one of 14 races in FieldView, the races with their pros and cons are listed below (Some races not listed as their abilities are not yet decided):

Dragons
Pros: Magic resistant, Tough skin
Cons: Few magic skills, Unable to wear armor, Unable to perform certain jobs
Special: Flight, Fire breath

Dwarves
Pros: Strong, High morale
Cons: Low stamina and dexterity, weak magic skills
Special: Forge, Imbue, Runebind

Goblins
Pros: Small, Fast, Stealthy
Cons: Physically weak, Low morale
Special: Construct, Repair, Enhance

Humans
Pros: Can learn almost all skills, Survivalists, Widespread, Good spellcasters, Learns skills faster
Cons: Unable to excel in most skills, Dissliked by most other races
Special: None

Minotaurs
Pros: Strong, Horns and claws
Cons: Low intelligence cap, Unable to learn many magic skills, Low agility cap
Special: Can one-hand weild many two-hand weapons, Can wear heavy armors without penalty

Ogres
Pros: Big, Strong
Cons: Slow, Stupid
Special: Inspire fear, Ranged melee, Critical strike

--The policy--

As FieldView aims to allow as much freedom as possible to players there are few restrictions to play. The most significant are:
No bot usage
No cheating
No selling of any FieldView related material for money or other services outside of the FieldView game.
FieldView admins are Gods, obey them.
Registering an account to play FieldView can be done either ingame or from the official website.

And so, there you have it! Make sure you visit the FieldView / Plantasy Studios Official Site for the latest news and information on FieldView!

Have a game that you'd like previewed in the Gallery? Email some screenshots and information to: pberg1@gmail.com!

How to Design and Program a Game in 24 Hours

Written by SJ Zero

If you've been around the Qmunity for the past two years, you're no doubt familiar with SJ Zero's 24 hour FreeBasic minigame coding competitions. The rules are simple: you have only 24 hours to complete the best possible game that you can. When the time is up, everyone uploads their games, and people vote to decide a winner. It's a simple concept, but it results in some pretty awesome games (SJ Zero's awesome "Rambo Vs. Kitty Cat" is a testament to this).

And if you go way back to the days of QB RPGs and Darkness Ethereal, you'll find scads of partially-completed RPG demos from DarkDread's many 24-hour RPG coding competitions. The QB classic "The Secret of Cooey" was the fruit of one of these awesome contests. It's amazing how much can be accomplished with a little experience, a little inspiration, and 24 hours.

But before you start, it's a good idea to think over the process a bit. That's why SJ Zero wrote this article. Coding a game in 24 hours is a completely different animal from a conventional game development cycle (which, can take up to NINE YEARS, as Duke Nukem Forever has shown us). The extreme time constraint forces programmers to think very creatively, work efficiently, and run on pure adrenaline (and caffeine) for a whole day...but if you decide to partake in one of these stressful marathon coding sessions, you'll accomplish something that most coders in this community only dream about: actually finishing a game.

-Pete

1. Design and assessment

Fundamentally, this journey of 1000 lines of code begins before you've even turned on your computer. More than any other type of game, the 24 hour game absolutely requires planning.

In other arenas up to now, people have suggested planning every single equation beforehand. You don't have time for that now. If you spend 8 hours planning, you've suddenly only got 16 hours left to actually code and accumulate. Do NOT make the mistake of planning into minute coding detail. Instead, ask yourself the following:

What kind of game would I like to make?

What is the setting of this game going to be?

Which non-coding assets will I require to make this program work?

What is the best way to get those assets?

What kind of graphics, sound, and input will my program accept?

What libraries will be ideal to make this game work?

Do I know the ideal programming libraries? If not, can I use another?

Do I have any experience at all creating this sort of game?

By answering such questions, you will begin to get a fairly solid idea of what will be involved in making the game you've decided to make.

This may sound trivial, but by answering the questions in the first hour, you can concentrate on programming, and gathering or creating art, music, and sounds.

2. Data Structures

The first thing to get started with when you've made your decisions is to start designing and coding up data types for every object in the game. By creating the data structures first, you end up inadvertently designing a large portion of the game.

The nice thing about this step is that almost every game starts almost every object with the same fundamental attributes: X, Y, X acceleration, and Y acceleration. From there, you'll often want to give it some designation for an object subtype so you can, for example, have multiple enemies using a single data type.

Always try to keep in mind exactly how you're going to use these variables. Remember, that fundamentally, you need to know where every object is, what every object looks like, what every object does, how every object is going to move over the next set time period, and what the status of the object is. By correctly setting up the data structures, you ensure that your program will more or less design itself.

Having created the data structures, just create arrays for the different object types.

3. Graphics

Before we start programming the graphics engine, get your art assets together. Ideally, you'd create them from scratch, but you've got 24 hours � there's no shame in taking a few from elsewhere. The ideal is to use public domain images, however. There's no reason to infringe anyone's copyrights.

Now, you might be asking why on earth we'd set up graphics at this time. The answer is very simple: By having graphics set up, loaded and running, you've got a visual debugger for the physics engine and player controls. Therefore, make sure that the fundamentals of the graphics, that is to say, the position and sprites for all the objects on the screen, are functioning. It may be a good idea to use some false data in the data structures you've created so you can tell if everything is working.

4. Physics

Physics is the most involved part of the process, but it's much easier now that you have graphics in place. With this phase comes a large portion of independent design I can't get into here, but some of the most important questions you have to ask yourself are related to how objects act and why. For example, most arcade games function the way they do because they are hard-coded to do so. Most modern video games, conversely, tend to have universal physics models which treat everything the same and force objects to move according to a universal model.

No matter which philosophy you choose for your physics model, ensure that everything is taken care of in this little block: Enemy stuff, player stuff, movement stuff. Keeping it centralized has the added distinction of allowing you to move to a TCP/IP networking model later, or allowing you to make changes to the fundamental gameplay without altering anything but the physics engine.

5. Player Controls

In the past, player controls would be difficult because it had to do everything. Because of the way I've recommended you tackle your physics, it is the most simple: Simply alter the physics values so your player character is compelled to act in the way you want it to move. Want to move left? Increase the X velocity. Want to move right? Increase the Y acceleration. Want to jump? Set the Y acceleration to a relatively large negative value. By handling player controls in this way, multiplayer is easy to implement, and the physics engine can cover everything important. The centralization has so many benefits I couldn't possibly list them all here.

6. Level asset creation

If you are creating a game that requires manual level asset creation, God help you. You've chosen a path that will require the majority of your time to be focused on creating level assets. However, if you get the first 5 steps out of the way quickly, you can still end up with a large, playable game.

One lovely thing is, because of the way you've implemented everything in an encapsulated manner, you can just pull the physics and player controls out of the engine and use the same base as a level editor.

For Rambo vs. Kitty Cat, I didn't even do that � I simply made the mouse into a level editing control device and kept the keyboard as the game playing control device.

After completing these 6 steps, you'll have a complete, playable game! From here, you can expand it however you'd like, polish it up for a true release, or move onto another game.

Whatever you choose to do, congratulations! I hope to see you at the next QBXL Competition!

- SJ Zero

Download a copy of this article: 24hours.html

Digg it!
The Year's Best Programming Articles From Digg.com

Written by Pete

If you haven't heard of the social tech news site Digg.com yet, you've been missing out on the single best source of news and interesting bookmarks on the entire web....if you're a geek, that is.

In the past few months, Digg has passed the former king of online geek news, Slashdot, and it keeps growing. In fact, on Monday, June 26th (tomorrow when I'm writing this), Digg is launching version 3 of their website, which will add a ton of new features and will expand the site beyond just tech/geek news to everything from movies and music to world news to art.

But one topic that Digg has always covered extremely well is perhaps the geekiest subject of them all: Programming. You'll find some of the most interesting and informative articles about computer programming listed at Digg -- covering everything from how to create high-tech new Ruby On Rails web apps, to old-school DOS programming, to general programming theory.

Since I'm sure a lot of QB Express readers have missed out on many of the good programming articles posted at Digg, I've gone through the last year's worth of top programming articles and filtered out the ones that would appeal to QB / FB programmers: the ones on general programming know-how, and some of the stuff on old-school BASIC / DOS coding. (I've left out all the articles on specific languages and web programming... but if you're interested in learning PHP, AJAX, CSS, Python, Java, C++, or web programming, you'll find literally hundreds of fantastic articles in the Digg programming archives.)
If you're not already a member of Digg, I encourage you to sign up and pay the site some visits. If you ever need to kill time, or want to keep yourself informed about the latest in technology, science and entertainment, Digg.com is *the* place to visit online. You never know what you're going to find. Plus, you can submit articles of your own and direct mega traffic to your site (if enough people actually digg your article). Also, you should check out the weekly Audio / Video podcast Diggnation with Kevin Rose (Digg.com founder) and Alex Albrecht. It's the most entertaining podcast I've found anywhere.

As you've guessed, I'm a Digg addict... I visit the site every time I sign online, and can't get enough. If you're interested in seeing the stories that I've been Digging throughout the week, visit my user profile -- and if you're a member, add me as a friend! None of my real-life friends use Digg, so I don't have many Digg friends yet...but if all you QBers befriend me, then I won't be such a digg dork. :)

Enjoy the articles!

-Pete

How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Computing and Programming

submitted by dirtyfratboy 1 day 23 hours ago (via http://www.htdp.org/2003-09-26...)

Programming a computer requires patience and concentration. Only rigorous planning and adherence to the plan will prevent serious logical mistakes in our designs. But when we finally master the design of programs, we will have learned skills that are useful far beyond the realm of programming.

Ultimate Game Programming Guide

submitted by shirini 3 days ago (via http://www-cs-students.stanfor...)

This is one of the best resources for game programmers out there.

All the programming algorithms you might ever need

submitted by bonlebon 4 days ago (via http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/~dasgu...)

This is a pure gold link for CS pros, techs and hobbyists.

Functional Programming For The Rest of Us

submitted by dirtyfratboy 5 days ago (via http://www.defmacro.org/rambli...)

"So what is FP? How did it come about? Is it edible? If it's as useful as its advocates claim, why isn't it being used more often in the industry? Why is it that only people with PhDs tend to use it? Most importantly, why is it so damn hard to learn?"

10 tips on writing reusable code

submitted by depi 6 days ago (via http://hoskinator.blogspot.com...)

Really good tips how to write reusable code.

15 Exercises to Know A Programming Language: Part 1

submitted by rlamarch 8 days ago (via http://www.knowing.net/PermaLi...)

The fastest way to learn a new language is to write some code. Here are 15 exercises from veteran programmer Larry O'Brian to kick start your studies.

15 Exercises for Learning a new Programming Language

submitted by sickaltima 13 days ago (via http://www.jobsnake.com/seek/a...)

Prashant N Mhatre has a working knowledge of several programming languages but job demands to learn a new language frequently in a short time. Prashant shares 15 exercises to master languages quickly.

How The Current State Of Case Law Forces Software Patenting

submitted by dirtyfratboy 19 days ago (via http://www.emailbattles.com/ar...)

Programmers have slowly come to realize that, if they don't patent their code, they may find themselves unable to legally use it after someone else patents it much later. Out of necessity, a new patent-oriented ethos has taken over.

Complete MS-Debug Tutorial

submitted by gwjc 21 days ago (via http://thestarman.dan123.com/a...)

If you started on MS-DOS PC's back in the 80's you probably still have fond memories of writing .coms in debug. Even if you never used it, Microsoft still gives you a copy of it with Windows, so you can fire it up and flashback to the days before the GUI.

They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Keyboard

submitted by tastypastry 35 days ago (via http://www.old-computers.com/f...)

Atari/Microsoft ad from the early 80's for Microsoft Basic II.

Good List of "Programming Fonts"

submitted by mbuchetics 55 days ago (via http://keithdevens.com/wiki/Pr...)

Programmers have very particular font needs. A font for programming must be mono spaced, extremely readable, and must sharply distinguish between similar characters, such as capital O and zero and the number 1, capital I, and lowercase L. In addition, good programming fonts allow you to view more lines of code on screen at once.

Massive List Of 5000 Programming / Computer / Internet Books - For Free!

submitted by lonelycanuck 57 days ago (via http://2020ok.com/5.htm)

Who needs to pirate books / steal from the library with a list of free resourc

Developer	Votes	Percent	Graph
Piptol	11	21%
Future Software	4	8%
Jocke The Beast	8	15%
Lachie Dazdarian	10	19%
Mark Hall	3	6%
Oren Bartal	0	0%
Syn9	9	17%
Stefan Hendriks	3	6%
Terry Cavanagh	2	4%
WisdomDude	3	6%
53 Total Votes

QB Express

Issue #21 ~ July 16, 2006

In This Issue

From The Editor's Desk

Written by Pete

Submit To QB Express

Letters

Letter From MystikShadows

Letter From mennonite

Express Poll

What is the best QBasic game developer of all time?

Results of Division 2

News Briefs

QB / FB Site News

Project News

Other News

Gallery

Written by Pete

LONG: Legend of Noname General

Super Smash Bros. Clone

FieldView

Qlympics 2006:The Nominations Round

Written by Pete

The Qlympics 2006

The Rules

Additional categories

Time to Vote!

How to Design and Program a Game in 24 Hours

Written by SJ Zero

1. Design and assessment

2. Data Structures

3. Graphics

4. Physics

5. Player Controls

6. Level asset creation

The Next (R)evolution in Computing

Written by Rick Clark

Polemic For the Future of FB

Written by SJ Zero

Digg it!The Year's Best Programming Articles From Digg.com

Written by Pete

Qlympics 2006:
The Nominations Round

Digg it!
The Year's Best Programming Articles From Digg.com