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General Game Design
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Course in Game Design A two week and five day course on game design, where you make several simple games of increasing complexity. A great intro to game programming, especially for QB programmers! Lots of sample code. Andre Van Wyk
The Game Design Process How to create any game from start to finish. Explains Game Design in "six easy steps" and teaches you about deisgn documents, product specifications and screenplays. Francois Dominic Laramee
How To Write Good Quality QBasic Action Games A very thorough theory tutorial on creating both single player and multi-player action games. Discusses everything from point of view to radar to two player keyboard layouts. Created for The QBasic Station by Jack Thomson. Jack Thomson
Simple Game Design Takes beginners through the steps of designing any game -- planning, gathering tools, designing the algorithm. Includes an example of how to make a PONG game. (BASIX Fanzine #5) Diego
Rant: Necessity or Accessory? A game programming theory article that discusses what are the most important aspects of a game. These include Ease of Play, Graphics, Sound/Music, Storyline and Fun/Replayability. An important read for game designers trying to decide where to focus their programming time. (QB Chronicles #4) Singsong
30 Tips To Make Your Game More Fun To Play Thirty great tips on game design, especially for the QB programmer. (QB Cult Magazine #11) Terry Cavanagh
How To Make A Game That's Fun To Play Some tips and theory discussing what makes games fun to play. (QB Cult Magazine #13) Sane
Non-Linearity In Games Game theory article on making open-ended games. (QB Cult Magazine #17) Wildcard
Writing User Friendly Programs What you should and shouldn't do to make your programs easy and intuitive for users to use... and not frusterating. (QB Cult Magazine #2) Matthew R. Knight
Player Too Strategies for making two player games in QB; either having two players play with the same keyboard, or playing over the phone modem. (QDF #1) Lord Acidus
"What Are You Doing Dave?" A rudimentary introduction to Artificial Intelligence programming. Simple stuff. (QDF #2) Lord Acidus
Game Design Short theory article on how to make your games challenging, entertaining and unique. (Razor Diskmag #1) Tim Ryan
How To Program Everything - A Step By Step Guide "There has only ever been one program ever written, and every other has been a clone of that. In these paragraphs, I'm going to explain The One Program in detail, I'm going to point how that original program works, and how you can use the innate knowledge of The One Program to code anything you've ever wanted." (QBOA Issue 11) SJ Zero
The PC Game Programmer's Encyclopedia The PC Game Programmer's Encyclopedia.. LOTS of great resources! Mark Feldman (editor)


Tile Engines
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Scrolling A great scrolling tutorial, includes examples for MODE X, regular 13H scrolling, and parallax scrolling. Psuedo-code. Alec Thomas
Pixel By Pixel Scrolling Wanna make a pixel scroller? This will show you how. Aaron Severn
Tile-Based Game FAQ v1.2 The famous 'Tile-Based Games FAQ' Very useful! Mostly pseudo-code Greg Taylor
Tek's Tile Engine 3 Tek's Tile-engine 3. A working demo of a tile-scrolling engine with great commentary. Budding RPG programmers, this is THE place to start! Tek
Animation An introduction to animation in an RPG tile engine. Very short. Tal Bereznitskey
Clipping Clipping -- cutting up a sprite and only putting part of it down -- is explained. Useful if you want to make a pixel*pixel scrolling engine. Entropy
Tile-by-Tile Scrolling A beginner's look at tile engines; well-documented and easy to understand code, but it will only make the simplest tile engine imaginable. Entropy
TileEx A barebones tile engine with very well-commented source code. James Tonn
Special Effects for a Tile Engine A great tutorial covering the following tile engine special effects: animated objects, particle systems, water flow and reflections, high grass (over tiles) and more. Michael Dowling (Typosoft)
Making A Good RPG Engine: Setting Up An overview of how to get started on your RPG engine. This explains which modules you should include, which variables to allocate at the beginning of your RPG, and what you should do about a map editor. Doesn't really teach you commands or techniques -- it's more of an outline. Michael Dowling (Typosoft)
Z-Buffer A brief discussion on using the Z-Buffer in 2D, sprite-based games to have multiple layers of sprites. Kackurot
RPG Development and Design Series Four short tutorials on RPG Development from Venosoft (venosoft.com). Focuses mainly on Engine Development, and discusses methods for QB, VB and C/C++. The code examples, however, are in C++. jkettles16
Tile Graphics Techniques 1.0 A theory article explaining the techniques behind many parts of a tile engine, including clipping, masking, plotting tiles, NPCs, objects, maps, map layers, and some scripting techniques. Highly recommended. Jason McIntosh
Making a TRUE Pixel Scrolling Engine at Tile Scrolling Speeds Making an optimized pixel-scrolling engine in QB. (QBOA Issue 2) QbProgger
Creating A Physics-Based Scroller Making your game engine based on Velocity, Acceleration, Friction, or other environmental variables instead of a uniform speed environment. (QB Cult Magazine #7) QbProgger
Physics Engines Part 2 "Fighter Games In A Nutshell." A very short summary of a typical 2D fighting game algorithm. (QB Cult Magazine #8) QbProgger
Map Engines: Zelda Style Free Movement and Pixel by Pixel Scrolling How to make your own pixel scrolling engine, like you see in Zelda-style adventure games. (QB Times #3) Maz (Greg McAusland)
A Real Easy Pixel*Tile Engine Using Blast! How to create a simple RPG tile engine using the old Blast! graphics engine. Based on Tsugumo's RPG engine. (VSNews Aug. '98) 19day


Other Game Engine Tutorials
LinkDescriptionAuthor
How To Program Text Adventures A nice tutorial covering many aspects of text adventure programming, such as the Parser, moving around your world, and usable objects to pick up. Terry Cavanagh
PlatForm Engines 101 Creating a simple platform engine from a regular old pixel scrolling engine. (QBOA Issue 4) Necrolyte
Finite State Machines For Fighting Game Design (Part 1) "A finite state machine (henceforth abbreviated FSM) is an automaton with a finite set of subroutines, each of which performs some function and then employs some criterion to choose the next subroutine to jump to. Each subroutine is called a "state", and the FSM is said to be in a given state when it is currently processing the directives in that state. A FSM can only be in one state at any given time." (QBOA Issue 11) Nekrophidius
'Doom' 3D Engine Techniques A very thorough explanation of how Doom's raytracing engine works, as well as enemies, bullet trajectories and more. Includes little actual code, but gives a good theoretical explanation of the engine. (QB Times #9) Brian 'Neuromancer' Marshall
Preliminary Particle Systems A source-code heavy introduction to creating simple particle systems for your game. This is useful for things like gunfire and explosion effects. (QBXL) SJ Zero
Using Circle Routines As Title Screens A rather pointless tutorial on designing your own program title screen through CIRCLE statements. (BASIX Fanzine #16) Gloria McMillan
Collision Detection A simple method of collision detection based on the pixel color of a sprite's outline. (BASIX Fanzine #4) Adrian Sills
Heightmapped Landscapes Creating 3D landscapes from 2D color-coded images. A really neat technique. (QB Cult Magazine #17) Qasir
Index Lists Using index lists (simple 'lists' of 'array subscripts') to speed up your game's object handling routine. Written specifically for shooting games with a lot of bullets to keep track of at once. (QB:TM #12) MA SNART


RPG Scripting
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Realistic NPCs (Active vs Reactive) A theory article posted on a Usenet group that discusses how to make NPCs act more intelligent. Dan Shiovitz
Scripting in QB How to make a very basic scripting engine for your RPG. Does not explain the theory behind scripting (or what you're really trying to achieve) -- just jumps right into the code. Kackurot
Build Style Scripting An interesting scripting tutorial that explains how to incorporate scripting into an already well-developed game engine. Comes with a lot of source. SJ Zero
Scripting And You A great explanation of how to make a scripting engine for your QB RPG. Includes sourcecode for a well-made scripting engine that is easy to understand. Michael Dowling (Typosoft)
19Day's Scripting Tutorial Probably the first QB RPG scripting tutorial that came out, this one is still relevant. Covers a lot of theory and interesting ideas, and concludes with a list of command ideas you can use to improve your scripting engine. 19Day
Smart NPCs Some theory and speculating on how to make NPCs in your RPG act intelligently. Includes only pseudo-code, but makes some interesting points. Dancer
RPG Tutorial - Object Systems Increase the complexity and interactivity of your RPG engine by making every object in your world interactive -- for both the player and the NPCs to play around with. (QB Cult Magazine #5) QbProgger
Script Engines 19day's old scripting tutorial, reformatted by QBCM so that it's easier to read than the original text version. (QB Cult Magazine #7) 19day
Object Systems! Introduction to creating an object system for your RPG. (QBOA Issue 1) QbProgger
Writing Your Own Scripting Language One simple method of creating a scripting language for events in your game. (QB Times #1) Nightwolf
Writing Your Own Scripting Language (Part 2) Expanding on the scripting engine described in part one: adding variables, equations, and a whole lot more. Lots of source.(QB Times #3) Nightwolf
RPG Script Language Introduction to RPG scripting engines; handling NPC conversations and message boxes. (QB:TM #5) MA SNART
BUILD Style Scripting Creating a script routine similar to the BUILD-Engine, which allows your NPCs or environment to react to your character based on pre-determined external scripts. (QBXL) SJ Zero
RPG Dialogue Engines Create a simple NPC scripting engine using the instructions in this tutorial. Covers the theory behind scripting engines quite well. (VSNews Nov. '98) 19day


General RPG Tutorials
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Medieval Economics An role playing game theory document that explains relative prices for different items in medieval Europe. Useful if you want to make your medieval RPG historically accurate (though historical accuracy usually makes games a whole lot more boring, heh). Phillip McGregor
QB-RPG Techniques This tutorial takes an unconventional look at RPG-making. It explains techniques like creating your game map as a string array instead of an integer array, some theory behind improving your game's shops by adding the option to barter, and some neat under-used special effects. Tal Bereznitskey
How To Make Your RPG Not Suck A rant that discusses many of the pitfalls of amateur (and some professional) RPGs. Has a lot of great ideas and theory on topics like storylines, NPC scripting engines, your tile engine and more. Frozen Emu
Adventure Game Making : Episode 1 Incorporating good puzzle elements in your QB adventure game. (QBOA Issue 3) The Specialist
Plots, characters, and bears Oh My! Eliminating the "Do this. Do that." interface of plot design in your QB RPG. (QBOA Issue 3) QbProgger
RPGs Unravelled What you should do in the planning and story design stages of your RPG development. A game design theory tutorial. (QB Times #9) Nightwolf
RPG Battle Design An article on designing fun RPG battle engines that will keep gamers interested. Covers a lot of theory over different styles of engines, and keeping your battles fresh and enjoyable. (QB:TM #11) Zkman
RPG Story Writing How to improve your RPG's backstory, plot events and character interaction. (QB:TM #9) Zkman
Plots, Characters and Bears! Oh My! Nine tips for making a non-cliched RPG. (QB Cult Magazine #7) QbProgger
RPG Development, Part 1 Useful tutorial on creating highly-modular RPGs, either through scripts, subroutines, or CHAINing together several .bas files. Goes over some preliminary engine design code too. (QB Cult Magazine #12) Matt2Jones
Creating Shining-Force-like Battle Engines Short introduction on making your own tactical battle engines in QB. (QB Times #7) Maxx
Shining Force-like Battle Engines (Part 2) Covers character movement and restrictions to movement for your tactical battle engine. (QB Times #8) Maxx


Rems' Game Programming Tutorials
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Part 1: The Plan Part 1: Getting Started - The Plan. Martin Rampersad
Part 2: Program Bottom Up Part 2: Getting Started - Program... Bottoms up! Martin Rampersad
Part 3: Let's Get Going Already Part 3: Getting Started - Lets get going already! Martin Rampersad


DarkDread's RPG Tutorials
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Part One: Getting Started Part one of this nifty series: Why planning is crucial in an RPG. Darkdread
Part Two: The 2D Tile Based Engine Part two: The really juicy part.... the scrolling engine Darkdread
Part Three: Enemy Encounter Engine Part Three: Enemy encounters, and battle engine stuff. Darkdread
Part Three, Section II: Encounter Engine Addons Covers addons for your battle engine, such as magic, multiple enemies and artificial intelligence. DarkDread
2D Engine The example engine included with these tutorials. Darkdread
RPG Battle Engines Excellent thorough tutorial on making Final Fantasy-style RPG battle engines in QB. Includes a lot of source code. (QB:TM #12) DarkDread
QBasic RPG Tutorial Issue 1 The start of another QB RPG programming series by DarkDread. This one covers graphics arrays, making sprites from DATA statements, and loading GIFs with custom palettes. DarkDread


Fling-master's RPG Creation 101
LinkDescriptionAuthor
RPG Creation 101 (Part 1) The beginning of Fling-master's great RPG series. This first part discusses standard RPG engines, and shows you how to make a simple tile engine. (QB Chronicles #1) Fling-master
RPG Creation 101 (Part 2) Part 2 of a great series. This edition shows you how to expand your engine to accomodate NPCs into your RPG world. (QB Chronicles #2) Fling-master
RPG Creation 101 (Part 3) Another expansion on the NPC engine. This explains how to make your NPCs walk around, talk, and react to your player. (QB Chronicles #4) Fling-master


RRC2Soft RPG Programming Tutorials Series
LinkDescriptionAuthor
File 0: Graphic mode 320x200x256 An RPG programming series not specifically for QB, but it's VERY helpful, with lots of great examples. Includes a lot of ASM source code. This first tutorial covers things you should know before you start your game: segments and offsets, the 320x200x256 screen mode, the vertical retrace, virtual screens and source code. RRC2Soft
File 1: Graphic Creation and Usage Covers sprites, useful graphics formats and the how you should go about creating sprites for your game. RRC2Soft
File 2: Tiles Discusses the art / theory aspect of RPG sprites. Tells you what you should put in your tiles, how to compose a map, about animation, transparent tiles, palette rotation and more. RRC2Soft
File 3: Maps & Their Problems How to make good tile maps. Also discusses movement flags, enemy encounters, plot events and more. RRC2Soft
File 4: Script languages, compilers and Interpreters Making a scripting language for NPC conversations and RPG plot events. RRC2Soft
File 5: Combats & Types of Combats CRPG Combat engines and their history -- Discusses dozens of different battle engines that have been used over the years in professional compuer RPGs. Analyzes the good and bad points of engines from Dragon Quest to Final Fantasy VIII. RRC2Soft


Ramblings of a Crazed RPG Programmer
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Ramblings of a Crazed RPG Programmer: Advanced Quest Design A simple method of managing RPG quests and plot pieces, and modifying how NPCs will react to you at various points during your quest. (QB Times #1) Michael Hoopmann
Ramblings of a Crazed RPG Programmer: Plot Design How to make an intriguing and fun RPG plot for your QB game. Theory on what makes games fun to play. (QB Times #2) Michael Hoopmann
Ramblings of a Crazed RPG Programmer: Virtual Inhabitants Theory article on NPCs, enemies and other party members, which will help make your RPG world seem more "alive". (QB Times #4) Michael Hoopmann
Ramblings of a Crazed RPG Programmer: NPCs Programming NPCs into your RPG the easy way. Includes animation and movement instructions, as well as some preliminary scripting elements. (QB Times #4) Michael Hoopmann


Vic's Tutorials
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Tutorial 1 Basic Basic Tutorial I Vic
Tutorial 2 Graphics Vic
Tutorial 3 Game Techniques Vic
Tutorial 3.5 Game Techniques Revisited Vic
Tutorial 4 Mouse Control Vic
Tutorial 5 Bitmaps Vic
Tutorial 6 BIT BLT (Bit Block) Vic
Tutorial 7 Advanced Sprite Movement Vic
Tutorial 8 3D Vic
Tutorial 9 Game Tutorial II Vic
Tutorial 10 RPG's Vic
Tutorial 11 SUB's Vic
Tutorial 12 Basic ASM Vic
Tutorial 13 Using Basic ASM in Your Program Vic
Tutorial 14 2D Rotation Vic
Tutorial 15 Making QB Libraries Vic
Tutorial 16 Making QB Libraries Vic
Tutorial 17 Qbasic is 5 million other languges Vic
Tutorial 18 Multiple instances Vic
Tutorial 19 Direct QB Vic
Tutorial 20 Scrolling Vic
Tutorial 20.5 Scrolling Revisited Vic
Tutorial 21 What Have I missed Vic
Tutorial 22 Programming Apathy... Vic
Direct QB The famous DirectQB library, which Vic teaches you how to use in his series. (Tutorial #19) Angelo Mottola
Library Tutorial Libraries This is Vic's simple QB library which goes with Tutorial #15 and #16. Vic


Submitted Game Design Tutorials
LinkDescriptionAuthor
Levi.doc Levi's Game Plot tutorial. An on going attempt at covering the vast number of elements one should consider when making a computer game. Just a general tutorial on basic plot line and character development, not in depth in any way. (QB Express #1) (Submitted by Levi on July 29, 2004) Levi
Scrolling Credits.txt Scrolling Credits!. How to make your credits scroll from the bottom of the screen and up off the top. (Submitted by Kevin on December 14, 2004) x.t.r.GRAPHICS
Dialogue and Character creation.doc Dialogue and Character Creation --Game Plot lines 2. Today I thought I'd finally update these tutorials and bring to you a very important concept. Dialogue. How is dialogues made? How does it push the story forward? I answer all of these questions and more in this tutorial. Enjoy. (QB Express #8) (Submitted by Levi on February 23, 2005) Levi

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