First, lemme state that I''m a beginner programmer. I have good knowledge of basic, but not much more. I want to do a 2d side-scroller, some of the gfx are done, now I just want to chose my platform. What language/api/stuff should I use??

C++/DirectX/Windows

However if you don''t know those, it may be a problem. You might try Visual Basic, which makes it really easy to use DirectX, but VB is rather icky for games at best.

FYI, Visual Basic is what I used for The Scrolling GameDevelopment Kit

"All you need to do to learn circular logic is learn circular logic"

Since you know BASIC you may want to try out DarkBasic. You may hear ppl slam DB on these forums, but it really is a cool program for beginners and i have seen some impressive stuff done with it.

www.darkbasic.com

I would recomend c/c++ with OpenGL. why you ask? well, unless you do it in directx7, which would be the other alternative I would recomend, 2D in OpenGL is easier IMHO than in dx8.

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I'd suggest Gameboy Advance^^ If it wouldn't take so long, I'd convert my own side-scroller engine over to it, but since that's take more time than it's be worth, I'm making an RPG for it instead. It's really a great system for 2D games. No 16-bit color unless you want really low resolution and frame rate, or being able to see the screen while you're drawing it, but 256 colors is usually plenty, especially with HW transparency.

href="http://www.agbdev.net/gbadev">http://www.agbdev.net/gbadev is the best place to get info and tools for it, and http://havoc-tsa.hypermart.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard/forums.cgi?forum=6 is a message board, which is only a few days old, but there's a newbie post that I replied to at the top, so you can just read that for instructions on how to get started.

Or if you don't want to mess with a console, then Windows/DirectX is what I'm using, and it seems to work fine.

Oh, and C/C++ is the best language for writing games. Maybe not the easiest, but generally the fastest thing aside from ASM (you should only use ASM when you need some major speed). I use C++ for Windows, and C for GBA, cause I can't get the GBA C++ compiler to work, and I don't really need anything that C can't do anyway.

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-Deku-chan

DK Art (my site, which has little programming-related stuff on it, but you should go anyway^_^)

Edited by - DekuTree64 on July 8, 2001 2:06:23 PM

umm i have used both C++ and VB with DX7/8 (starting OpenGl now) and have really decided that vb is much easier (duh) and faster though a bit (hmm bit or much?) slower than C++. but in your case I wouldn''t hesitate 1 second to say VB with DX8. if you ever need help just email me. im writing an engine in vb with DX8 right now so if you u need it again just email me and ill be glad to send it to you! and of course check out my sites portal for lots and lots of helpful sites and tutorials at www.vbgc.com

Lorn