Black Annex: A QBasic Game for the 21st Century (2013)

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/190504/Black_Annex_A_QBasic_game_for_the_21st_century.php

by miobrien • 9 years ago

70 39 9 years ago

ocdtrekkie• 9 years ago

"The game, at the moment, requires about 2.6GHz on a single core to run good. It's just about unacceptable for a game that looks like it was made in the 90s."

Wow.

I am really curious all the things he had to write himself to make this work. I presume he's basically written his own isometric game engine and map editor from scratch in QB, which is... impressive.

I kinda wish he'd ship the code with the game... I want to see it.

googamooga• 9 years ago

Here is the code:

http://www.qb64.net/forum/index.php?topic=12348.0

Though it won’t compile with ordinary QB compiler.

jacobparker2• 9 years ago

  $ curl -s https://gist.githubusercontent.com/anonymous/8fdec5275b2c3e81e1e1/raw/blannex | wc -l
  23708

Impressive. I wonder if it's edited as a single file.

pan692• 9 years ago

How is this game distributed? If I remember correctly, QBasic was bundled with MS-DOS (from v6 onwards I believe) and wasn't able to produce EXE's. QuickBasic was a separate commercial version that was the able to produce .EXE's.

bananaboy• 9 years ago

This is written using QB64[0] which is a modern environment compatible with QBasic. It emits C++ which is then compiled with GCC.

[0] http://www.qb64.net/

notpeter• 9 years ago

The original QuickBasic/QBasic could definitely generate standalone compiled EXEs using the Basic Compiler (BC.EXE). IIRC it wasn't included until QBasic 4.5 and was expanded further in QB7 (aka Basic Professional Development System).

jackvalentine• 9 years ago

12 year old me facepalms at not knowing that.

copx2• 9 years ago

No, QBASIC could not.

QBASIC was a limited, interpreter-only version of QuickBASIC which you got for free with MS-DOS.

QuickBASIC was a separate commercial product from Microsoft which did include an AOT native code compiler.

scrumper3• 9 years ago

The screenshot is telling: "Framerate: 4"

Pretty mighty achievement though: no engine, no frameworks, no graphics SDK, a quirky language...

khedoros13• 9 years ago

- Most 2D games I've played use their own engine.

- Why would a framework be necessary?

- QB64 provides a graphics API, a wrapper around SDL and OpenGL.

- QBasic isn't that quirky, and QB64 looks like it pretty massively expanded the language. QBasic itself allowed for struct types, a limited dynamic memory allocation, and the standard flow control structures.

The author apparently modified QB64's use of SDL/OpenGL to handle some scaling differently.

It's impressive as a solo game project and interesting for the nostalgic connections. I respect anyone who can get through a project like this on their own, but it just doesn't seem that unusual.

scrumper3• 9 years ago

I don't play as much as I used to, but these days most 2D things I come across are based on Unity.

Was not aware of the extensions made in QB64 over QBasic (though I knew the author had extended QB64) - thanks for pointing that out.

constantlm• 9 years ago

QBasic was the first language I dabbled in as a kid. This is absolutely insane!

wybiral3• 9 years ago

Same here. I remember drawing sprites with the DATA statement in "SCREEN 13" mode and being able to move those around but never anything this crazy.

jmcgough• 9 years ago

Same - I remember being in elementary school, playing nibbles or gorillas and then poking around in the source, trying to figure out what it was doing.

wybiral3• 9 years ago

Nibbles or gorillas brings back memories...

khedoros13• 9 years ago

Ditto. I got as far as doing some basic 3D graphics in it (rotating spheres and such), an Asteroids clone, and arpeggiating chords for "harmony" from the PC speaker, but nothing quite like this.

Then again, this was written in QB64, which can do things that would've been wildly impractical in QBasic itself.

megaman22• 9 years ago

A friend and I spent the better part of our programming course trying to build a Slime Volleyball clone in QBasic, I remember. Good times.

guidedlight2• 9 years ago

I just found this video of it. Incredibly impressive if that is QBasic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqlveWIhCFI#

dom0• 9 years ago

Back in the day there were SVGA libraries (like aklib) that allowed high-resolution (like 1280x1024 modes) graphics; but even on contemporary GHz desktop processors it wasn't fast. Also sound systems using background daemons that relayed stuff to DirectSound (or FMOD, not entirely sure after all these years).

This seems to be written in QB64 using SDL with OpenGL surfaces.

guidedlight2• 9 years ago

I think you are right.

QBasic was only capable of 320x200 with 256 colors.

cabaalis• 9 years ago

If you used QBasic to learn to program as a kid (which I did) then you might be interested in AppGameKit[1]. I would recommend it, however I must mention that I've become used to OOP and it is difficult to go back to a language that doesn't have it. So I haven't dont anything serious with AGK yet. Though there are many who have.

[1] https://www.appgamekit.com/

zem2• 9 years ago

i taught myself c by prototyping programs in qbasic and then converting them to c. nice language, and for their time, the integrated help files were some of the best i've seen.

wybiral3• 9 years ago

Bingo. My computer as a kid wasn't even connected to the internet so those help files are the only way I would have learned. That, and breaking the few programs that were included with it.

jlebrech• 9 years ago

seems like a great way to teach programming to kids, put on a raspberry pi with a few games and programs already make for it.

maybe a modern way to do somethign like this would be pico-8 https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

Vanit• 9 years ago

iirc it even has Steam integration that he had to implement from scratch. :)

lynxbat• 9 years ago

I discovered recently one of my new neighbors just retired from MSFT and was one of the original members of the QBasic team. Considering how much time I spent as a kid learning on it, I was kind of star struck.

klangaroo2• 9 years ago

hahah I'm the guy making this game. Funny to see it show up on Hacker News again (last time was in 2013).

Here's the latest gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkYcmipETak

And you can wishlist it on Steam at the moment: http://store.steampowered.com/app/248590/Black_Annex/

klangaroo2• 9 years ago

I mostly post about my work on Twitter if you actually wanna keep up with my stuff :) https://twitter.com/manfightdragon

orthecreedence• 9 years ago

Holy shit, that's really impressive for QBasic. That was my first language, and I remember drawing/moving basic shapes around the screen. My magnum opus was a ray-tracing demo.

Well done! I'll add to my Steam list =]

zem2• 9 years ago

also relevant is james hague's "slumming with basic programmers", one of my favourite programming essays ever.

http://prog21.dadgum.com/21.html

Black Annex: A QBasic Game for the 21st Century (2013)

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