Blitz Basic

BlitzBasic is a programming language by Mark Sibly. It is adept at creating high speed DirectX games quickly and easily (prototyping).

The website is located at http://www.blitzbasic.com/ with more details and support.

The language is a sort of Basic/C hybrid compiled language with a large number of natively supported features. Categories from the command reference include (but are not limited to): Basic, maths, string, text, input, bank, file, stream, network, TCP, UDP, DirectPlay, DirectShow, sound/music, graphics, graphics buffers, image, time, system, debug.

Blitz currently (Jun 2004) comes in three different flavors:

BlitzBasic; The first version of Blitz (or Blitz2D) which is no longer being updated.
Blitz3D (http://www.blitzbasic.com/Products/blitz3d.php); Containing everything Blitz2D had plus a full-blown 3D engine (Featuring entities, brushes, meshes, terrains, sprites, cameras, lights, multitexturing and environment mapping).
BlitzPlus? (http://www.blitzbasic.com/Products/blitzplus.php); Blitz2D's successor, containing Blitz2D's capabilities plus Windows GUI support and event-based commands.

All versions of Blitz are also capable of utilizing DLLs.

Blitz3D, BlitzPlus? (and BlitzMax? in the future) are continuously updated for which you can get free updates if you have registered on the official site (http://www.blitzbasic.com/) or if you have a valid registration key (BUID).

Blitz has become popular with game programmers, especially newcomers to game development.

BlitzMax?, a modular cross-platform version, is expected sometime late 2004. It will allow games to be written once and run under Windows, OS X (Mac), and Linux without modification, using OpenGL for graphics. The MacOS version has just (Dec 2004) been released, with the other versions to follow (apparently they wanted to release to the smaller user-base first!).

BlitzMax? includes some OO features.

The original BlitzBasic (Blitz2D) dates back to the era of the 16-bit 8 MHz machines, in the times of STOS Basic and AMOS.

There's another Blitz related site (unassociated with the official site) called BlitzCoder? (http://www.blitzcoder.com/) where you can get more Blitz related help through articles/tutorials, showcase entries (some even open-source) in various subjects (with worklogs), code database entries, links to other helpful sites and discussion forums.

I've completed a game that is scheduled for commercial release later this year. Go to http://zenji3d.workerbee.com if you're interested in giving it a try. -- JeffPanici

To anyone who reads this: If you want to see a good example of BlitzMax?, google "Grid Wars" right now. It's an PC port of Geometry Wars for XBOX 360. Kinda like Robotron, but on lots of steroids. You move around a ship and must shoot everything that moves; you can use black holes to swallow your foes, but watch out for their gravity. That's all you need to know. Simple, but wait until you're seeing 300 enemies on the screen at once!

--DaNuke?