Little fun with thinGaming

[Eros Olmi]

Hi all,

if you have some spare time and would like to have some fun (hopefully), at thinBasic community forum we have created a new forum area called thinGaming

thinGaming is both a web site and a programming module for thinBasic. With thinGaming it is possible to have access to a dedicated web scoring site where to store scores of games created with thinBasic programming language.

thinBasic users have so far created 2 games: Astro Crusher (a classic arcade game) and Peg Solitaire (a puzzle board game). Just click on links, download the game you prefer and play. At the end, if you are connected to Intenet, your score will be sent to thinGaming web site.

More games will follow.
We will be happy to support those willing to develop some games with thinBasic. There are many thinBasic source code script available.
For example, thanks to the generosity of Michael Hartlef,  Astro Crusher game is available as thinBasic source code at http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?topic=2738.msg20652#msg20652

Have fun.
Eros

[Patrice Terrier]

Eros,

What about a direct link to download the latest thinbasic version that is a mendatory to try AstroCrusher?

I didn't find it on your site.

Thanks.

[Eros Olmi]

Hi Patrice.

Yes you are right but we are under beta testing phase of thinBasic beta 1.7.8.0.
You can find latest thinBasic beta here: http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?board=176.0

In any case it is not necessary to have latest thinBasic to be able to play with Astro Crusher. Check game data at http://community.thinbasic.com/gaming/Game.asp?GameID=1&ScoresOrder=Sorter_ScoreValue&ScoresDir=DESC and follow download url. Every game we will release on thinGaming area will be listed with all necessary info on where to download and how to play.

Instead, in case of Astro Crusher game, the author, Michael Hartlef, has generously released it not only as executable but also as thinBasic source code.
If you want to test sources and check how it was written you need latest thinBasic mentioned above.

Ciao and thanks for the interest
Eros

[Patrice Terrier]

Eros,

Thanks for the link, i shall try it asap

[Patrice Terrier]

Can't play the engine sound file
D:\ThinBasic\SampleScripts\Sounds\engine.mp3

Better to put everything needed in the same zip file.

...

[Eros Olmi]

Yes, again right.

This is the decision of the author. All needed media files are available in the bundled ZIP of the EXE version. I suppose he did this in order to save space.
I will ask the author to put all in one place also for the source code version.

So for the moment if you want test source code version, download the EXE version into a new directory. There you will have all media files. Than download source code version and put the source in the same directory.

Eros

[Eros Olmi]

Asked: http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?topic=2738.msg20694#msg20694

[Patrice Terrier]

Eros,

I am unable to find the EXE version, too much places to search on your forum.
Having everything into the same ZIP file is the best solution.

So far i am giving up...

[Eros Olmi]

Ok,

go into thinGaming web site at http://community.thinbasic.com/gaming/
Click on Astro Crusher game link to go into the game info
On the right you will find download instructions (if any) and a link to the download url.

Hope it is more clear now. All will be in thinGaming web site site.
Forum is mainly for supporting thinBasic development, source code handling and users.

But thanks for your indications because it means it is not so clear how to move around so we need to improve navigation and info layout.

Ciao
Eros

[Patrice Terrier]

Eros,

Even following your instructions, i can't get the script file to work.

See the attached screen shot.

...

[Patrice Terrier]

General consideration about thinBasic.

This has been the first time i am playing with it.

I must say that i am very impressed by the amount of work that has been put there.

Petr's TBGL examples are just amazing, perhaps a good candidate to translate in full PB's code to post here

Eros,

Your thinBasic project have many similitudes with the PC-Soft WinDev L5G, both are based on script file and the resulting exe is p-code embedded into a "universal" run time exe, that is provided with a large frame work (DLLs) to address specific tasks.

Now the main step to go is to create a nice visual designer, add a sql database engine, and you will get a true L5G  

...

[Eros Olmi]

Eros,

Even following your instructions, i can't get the script file to work.

See the attached screen shot.

...

that's why I asked to execute the bundled EXE because the source code version takes advantages of the last minute version of Petr TBGL module (OpenGl module for thinBasic) still not released to the public and in which Petr and Michael added a new way of handling fonts in 2D and 3D environments.

In the bundled EXE version all needed libraries are already there so the application will work.

Anyway, if you still want to try from the sources, download the attached thinBasic_TBGL.dll module and put it into \thinBasic\Lib\ directory replacing your current one. Than you should be able to work with Astro Crusher script from the sources.

Ciao
Eros

[Eros Olmi]

General consideration about thinBasic.

This has been the first time i am playing with it.

I must say that i am very impressed by the amount of work that has been put there.

Petr's TBGL examples are just amazing, perhaps a good candidate to translate in full PB's code to post here

Eros,

Your thinBasic project have many similitudes with the PC-Soft WinDev L5G, both are based on script file and the resulting exe is p-code embedded into a "universal" run time exe, that is provided with a large frame work (DLLs) to address specific tasks.

Now the main step to go is to create a nice visual designer, add a sql database engine, and you will get a true L5G  

...

Thanks a lot for your words.
Yes, we have put a lot of efforts in thinBasic since 2004 and we will continue.
Almost all code is Power Basic written.

Regarding Visual Designer it will be a must in next months. We would like to create it as a shared source code project in order to be able to natively take advantages of the many thinBasic controls peculiarities.

On SQL Databases, thinBasic is distributed with Josè ODBC wrapper library so you can already use any ODBC compliant DB from inside thinBasic. There are few examples in \thinBasic\SampleScripts\ODBC\ directory to have a look.

A last note: thinBasic is a modular language. thinBasic modules are like plug ins that are automatically used by thinBasic when requested by a script. Everyone can create thinBasic modules using thinBasic SDK. It is quite easy for those already using Power Basic compilers and it is quite easy also for those using FreeBasic. Check \thinBasic\SDK\ directory. There is a zip file containing thinBasic modules examples in various languages.

Ciao
Eros

[Eros Olmi]

Your thinBasic project have many similitudes with the PC-Soft WinDev L5G, both are based on script file and the resulting exe is p-code embedded into a "universal" run time exe, that is provided with a large frame work (DLLs) to address specific tasks.

Forgot to say, thinBasic does not produce any p-code even when EXE are created.
Scripts are only obfuscated to add some kind of security level but during runtime script is de-obfuscated and interpreted on the fly from the original source code text.
thinBasic runtime is fragmented in modules. When an EXE is created, only the needed modules are incorporated into the bundled exe reducing a lot the size of the final application.

Ciao
Eros

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Patrice,

thanks for the nice words.

For more TBGL examples, you can try "Bonus Pack":
http://www.thinbasic.com/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=95&task=view.download&cid=6

It contains some real time glow, shaders, particles and other topics.

I am currently enjoying writing high performance background thinBasic module in PB ( PB9 is awesome ) and use it from ThinBasic.
That gives me true freedom - I can put examples together very fast in ThinBasic ( no compilation, immediate execution, some nice high level commands ), and at the same time rely on fast functions provided by PowerBASIC DLL.

Some of the technologies might appear in PB only form in future ( like the MD2 library I released this year ). One thing which prevents me from doing so is that I could not give proper support now due to limited time.


Petr