Hi Thomas,
I agree about the cross platform issue. While it would be nice to support
every platform imaginable it still comes down to whether one can afford the
time and investment that such an endeavour would take. I, for one, decided
against it for the time being.
I am about to go public beta with Bgt now, but my only concern is that
people will find it too difficult to use at this stage and then give it up
for lost even though new and simplified high level modules are added all the
time. In short, what is available now is the core and a few higher level
wrappers, and while this still is 10 times easier than c++ and perfectly
sufficient for a reasonably experienced programmer to work with, it might
not appeal to a complete beginner. I have had success in my beta team where
people have been able to pick up the tool and make things very quickly, but
I don't know if the reaction of the masses will be the same. The
documentation that comes with the package is quite extensive, the language
tutorial will even be provided in narrated form read by a professional
voiceover artist, but I am still not quite sure.
Kind regards,
Philip bennefall
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Ward" <[email protected]>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2010 6:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Genesis Engine was Retro Gaming
Hi philip,
Yes, that makes sense. When using the Windows Scripting Host you
pretty much have to use a single scripting language for demonstration
purposes. That's pretty much what GW Micro does with Window-Eyes 7.
Although the latest Window-Eyes version can use just about any
scripting language you can imagine most of the official scripts and
documentation is written in VB Script.
However, I can clearly see where using the Windows Scripting Host
could cause a developer problems. Especially, if someone wants to use
a scripting language other than the default one you decided to support
for your project. I could certainly see a situation where various
Window-Eyes third-party scripts are written in VB Script, Javascript,
ASP, etc and it would make it difficult for GW Micro to maintain all
of those scripts since they would be written in several different
scripting languages all supported through the Windows Scripting Host.
A game developer could in theory have the same problem with game
modules unless he/she stresses using the default script language.
As far as cross-platform support goes I understand, but I've learned
the hard way that's easier said than done. For one thing Mac and Linux
really do have infurior game APIs such as SDL and SFML which aren't in
the same league as DirectX. I've actually started moving away from the
open source game APIs for exactly that reason. DirectInput supports a
wide range of game controllers such as keyboards, mice, and force
feedback game pads and joysticks. SFML and SDL have very generic
keyboard and mouse support, but I find there joystick support really
lacking. OpenAL is a decent enough audio library, but I still feel
DirectSound and XAudio2 are superior products. Using multithreading
through SFML or SDL is a joke. To get really superior multithreading
you should do it using something native to the operating system such
as the Win32 API. So while it is possible to create games for Mac and
Linux I feel they have a ways to go before they are on equal footing
with Windows for PC gaming if we do a feature by feature comparison.
Plus as you know I've recently ran a survey on this very issue. While
everyone felt cross-platform support would be nice nearly all of those
who responded to my survey stated they are running Windows XP, and
have no interest in moving to Mac or Linux themselves. Only about 8
people out of around 90 people said they were running Mac. So even if
there are a few more blind Mac users they are still a huge minority
compared to the people who are currently running Windows XP, Windows
Vista, or Windows 7. So financially speaking I think the Mac and Linux
markets are still too small to worry much about it at this point.
Especially, since they can still run our games via Boot Camp or
something like that anyway.
Cheers!
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