Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Hi Dark, That's very true, and that's why languages like Java, C# .Net, Visual Basic .Net, Python, etc exists. Most developers realise that writing an application from scratch in a language like C++ is far too time consuming for the average developer and project. In the corperate world if a company needs an interface for a new database or a report writer etc they aren't going to want to take any more time than absolutely necessary or pay any more money than necessary to have that program developed. Since languages like Java, C#. or VB already have a good portion of the low-level stuff done a developer can rapidly produce the application in question with a lot less time and effort making his/her corperate bosses happy in the process. For example, let's take the .Net Framework. Microsoft created the .Net Framework for three reasons. One, it wraps all of the core Windows APIs, and puts them under a single API that is now shared by C++, C#, J#, and VB. Two, it makes it easier to design a program that will operate on XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server, without requiring any kind of recompilation when targeting multiple Windows platforms and CPUs at once. Three, it is fully object oriented, and moduler, making it extremely easy to take existing classes and code to build applications rapidly using a common code base. Finally, the .Net runtime contains a builtin garbage collecter that frequently monitors when blocks of memory are no longer being used/referenced and cleans the garbage out of memory making your application run more efficiently. The best part of the garbage collecter is the developer can't be a complete slob when it comes to memory management and cleaning upbecause it takes the issue of memory management out of the developers hands and does it automatically in the background weather you do memory cleanup yourself or not. This largely eliminates issues like memory leaks because its mistakes like that where the garbage collecter will hand the programmer a safety net to fall back on if he/she does a poor job cleaning up after shutting down the app. So, in short, what you say is correct. Over all, it is a good idea to use a rapid development language if we are talking about a time sensative application, or the developer is lazy and just wants to get it done. However, I'm neither one of those types. I'm something of a programming purest, and I chose C++ because I have the skills, and in the long run it is a better language for what I need to do. I'm willing to spend more time doing it right rather than quickly put it together and sell it. I'm willing to put the extra effort into making sure most of my code can be cross-platform compatible so I can produce Mac and Linux ports in the future. I know that isn't too important to a lot of people on this list, but it is important to me personally. If people don't like it that's tough. Cheers! On 7/17/11, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. Fair enough if you've got precompiled code to use, and also i do see the logic with text. however it stil seems that in c you need a lot of preparation and things written that are done for you in other languages, which adds to the time of developement overall. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Hi Tom. Well obviously what code you choose and for what reasons is entirely your affair, and if for instance you believe the cross platform compatibility and manual memory management is worth all the extra time, then fair enough. I freely confess, though i understand the logic of making things cross platform, I just do not see those other bennifits myself as an end user when i compare the amount of time your games take to develope, even when set against something like Entombed. I'm afraid I'm rather of a proof is in the pudding sort of opinion on this, and from where I'm standing it does seem that using something like C net takes less time and trouble. however as Jeremy said, you work with what's comfortable to you, and in the end it's you doing the work, so you who needs to be most happy with it. heck, write the games in assembler if you want, we just won't expect them out any time soon. All the best, Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Hi Tom. Fair enough if you've got precompiled code to use, and also i do see the logic with text. however it stil seems that in c you need a lot of preparation and things written that are done for you in other languages, which adds to the time of developement overall. Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2011 2:07 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached! Hi Dark, Well, not necessarily. Keep in mind that the wrestling game and STFC will largely be text based. It doesn't make much of a difference one way or the other if it is written in pure C++ or written in .Net as the majority of the coding would be fairly similar in practice. For instance, I might initialize a Window using the Win32 API, and then use the wprintf() function to write text directly to the window as follows. void PrintIntro () { wprintf (WWE\n); wprintf (Ultimate Legends\n); wprintf (Version 1.0\n); } That's simple enough. However, doing the same thing in VB .Net is just as equally simple. I might create a simple Window, add a textbox to the middle of the window, and do something similar to above. SubPrintIntro () textbox.Text = WWE textbox.Text = Ultimate Legends textbox.Text = Version 1.0 End Sub As you might be able to see the VB example in this case doesn't really save anything in the long run because after all we are just dealing with text output. This is a fairly straight forward process for most programming languages. Its the other stuff like loading and playing audio that makes a difference as there can be a huge difference in how it is done. For instance if you take the stock C++ DirectSound 8 library that ships with MS Windows there is no builtin ability to load sounds and assign them to a secondary buffer for playback. Therefore the C++ developer pretty much has to write his or her own load functions in order to use that API. However, com components like dx8vb.dll has simplified this for Visual Basic developers, because Microsoft has thoughtfully added an open function which can open wav files for playback. This is why, I purchased Streemway from Philip, as I have access to DirectSound without having to write my own load functions etc just to use the API. With Streemway I have the equal access and simplicity of a Visual Basic or .Net developer. Make sense? So even though I might write STFC or my wrestling game without my engine I still have a huge amount of code that can be reused. I have Streemway, for audio playback, I've got wrappers for DirectInput, and I can copy my wrapper for Sapi 5 support to extremely speed up the process because I have a lot of code in place already. Cheers! On 7/16/11, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. thanks for the full explanation. just going on what you've said though, I'm afraid it sounds as if when you next start on a new game outside your platform engine like the startrek or wrestling one, a different language from C++ may be better? I personally don't particularly mind downloading dependencies sinse often they are useful for other things (for instance other games), and while security and performance are both important for some programs (I would wager my avg antivirus and tuneup were written in C++), I do find myself wondering how much difference this makes to a game if it makes it so much more difficult and time consuming to program? Appologies if this seems hars, I know as a none programmer myself it's easy to sit and make judgements, however I will admit i've noticed a tendency that some programmers have (rather like logicians), to do something for reasons of efficiency of code or general structure which makes litle difference to the main user. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers
Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Hi Dark, Those are some very good questions. As with everything there are pros and cons with either solution so I'll explain each of your questions below in more detail in a question and answer format. Q: If we leave aside the cross platform issue and just talk about ease of developement, I'm just wondering what the reason to use C would be, sinse from your description it sounds rather like the long way round. A: Well, there are a number of key advantages to using a language like C++. besides the cross-platform issue C++ is a low level language that can be used to write anything from the Windows kernel, which is the core component of any os, to writing hardware drivers, to more advanced applications like games from scratch. The high level languages like Visual Basic can not do this because it depends on a runtime, a special API, that is most likely itself written in C or C++ which is both a strength and a weakness of languages like Visual Basic. visual Basic can write games and other applications but can not write an operating system or write hardware drivers etc. More importantly because C++ is more low level it is compiled into binary code, AKA machine language, and can instruct the system what to do directly without an intermediate piece of software between your program and your computer. This improves over all performance of the game or application. Unfortunately, most high level programming languages are easier but take a hit in regards to performance. For instance, if I program a game in Java or a .Net language my source code is compiled into an intermediate language that is interpreted on the fly by a runtime interpreter. If I write a game in C# .Net, for example, it creates a *.exe file, but its actually just instructions for the .Net runtime executable file which is written in C++. Although, this isn't a major concern for modern machines benchmark tests still show that .Net or Java apps lag behind in performance compared to an app written in C++. Another issue is installing dependencies. Back when I was using C# .Net for STFC and Montezuma's Revenge a lot of people didn't like the fact they had to download a 300 MB setup file for .Net, another 300 MB to upgrade DirecttX to get Managed DirectX for .Net, and then finally download and install the game itself. We were talking atleast 500 MB or so in dependencies for Windows XP just to bring the system up to date in order to play a game. With C++ you may have to install dependencies, but generally speaking if the app is using core APIs, native libraries, that come as a part of the operating system nothing special needs to be installed. This was one of the factors why I chose C++ to begin with. I don't mind installing one or two extra dll libraries, which maybe adds an extra meg or two to the setup file, but asking people to install 500 MB of .Net dependencies or 50 MB of Java dependencies or whatever is just a bit rediculous. Finally, there is the issue of security. C++ apps are compiled to binary which is not impossible to crack, but more difficult than most programming languages. Usually a developer can by a tool to encrypt the executable to make it very very hard to reverse engineer. .Net and Java don't have these safeguards, because they are compiled to an instruction language, an intermediate language, that can easily be decompiled back to Visual Basic, C#, or Java source code. Such apps need an obfuscator, to rewrite the intermediate language to keep this from happening, but it is widely known that high level languages are less secure than C++ for that reason. Q: Even entombed, was I believe programmed not in C but in in c# or C.net, and went from initial concept to 10 level monster in less than 18 months, with more floors following very quickly, yet it apparently uses one of these shortcut languages you mention. A: Yes, Entombed was written in C# .Net. C# .Net is a rapid development version of C++, extremely simplified compaired to the C++ language, and a developer can get things done very quickly in C# .Net. As you might recall when I took over Montezuma's Revenge from James North I had completely rewritten the game from scratch in like three months after getting the source. Of course, I updated, changed, and modified things, but I was on a fast track with that game. It took me something like 14 months to nearly complete it, and that's when Utopia landed on me like a house of bricks. If not for that unfortunate situation I'd have it all done in 15 months from starting date. So C# .Net or Visual Basic .Net are definitely one way to rapidly design software for Windows. Q: Is in fact cross platform compatibility the only reason why you couldn't write mota in vb6, or another shortcut orientated language? A: No. As I said above there were other factors to consider as well. At the time I started writing games .Net wasn't even a core component of Windows, and .Net games etc weren't that common and a lot of people were upset at having to
Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Well a while back, I made up my mind never to argue about VB6 with Thomas again, so I'll just answer your questions Dark. Q. firstly, from a purely product orientated point of view, ie, what's in the game, is C better than vb 6? A. That just depends on what you're trying to create. That's a tricky question to answer, because it has been left pretty open to interpretation when you say better. Q. if you today handed jeremy all your sfx, prerecorded speach and music for mota and asked him to make a windows only vb6 version, would there be areas of fine sound positioning, physics, game mechanics and the like that wouldn't be possible in vb6, the way they are in c? I think this might be the case, but I'd be interested to know for certain. A. There would be absolutely no difference. The physics, game mechanics, and and sound are not affected by the language used. Q. Is in fact cross platform compatibility the only reason why you couldn't write mota in vb6, or another shortcut orientated language? A. This one is hard to answer because it is directed specifically at Thomas' coding proficiencies with different languages, but no, cross platform is the reason. Technically, this also only applies to Linux users, since we already know that Mac users play my games using VM fusion. Ok, I think I'll avoid getting myself involved with this topic, any more than this. I think Thomas is feeling a little left out people. Please think of his feelings, and pay him a bit of attention! Hehe. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Hi Tom. thanks for the full explanation. just going on what you've said though, I'm afraid it sounds as if when you next start on a new game outside your platform engine like the startrek or wrestling one, a different language from C++ may be better? I personally don't particularly mind downloading dependencies sinse often they are useful for other things (for instance other games), and while security and performance are both important for some programs (I would wager my avg antivirus and tuneup were written in C++), I do find myself wondering how much difference this makes to a game if it makes it so much more difficult and time consuming to program? Appologies if this seems hars, I know as a none programmer myself it's easy to sit and make judgements, however I will admit i've noticed a tendency that some programmers have (rather like logicians), to do something for reasons of efficiency of code or general structure which makes litle difference to the main user. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Hi Dark, Well, not necessarily. Keep in mind that the wrestling game and STFC will largely be text based. It doesn't make much of a difference one way or the other if it is written in pure C++ or written in .Net as the majority of the coding would be fairly similar in practice. For instance, I might initialize a Window using the Win32 API, and then use the wprintf() function to write text directly to the window as follows. void PrintIntro () { wprintf (WWE\n); wprintf (Ultimate Legends\n); wprintf (Version 1.0\n); } That's simple enough. However, doing the same thing in VB .Net is just as equally simple. I might create a simple Window, add a textbox to the middle of the window, and do something similar to above. SubPrintIntro () textbox.Text = WWE textbox.Text = Ultimate Legends textbox.Text = Version 1.0 End Sub As you might be able to see the VB example in this case doesn't really save anything in the long run because after all we are just dealing with text output. This is a fairly straight forward process for most programming languages. Its the other stuff like loading and playing audio that makes a difference as there can be a huge difference in how it is done. For instance if you take the stock C++ DirectSound 8 library that ships with MS Windows there is no builtin ability to load sounds and assign them to a secondary buffer for playback. Therefore the C++ developer pretty much has to write his or her own load functions in order to use that API. However, com components like dx8vb.dll has simplified this for Visual Basic developers, because Microsoft has thoughtfully added an open function which can open wav files for playback. This is why, I purchased Streemway from Philip, as I have access to DirectSound without having to write my own load functions etc just to use the API. With Streemway I have the equal access and simplicity of a Visual Basic or .Net developer. Make sense? So even though I might write STFC or my wrestling game without my engine I still have a huge amount of code that can be reused. I have Streemway, for audio playback, I've got wrappers for DirectInput, and I can copy my wrapper for Sapi 5 support to extremely speed up the process because I have a lot of code in place already. Cheers! On 7/16/11, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. thanks for the full explanation. just going on what you've said though, I'm afraid it sounds as if when you next start on a new game outside your platform engine like the startrek or wrestling one, a different language from C++ may be better? I personally don't particularly mind downloading dependencies sinse often they are useful for other things (for instance other games), and while security and performance are both important for some programs (I would wager my avg antivirus and tuneup were written in C++), I do find myself wondering how much difference this makes to a game if it makes it so much more difficult and time consuming to program? Appologies if this seems hars, I know as a none programmer myself it's easy to sit and make judgements, however I will admit i've noticed a tendency that some programmers have (rather like logicians), to do something for reasons of efficiency of code or general structure which makes litle difference to the main user. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Jeremy, You can't be human man. nope. you're some kind of robot or something. how on earth can you possibly program complex games so quickly? It's totally ridiculous. in a good way of course :D. have you realized the business potential? I'm scared to imagine what you'd whip up if you start working on a commercial audio game for like 6 to 8 months. I bet the game would be so good that you'll be able to sell it for around $60 with no problems. and most people will buy it! look at your games right now? everyone's downloading and playing them. that's what I call a successful developer! selling games is definitely something for you to consider I think. anyone else agree? Also, since you're fully sighted, it wouldn't necessarily need to be audio-based only. you could whip up some graphics and sell it to everyone! ok I'm getting a bit excited here haha. one thing we desperately need I think are beat-em-ups. or fighting games in general. not every blind person is willing to try something like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter no matter how much those of us that play try to convince them that they're accessible enough. Also thing with these fighting games is many of them are console based. I personally would love to play something like Streets of Rage online with other audio gamers. - Original Message - From: Jeremy Kaldobsky jer...@kaldobsky.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 9:39 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Castaways, 1 week milestone reached! Boy I wish I didn't have to work, lol, I wouldn't have to stop coding! :D If you do end up donating, believe me, it will be greatly appreciated. In fact, you would be my first donater! I don't think donater is actually a word, but oh well. Well sadly I'm heading out, have fun guys! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Hi, No kidding. Jeremy seems to program new games with inhuman speed. Speeds I myself can't even match without a lot of time and energy. Actually, that said, Jeremy has a number of factors in his favor that allows him to produce these games faster than someone like myself. Which makes all the difference, and those of you who aren't programmers probably aren't aware of these factors. First, Jeremey is programming in Visual Basic. From the start the language was designed to be easy to learn, easy to program, and was designed for rapid development and deployment. Although, Visual Basic 6 has now been completely fazed out in favor of languages like C# .Net and Visual Basic .Net they both were designed for rapid development and deployment as well. In short, what I'm saying is that the ability to get things done quickly and simply is in large part do to the language Jeremy is using. For someone like myself it takes a lot longer because I've taken a more traditional programming route and base my code on C++. Compared to a rapid development/deployment language like Visual Basic or one of the newer .Net languages C++ is something on par with climbing a mountain, or so it seems to me. C++ is more technical, and certain libraries are more bare bones requiring some extra steps in developing software. Second, issue is Jeremy largely relies on third-party speech support like Jaws, Window-eyes, NVDA, or Sapi. This obviously speeds up the process because he can send text to whatever speech service is available and speak it. It is in its own way as easy as printing text to the screen once you have the speech services initialized and running. However, many accessible game developers llike GMA, PCs Games, and myself use prerecorded speech for our games. You have no idea how long it takes to first record, edit, and then write the code to load/speak the message. i'd say it takes three or four times longer to do that alone. Third, Jeremy is targeting a specific platform and target group. Obviously since his games are only intended for MS Windows platforms he has lots of options and choices when it comes to programming APIs etc. It takes less time to create software for one target environment and considerably more if a developer wants to target Mac or Linux. This imho is one area where I myself lost considerable time. I spent months looking at various cross-platform APIs, experimenting with potential cross-platform betas, which only ended up delaying the process. If I had skipped the cross-platform research altogether Mysteries of the Ancients would have been completed long ago. Finally, the time it takes to create a game largely depends on the type of game being produced. Castaways for example seems more complex than it really is from a programming standpoint. Were I to write something similar given the same factors above I could probably produce something equal in a weeks time period too. One of the things that speeds up development in this type of game is Jeremeyhas very minimal sounds and music. He hasn't had to deal with loading, playing, and processing hundreds of sounds in real time. Producing a soundscape as complex as Tank Commander or Shades of Doom takes lots more time. Writing a good high qualityaudio environment is in its way like adding graphics and animations to a video game. That is where a large majority of programming takes place in initial development. Another thing is Mysteries of the Ancients both 2d and 3d are actually more complex from a programming perspective. We have hundreds of items, monsters, etc all operating in real time. Just to move the character alone requires a number of separate actions like running, jumping, walking, climbing, swimming, not to mention opening doors, picking up items, and fighting monsters. Basically, the scope of the project has far more underlying code than you might expect, and I'm betting Castaways isn't nearly as big as MOTA in terms of how many lines of code it takes to operate. I don't know how many lines of code are in Castaways but i can say MOTA beta 21 is closing in on 50,000 lines of code. So that's something like 833 pages of closely typed text. I'm pretty sure Jeremy hasn't written more than 800 pages of code in a week. Now, you know why Mysteries of the Ancients is taking forever and Castaways is being produced at inhuman speed. :D Cheers! On 7/15/11, Yohandy yohand...@gmail.com wrote: Jeremy, You can't be human man. nope. you're some kind of robot or something. how on earth can you possibly program complex games so quickly? It's totally ridiculous. in a good way of course :D. have you realized the business potential? I'm scared to imagine what you'd whip up if you start working on a commercial audio game for like 6 to 8 months. I bet the game would be so good that you'll be able to sell it for around $60 with no problems. and most people will buy it! look at your games right now? everyone's downloading and playing them. that's what I
Re: [Audyssey] Jeremy's incredible programming speed and misc thoughts was Re: Castaways, 1 week milestone reached!
Hi tom. I do take the point about the sfx, music, multiple sound files an speech api's (though as I've said before certainly on the production side of these there are people who can help, in most graphical projects afterall it's not the programmer who actually draws the graphics, even indi games have a graphic designer for that, and many have a sound designer and musician too). However I do have a couple of questions about the programming end. firstly, from a purely product orientated point of view, ie, what's in the game, is C better than vb 6? if you today handed jeremy all your sfx, prerecorded speach and music for mota and asked him to make a windows only vb6 version, would there be areas of fine sound positioning, physics, game mechanics and the like that wouldn't be possible in vb6, the way they are in c? I think this might be the case, but I'd be interested to know for certain. If we leave aside the cross platform issue and just talk about ease of developement, I'm just wondering what the reason to use C would be, sinse from your description it sounds rather like the long way round. Even entombed, was I believe programmed not in C but in in c# or C.net, and went from initial concept to 10 level monster in less than 18 months, with more floors following very quickly, yet it apparently uses one of these shortcut languages you mention. Is in fact cross platform compatibility the only reason why you couldn't write mota in vb6, or another shortcut orientated language? I'm genuinely quite curious about this, sinse even if we leave aside personal factors, it does seem the amount it takes different people to make games can vary wildly, and it'd be interesting to know from a purely programming perspective the reasons why. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.