Development Info Beyond Infinity in beta

Saint_Proverbius · Mar 29, 2003

Tags: Beyond Infinity

For those of you who are looking to tinker with making similar to <A href="http://icewind2.blackisle.com">Icewind Dale 2</a> and other Infinity Engine type games, you should check out <A href="http://binf.sourceforge.net/">Beyond Infinity</a>, which is an open source Infinity Engine work-alike written in <A href="http://www.borland.com/delphi/">Delphi</a>. The current version is <A href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=74686&release_id=148556">0.041ÃŸ</a> and is available from the <A href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/binf/">project homepage</a>.
 
 
<div align="center"><a href="http://binf.sourceforge.net/"><img src="http://www.rpgcodex.com/images/screenshots/binf/tiny001.jpg" height="150" width="200"> <img src="http://www.rpgcodex.com/images/screenshots/binf/tiny002.jpg" height="150" width="200"></a></div>
 
 
I would joke about it being written in <A href="http://www.borland.com/delphi/">Delphi</a>, but it's probably better coded than the one <A href="http://www.bioware.com">BioWare</a> coughed up.
 
 
Spotted this at <A href="http://gamehippo.com/">GameHippo</a>

Spazmo · Mar 29, 2003

The effort is commendable. Can't say the same about the engine, though. Maybe someone will introduce IE to a halfway decent pathfinding system?

Saint_Proverbius · Mar 29, 2003

Turn based would be nice.

Walks with the Snails · Mar 29, 2003

Well, they have a section for feature requests....

Mad_Dog · Mar 29, 2003

I used Delphi in Grade 12 computers... Lots of fun.:D

Saint_Proverbius · Mar 29, 2003

It's basically PASCAL, so it's a decent, albeit OLD, language.

Zetor · Mar 29, 2003

Yeah, but by the same token, C++ is basically C, which is an old language itself.

(not to mention Cleve Blakemore is writing Grimoire in vanilla C... *thunderclap*)

-- Z.

MF · Mar 29, 2003

Carmack writes his engines in vanilla C.
C++ has some very nasty cluttered functions, and it's one big mess if you ask me.
Microshaft nonsense.

Anyway, open source engines are always nice, even if they're written in a silly processing language. It does look good, though.

Psilon · Mar 29, 2003

C++ is a bit baroque, but it's loads better than textbook Pascal. It's not Microsoft, so don't bash it because of VC++. That's like making fun of Lisp because it's used in Emacs, or Java because of J#.

Section8 · Mar 30, 2003

From what I've seen, many of the C++ improvements are streamlining for ease of use more than efficiency, so if you've got the vanilla C knowledge and a bit of patience it's use can't really be considered redundant.

Saint_Proverbius · Mar 30, 2003

I learned C about ten years before I took a look at C++, and frankly, I hate C++. There's a lot of C programmers who don't like C++ because it violates the purpose of the language in the first place. C was designed to be a language of functions, C++ is a step back from that in that it impliments a hell of a lot of keywords that do the exact same thing as the older C functions. For example, new does the same thing as the alloc() functions. cin and cout do the same things as scanf() and printf().

About the only thing in C++ I actually like are the classes, and even then, there's parts of classes that I find annoying to use.

As for PASCAL, did you know the guy who wrote that language hated it? He considered it a failure, so he went on to develop Modula.

MF · Mar 30, 2003

Not Microsoft? Try writing C++ in a Unix environment.
Visual C++ stinks, but it's just like the Java Virtual machine. Somewhow Microsoft manages to fuck it all up for everyone.

I agree with SP here. Even though I'm a Perl freak, and Perl is basically the epitome of vagueness, at least it's simply what Perl is. C++ is a bloated piece of..well.

Of course, I don't have to use it, and everyone's entitled to their opinion

Psilon · Mar 30, 2003

C++ in Unix is quite easy with g++. If you're used to C on Unix, C++ is essentially the same. If you're used to the VisualWhatever way of IDEs for everything, then most Unix tools are going to suck. Given that you're a fellow Perl freak, MF, I'll assume you know how Unix development works.

For the record, I don't use C++ if I can avoid it; most of the new features are admittedly specialist, and I hate trying to link C++ modules compiled with different systems. I try to avoid OOP whenever possible; this "everything is an object" philosophy in Java and C# invariably ends up perverting the program, the definition of an object, or both. Perl, C, and Mathematica are my preferred tools. I'll tend to use C++ over Java or the MS languages, though.

But yeah, everyone's entitled to a language opinion. Except for people who prefer MFC. We can still mock them, right?

Section8 · Mar 30, 2003

Yeah, I find classes are about the only thing in C++ I really like. new/delete are convenient, but not much different from a malloc/free. I tend to code in some kind of bastard hybrid of the two at the moment, but I'd rather get one down pat.

POOPERSCOOPER · Mar 30, 2003

hey

Whats a good language for a begginner, like myself, to learn?

Saint_Proverbius · Mar 30, 2003

C is pretty easy. You really just need a good hand reference to learn it.

MF · Mar 30, 2003

Let me pimp the O'reilly books here. http://www.oreilly.com
Excellent books. For learning, research, reference.

For true ease, of course, there's always Basic. But it's not very powerful.

Psilon · Mar 30, 2003

Python's also pretty good in that respect.

Araanor · Mar 30, 2003

MF, there's a typo in your link.

I read C++ Primer Plus by Stephen Prata, gave me a geat insight to the basics.

Spazmo · Mar 31, 2003

QBasic is an incredibly powerful and flexible programming language. Heh, I remember programming all sorts of shit on the old 386 when I was around the age of six.

ecliptic · Mar 31, 2003

Ha, nibbles was the best game- period.
I used qbasic for nibbles and gorillas, and pumped out my terrible middle school programs on Turbo Pascal. Oh yesss. Complete with ansi graphics made in TheDraw.

Section8 · Mar 31, 2003

I read C++ Primer Plus by Stephen Prata, gave me a geat insight to the basics.

I've got that one around here somewhere too. Th is is probably just me personally, but I find that a classroom environment is far more conducive to learning than self-teaching with a decent book.

Araanor · Mar 31, 2003

With a good teacher and a good book, it could certainly be possible. I didn't have that much luck. It wasn't until I borrowed that book myself and started reading I understood what the fuck we had been doing. (This was back in high school.)

I just finished off a course with JAVA. Things weren't much better here, after falling asleep in a lecture I started working on my own.

Walks with the Snails · Mar 31, 2003

Ugh, C gives me nightmares. I get flashbacks of plowing away in a dank computer lab for hours on end pulling my hair out trying to get pointer references straightened out. For a beginner, you probably want something that's not going to let you do something stupid, and that's not C. The beginner's language used to be Pascal, now it seems to be Java. Java's pretty nice, just slow. There's tons of online help for it, too. Object-oriented programming is really nice once you manage to wrap your head around it.

Astromarine · Mar 31, 2003

Just work, like me, in a project that requires you to spend about half time coding in C and the other half on a 4GL language, and you will learn to cherish the time you spend in C

Astro

Development Info Beyond Infinity in beta

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