Are any games still written in BASIC?

Question

Are any games still written in BASIC?

Answer 1

Few if any serious games were ever written in BASIC. The problem was you couldn't prevent anyone from looking at the program and cheating or making unauthorized changes to the game. So a lot of simple hobby games were written in BASIC but few games that you could buy were written in BASIC. In this time period, assembly language was king. There wasn't any C++ and K&R C was still evolving.



As the speed of computers increased, even interpreted BASIC started to become fast enough for simple graphics. You could effectively write a program similar to the original version of Wolfenstien in BASIC. If you can find it in the archives, I know of a simple maze/ray tracing program that could be modified to do something similar to this. It would be a lot of work though and you wouldn't be able to do any real fancy graphics. At this stage of things, you can compile BASIC into machine code though it still isn't as fast as C while C++ is starting to evolve. Assembly language is still at the heart of any serious games.



In the modern world, the game engine is probably still written in assembly language. You'll probably still find C behind some games but C++ is likely the dominant programming language. While C++ is the better choice for the huge environments modern games create, it still isn't as fast as well written C or assembly. There may even be one or two shockers around that are written in BASIC.



Several hobby type game programs are still written in a variety of programming languages. Python is one popular language. Java has been used for games as well. The choice of programming language for individuals is more often what they know rather than what might be the better choice for a given idea.



This covers the space of about 30 years or so. In the late 70s personal computers were slow. A simple text based game written in BASIC would sometimes pause while it sorted out it's response. As things progressed, in the late 80s, things got a bit faster and computers evolved. In the late 90s, we were starting to get better graphics and the video cards started to allow higher density graphics. I don't need to say much about the last 10 years as we are closing in on lifelike resolutions and movement in video games and this requires incredible speed to draw "cartoons" that fast in real time.



Shadow Wolf

Answer 2

No. Not professional games. What people forget is that games at home became popular when Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs hacked incredible for the times graphics into a computer you connected to your tv set. While not near today's standards they matched the abilities of the arcade machines that were eating up many of our quarters back then. Companies like Sierra On-Line got their start from people who had jobs amusing themselves at home with Applesoft Basic. The other companies followed and IBM/Microsoft (who were in partnership in those days) were aiming at an older and more professional market. When those machines got the ability to run graphics compiling was already popular among commercial programmers (and not just home brew compilers/assemblers like some of these earlier coders had written -- in basic). Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, which REALLY established the PC as a gaming platform, were written on UNIX/Linux networks -- ironically early versions of the Slackware Linux OS I'm writing this on included the demo version of Doom. Notice I said networks. While you could harness that much power in your house cheaply today, it requires a level of technical expertise most people don't have and those that do could sell quite nicely. Besides, AT&T and verizon might have a problem with you using their routers to talk between the boxes which share it rather than on the internet as you pay them to do. They might at least want a royalty ;-)



OTOH I am surprised nobody is reacting to the increasing memory demands and intractability of Windows by releasing their games as live cds -- Linux and UNIX both provide efficient file systems which will run your computer from a disk and you don't even need them if your OS is the game. We often had to reset our computers to start games back when programs came on cassette and this would be a return to the old days which weren't SO bad. All you need are a bootloader and a compiled game engine.



But really, computers are too complicated to justify writing games in BASIC. A few hobbyists do it and they use various interpreters, but usually you need people with more advanced skills (I believe BASIC, which started at Dartmouth, stands for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code -- the first word is Beginners).

Answer 3

Not really. BASIC is not actually very basic. It's incredibly slow and unwieldy for large projects. Games are typically written using gaming engines, which are very generic and cross platform. Valve's Source Engine (you get the Software Development Kit free when you purchase any Source-powered game on Steam) is one popular one. It, like the id Tech engine it was derived from (which is now available as a free download) is written in C++. Games written using the Unreal Engine (such as Gears of War and Bioshock) are written in the engine's custom scripting language. You can download that development kit for free too, as long as you don't plan on selling the game.

Answer 4

Bit slow for games. There were never many proper games written in BASIC.

Answer 5

yeah hobbiest or if your going to make your first game (for learners) yeah. But thats basically it its becoming a dead language.

Answer 6

I agree with the first comment.

Answer 7

only by hobbyists.