How many completed games written with BlitzMax?

Hello guys... I was just wondering how many of you successfully completed a game with BlitzMax. There's a lot of BlitzPlus/3D games around, but I wonder about Max. :-)

I'm holding off buying BMX until the 3D module arrives. I believe others have taken the same stance and you will see mass adoption of BMX once the DX 3D module is out. That should add to the number of completed games.


Andy

Well, I've completed two games so far. Admittedly, they started as tests for other ideas I have, but they've been developed into full freeware games in their own right.

The games are Max Invaders and Worm - both available from my main SOS Software site (link in sig).

I'm personally not too bothered about the 3D module (although I will purchase it when available), as I mostly write 2D stuff anyway.

Indiepath's Caboodle and C'bubble are both BlitzMax.

I really want to use it and do actually own it but it still feels not quite there at the moment to me when compared to Blitz3D which feels like a much more complete program all round.

I know that BMax doesn`t have 3D at the moment but I`m not only talking about that, I mean as a whole docs etc... something is lacking. Things like not quite having the same range of sound format support and little things like that keep niggling at me.

Do others feel this way too?

Jason.

BubbleBlitz was written in BMax... but it is too hard for a kids game and not enough for an adults game... so while it is smooth and finished it isn't very good.

I also think once the 3d module is up and running, we'll get many more dedicated users (including me) who will sort out problems such as the docs and sound support you mentioned. There are libs out there for most things, and what you can use in blitz you should have the licence to use in BMax as well.

Rook, to my knowledge BubbleBlitz by Ben Gilbanks (if we are talking about the same game) was actually coded in Blitz Plus and not Max.

Jason.

I've finished two games in blitzmax. the first was just a little test game. The second was an arena spaceship game with strategy elements.

I think QuickSilva is correct about Bubble Blitz. I recall Ben talking about lack of alpha transparecy, which would only be the case if he used B+.

I completed TriviaNet Challenge in BMax.

At Coders Workshop you can look into the Showcase Centre and you'll find plenty of BMX games although I don't think they are finished...

http://www.codersworkshop.com/viewshowcase.php?lang=Blitz+Max

Currently I am working on my first own BlitzMax game called "JumpingClown". You can find a worklog here on BlitzBasic.com

Yeah it's Blitz2d.

Our releases caboodle and cbubble are in Max, one of our developers will be releasing another title written in BMax shortly. I would also like to add that the next two games in development by Indiepath are also written in Bmax.

Just out of interest are those of you selling BMax games getting many Mac users buying your products? I assume your`e selling to both the Mac and PC market as you are now able to.

Jason.

None. I don't sell on Mac, because I will not sell games I can't support properly and a couple of months playing with one is not sufficient to be supporting products people have paid for.

Not yet, I will be selling mac versions of the games soon but this is not a priority for Indiepath at the moment.

I recall that DR Germ is a BMax product and the Mac sales of that are doing rather well.

I stand corrected. OK I sit corrected... but corrected nonce.

I finished one with BlitzMax....did a little Space Harrier demo with Blitz3d....and attempted a Roller Bot 2 demo with Blitz3d but never quite finished....

The big thing to remember is that most people are sat around waiting for the 3D modules. Noone cares about Mac and Linux support (yes really) so you're unlikely to see any big blitzmax blockbusting games anytime soon until 3D comes along.

Then again I'm sure something else will come along that'll appeal to the 'sit and wait' brigade. :)

Totally disagree with you there. Ignoring the Mac opportunity is crazy, the potential customer base is massive. Linux on the otherhand is a bit of a waste of time at the moment. Some companies have not released on Mac yet, including mine, due to lack of experience on that platform, not because it's something they don't care about. And....what's 3D got to do with blockbusting games?

I agree with Indiepath on this. I actually consider 2D games a great deal more fun than any 3D ones. After the intitial wow factor of 3D games I find that most 2D games last a hell of a lot longer, infact all the greats I can think of are 2D games.

Not everyone is 3D mad and anyway, how many people here have made a blockbuster game with Blitz3D? Will having shaders etc... suddenly make every produce decent games, I think not.

Jason.

I'm not sure Linux is a big market, unless you're building innovative applications, but Mac definately is. Many of my friends own Macs and some of them are wishing they had more games. :)

Right. This was one of the reasons why I switched from a Mac to a PC. On the Mac you only have two and a half games, and they're always released 6 months after the PC version... :-(

The truth is noone buys a Mac to play games. It's not a games machine, gamers use Windows, why would anyone in their right mind want to have a mac only to play games when it means they can't play 99.9% of all the other games available for windows that won't ever work on Mac. And if they own both systems, they'll use the windows version of your game (of course you'll compile to windows as well won't you?) it's that simple.

And of course people who use Linux don't use it for games either.

Nope, I can't even think of one valid reason why you'd want to write games specifically for a mac computer.

@ENAY, come along to indiegamer.com and have a look at the stats, the people who "BOTHERED" to write for Mac are finding, in general, that Mac is outselling Windows - Mac users *want* games, they are waiting to be sold to.

A lot of people don't buy a PC only for games, but still enjoy playing them. Same thing on the Mac. If you bother with "serious" apps all the time, you'll enjoy a break playing a game.

Tim: I never knew Macs users wanted games so bad, I assumed that as 10% of computers are Macs, the market wasn't worth bothering with i.e. all that extra code/testing to make it work on a Mac would be wasted time but if what you are saying is true ...

Hi, I checked out indiegamer, nice site. However a couple of forum statistics by enthusiasts doesn't really prove to me that there's much more opportunity in a market than with windows.

I can still remember some years ago my Acorn RISC OS enthusiast who was so obsessed with Acorn being the best he'd defend it like his religion, when Doom and Hexen came out he precicted the end of Windows. But despite the Acorn being better than Windows in almost everyway, without full support from multiple developers and market share, it was never gonna be a games machine, or too much of anything really without support.

I asked 2 of my mates (who've been hardcore gamers for years) what an indie game or indie developer was.I had to explain it to them, 'good gues but no it's nothing to do with Indiana Jones', which to me confirms my suspicions that most people don't know what indie is all about, so they're not likely to stumble across indie games.

I whole heartedly embrace the plight of indie game development everywhere,
but for the time being times are hard (as ever) and tapping into a small niche Mac market certainly isn't the answer. How many of these developers write Mac only games and nothing for Windows at the same time?

I still think you'll have more success in Windows than in Mac, Mac gamers may be crying out for games, but the lack of games on the Mac currently isn't going to make gamers want to play and buy your game 'that' much more.

But if you do make a good game, I will only buy your Windows version. :)

I was waiting on the 3D module but got a job working with Apple Mac's [again] so I decided to migrate early. I have written 1, fairly simple, game.


I gave mine away for free, but according to my statistical analysis roughly 1/8th of my downloads are from Mac users.


I have a long working history doing tech support on Apple Mac's, and i'm a programmer... If anyone wants help supporting users on Apple Mac's then perhaps I can help?

Factoring out your support to a 3rd party is quite common industry, and if for you it means 1/8th of yours sales again - then it can't be a bad thing right?


Mac's appeal to a different sort of person than one who would make the above post, but I could point you to a forum where the above quote would have you buried alive amidst a furor of Macintosh flag waving, infact I will... http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php

Mac gaming is very much alive, it just clearly hasn't appealed to you. Not everyone enjoys their OS getting hacked to breaking point at the first sight of an internet connection or unsolicited email...