GameBlade - 2D Game API using SDL (C++) / News: Recent posts

Today we released a first demo version of the SpaceBlade. In this demo, a battle takes place and your goal the destruction of all enemy ships. After the battle battle statistics are shown. There is a more or less working RPG system, including experience points, level ups and everything connected to that. It's a fun game to play, I like it a lot ; )

- Nokturn

The current SpaceBlade CVS has reached a state of pretty good playability. Currently you can play one battle and look at the outcome in the Scores window. It's really fun to play and the explosions are really beatiful to look at ; )

- Nokturn

The CVS of the GameBlade now provides two functions for grabbing and releasing input for the application. If you grab the input, the mouse is not able to leave the window and most keys are not filtered by the window manager anymore ( GB_GrabInput() and GB_ReleaseInput() ).

In addition to that, one new function makes it possible to set the window icon (GB_SetWindowIcon( filename ) ). The format of the icon can be any format the SDL_Image library supports.... read more

Mouse support has been added to the latest CVS. This includes six user-functions for checking the mouse button states and the window-relative and window-absolute mouse coordinates.

- Nokturn

We have added sound and music volume controls to the CVS repository of the GameBlade. It is possible to set the volume of each individual sound and the background music ( and to get the volume value of course ), but it still needs testing.

OpenGL support was the factor keeping the GameBlade project slow because none of the developers had the time to work on it. That's why we decided to drop OpenGL for a while and devote our time to other useful features, like mouse support or a better sound system. Stay tuned and keep checking out the latest CVS!

Since the GameBlade CVS was a little messy with many unfinished features, we decided to temporarily remove the TileMaps feature. OpenGL support has a higher priority at the moment and we will concentrate on that. Stay tuned an expect some example distributions in the near future!

Good news for everyone who had problems with compiling the GameBlade using Visual C++ or GCC 3.2, these problems should be fixed in Base20030110! More distributions ( example distributions ) are to follow : )

The GameBlade Project's Developers wish you a Happy New Year. This year, the project will be developed, many new features are planned. So, stay with the GameBlade and expect news!

The GameBlade development crew has concentrated their efforts on implementing full OpenGL support for the next version of the GameBlade. This means: full hardware accelerated drawing, rotating, scaling and alpha blending of sprites! OpenGL support is activated by changing just one definition from 0 to 1, nothing more needs to be done!

We are also considering and implementation of networking for base 20021022, but we are not yet sure of this.

The GameBlade base ditribution 20021016 was released today. This version has significant changes. Not only was the sprite system extended, but the whole system now has a centralized startup. Also, great work was put into the new collision detection system, which works very well for the bounding box method and for the pixel perfect method! Another new aspect of the GameBlade are the game timing functions which allow the user to set a frame rate, wait a frame and calculate how many frames were lost/dropped on a slow computer!

Today, the development team of the GameBlade decided, to tag the current GameBlade CVS. That means, that version 20021016 is complete. It still needs some changes, especially the docs, that's why the release will be tomorrow or later.

Of course, this does not prevent you from getting the GameBlade-Base20021016 tagged CVS version already : )

I am sorry for not posting any news the last two days, but there was nothing to release. But we worked on the next release of the GameBlade, the base distribution 20021016. It will contain collision detection, timing mechanics and updates in almost all areas. Sprite rotation/zoom enabling ( done via GB_EnableRotZoom() and GB_DisableRotZoom() in earlier versions ) is automated! There will also be great changes in the sprites class. Look forward to the next version!

Well, first of all, the example EXRotZoom20021015 was released. It shows a rotated and zoomed sprites, a feature introduced in Base20021015. Rotation and zooming can be controled using the cursor keys and anti-aliasing can be enabled/disabled using the keys "a" and "s".

Other than that, I have great news regarding the next release of the GameBlade. First of all, it will have a new sprite frame manager and sprite system. Second, this new sprite system ( well it's actually not so new ) will have collision detection functions. It is certain that the BOX method will be supported, but we still don't know if the PERFECT method will make it into this distribution.
Next, there will be a new event manager, completely new, which will take care of tracking keys and saving them in a lookup table, saving how long a key has already been pressed. Well, look forward to the next base release ; )

I am glad to announce that the third blade of the GameBlade has been released! In contrast to the other distributions, this distribution has a completely changed file structure and the sprite class was enriched by rotation/zooming/anti-aliasing functions!!! Read more at http://gameblade.sourceforge.net

The new example game GMSpaceBreakout20021013 was released today. It is a breakout game in space and shows the new functions for filling areas of the screen, which were introduced in GameBlade version 20021013.

In addition to that, a new base distribution of the GameBlade ( Base20021015 ) was scheduled for tomorrow ( 17. Oct 2002 ) and a new example distribution for another day later. The most important changes are a completely new file structure and functions rotation/zooming/anti-aliasing of sprites. Everything in the good old "one line of code, one feature" philosophy : )

I was glad to welcome a new developer on the GameBlade project, he will be helping out with coding things like collision detection and a better font engine!

Today, I opened the CVS repository for the GameBlade. The newest version of the GameBlade base will be worked on with it. But please don't build your games on top of a CVS because it will probably have unfinished features or buggy code ; )

The release date of the third base distribution is the 17 Oct 2002. Most important changes will be the source/header system which has been rewritten today. Another new feature will be the use of the SDL_rotozoom library for rotation/zooming for Sprites.

Though this example has a rather strange name, it demonstrates the way of drawing single pixels to the screen, using the functions provided by the GameBlade. You can adjust the number of particles to a number your CPU can handle, but no part of the code is optimized : )

Well, have fun. Tomorrow is the release of the third game example, a breakout game in space ; )

The source example distribution EXAlpha20021013 was released today. It demonstrates the use of alpha blending of sprites over a background using the GameBlade version 20021013. Please visit http://gameblade.sourceforge.net for more info and a screenshot : )

The second version of the GameBlade base has been released today. Important changes include functions for filling the screen or part of it, drawing and getting single pixels, showing and hiding the mouse cursor and setting and getting the alpha (transparency) values for sprites and backgrounds.

The homepage of the GameBlade ( http://gameblade.sourceforge.net\) also received important changes because it got a release schedule, which shows all past releases, all current releases and even future releases including dates and descriptions.

Don't ask me why I like to make space games, it's just a coincidence! Well anyway, Spaceship Galaxy is a horizontal scroller using the GameBlade. It has 32 bit graphics and music. But this time I didn't have any sounds at hand so I left them out. Well, you can download the source, feel free to add your own sounds and better music : ) The game uses particle systems for explosions and a pretty realistic starfield. Well, for the playable side, the energy is displayed as well as your current score. My highscore was something like 140, but I am sure everyone can beat this ; )... read more

The readme version 20021007 was uploaded to the Docs section. It is a general outline about GameBlade, which is also included to every GameBlade distribution. There you can read about the goals of GameBlade, about the requirements etc.

Furthermore, I am working on a vertical scroller as a game example. I think this game will take me about 2 to 3 hours to code. I already drew the gfx and composed the music : ) It will probably be done tomorrow.

The second day of the GameBlade project and we already have a complete game with 32 bit graphics, 2 musical themes, sound and AI. The coding time of this project was just 1 hour! (+1 hour for a special eye candy : ) ) I think this is demonstration enough that the GameBlade makes coding very easy!!!

Please download the source code (makefile included), it is in the GameBlade-Game package, the distribution is called GMSpacePong20021007 (filename: GameBlade-GMSpacePong20021007.tar.gz ).... read more

I am glad to announce two new example distributions. One of them is EXMusic20021007, the other one is EXText20021007.

EXMusic20021007 plays a looped Ogg Vorbis music file (hehe composed by myself). To do this, you just need 4 additional lines of C++ code.

EXText20021007 displays the text "GameBlade is too easy.". You only need 2 additional lines of code.

I am planning to release a little pong game to demonstrate, that it is possible to write a complete game with just a few lines of code ( I hope I will keep them under 150 ). The game will of course include music, sounds and 32bit graphics : )

Well, just 2 days after the start of the project, GameBlade received it's first release, including one base distribution and 2 example distributions. If you are new to GameBlade (you probably are), I advise you to download an example distribution, like EXBackground20021007, because it shows how GameBlade works giving an example of a 800x600 background displayed on screen with just 2 or 3 lines of C++ code (not calculating the standard code lines like include files etc).... read more