Dark Basic Professional Review

Dark Basic Professional is a good tool if you are just starting in the programming business. It allows you to write games relativly easily in both 2D and 3D. This means that, if you are new to the Game Design business, that you can make almost any game you want.

What really detracts from Dark Basic is the amount of tools that it gives you. Dark Basic is an old programming language and reflects that when writting the code. Rather then writing if{ ... }else{ ... } statements you are stuck writing confusing if elseif endif lines that can really be annoying.

For a first year programmer the tool is, despite what I just said, easy to get used to. The program comes with plenty of easy tutorials and some less simple ones that allows the user to build to whichever level they want to achieve in their game.

Further limiting Dark Basic is it's limited visual technology. Dark Basic boasts what was once a great rendering engine, however the engine has fallen apart. What once was the mark of a good game now looks unappealing. Dark Basic does not support the new graphics technology that games expect from their games such as Direct X 10 or 11 and powerful Anti-aliasing.

Basically, when it comes down to it, the engine is not as powerful as many users will be looking for and if you plan on making the next great game this is not the engine for you. However, if you are looking for a good place to start then this is not the worst choice, after all I started here and am doing well other game design programs.

If you are want a good place to start then take my advice: Start basic with Java or C++ and work up to where you want to be. It will take time, however you will learn a lot more and be able to do a lot more as well.