game development tools

["Fernando Delgado" <ferdebla@teleline.es>]

I got a copy of a game development tool.  I realy like it, the problem is... is an MSDOS tool.

 

So, I am trying to find something similar in the linux world or to look for people interested in doing it.

 

What is so cool about this tool?

 

I will try to tell it.  It's a tools ONLY for games. Let's imagine the INVADERS game ( the old game where you are under some houses and the martians go left to right and speting down once every time they hit the side of the screen).  In this game there are only 4 diferent elements the martian/s, the house/s, the bullets and you.  With this tools you only have to code 5 functions the initialation and 1 functions for each element. Each element is an object.

 

(The tool actualy use a special sintax mixture of pascal/C I will use C for the example)

 

void Martian_Handler()

{

  static bool direction=0;

  while(1)

  {

    if(direction)

    {

      position_x++:

      if(position_x>=MAX_X)

      {

        position_y++;

        direction=false;

      }

    }

    else

      {

        position_x--;

        if(position_x<=MIN_X)

        {

          position_y++;

          direction=true;

        }

      }

  frame();    // this is the tricky part

  } 

}

 

Every time a new frame is needed, every object is processed.  When an object reach the frame function, it stop its ejecution and wait for the redraw.  All the rendering is done by the engine.  Of course there are some variables every object have like the position_x and position_y ( in a 3d world more will be needed), its bitmaps and which one is the actual to be draw, etc.  The bullet will control if it contact any element and if so it will call a kill funtion with the element ID, it may the create a martian_exploding element in the place of the kill martian.  The programmer only focus in the game and it is fun to code and very easy to use.  If some one is interested I can send you a simple game code complete explained and its .EXE (MSDOS only as already said).

 

Question:

 

There is anything similar in the linux world?

Will a tool like this be usefull?

There is any one intereseted in doing it for linux?

 

NOTE: I am a programmer, I like to belive I am a good programmer but I have no experience in linux programming or X window programming.

 

Fernando Delgado.