I need some advice

[JaxDragon]

I recently started a ORPG project, which does have a youtube dev video( here) and seeing as im not a designer(don't have the attention span), and I have a lot of time on my hands, I'm thinking of taking up a new C++ library. Still trying to learn SDL(I can make a tile appear w00t), and I'm wondering If I should start learning darkGDK. I've seen some youtube videos, and it looks simple to use. Just wondering if I should take this next step.

Thanks in advance!

[MarauderIIC]

Never heard of it, sorry

[JaxDragon]

Never heard of it, sorry

xD Thanks anyways.

[programmerinprogress]

i've never used DarkGDK, but I know it's made by TheGameCreators right?

I've never really been a fan of their software (although I own 3 of their titles) not because their software is bad, quite the contrary, but i've realised I like complexity and the control you get with languages such as C++, and the power of the hardware you get with SDL.

Good luck finding your answer, i'msure someone on here uses DarkGDK

[Spikey]

DarkGDK is pretty simple, it may not be super powerful, but you can get results and makes games fairly quickly. Some problems with it though is, documentation could be alot better, still several bugs. Fortunately, TheGameCreators forum community is quite helpful.
It is it's own thing I guess, you can makes games quickly, which is good for developers, but as a programmer, I guess you lose bragging rights, as in bragging about using a complex and powerful library, if that's your thing....

[JaxDragon]

I only brag when I make something worth bragging about. EX. my quake III mod.

[bugmenot]

SFML and Allegro are both higher level libraries then SDL which may be more suitable for a 2D game.

[JaxDragon]

Never thought about allegro. Hm. Does it have networking?

[MarauderIIC]

Let's see
http://alleg.sourceforge.net/latestdocs/en/readme.html

Features

* Cross-platform support for DOS, Windows, Unix, BeOS, QNX and MacOS X systems.
* Drawing functions including putpixel, getpixel, lines, rectangles, flat shaded, gouraud shaded, texture mapped, and z-buffered polygons, circles, floodfill, bezier splines, patterned fills, masked, run length encoded, and compiled sprites, blitting, bitmap scaling and rotation, translucency/lighting, and text output with proportional fonts. Supports clipping, and can draw directly to the screen or to memory bitmaps of any size.
* DOS graphics drivers for VGA mode 13h, mode-X (twenty three tweaked VGA resolutions plus unchained 640x400 Xtended mode), and SVGA modes with 8, 15, 16, 24, and 32 bit color depths, taking full advantage of VBE 2.0 linear framebuffers and the VBE/AF hardware accelerator API if they are available. Additional video hardware support is available from the FreeBE/AF project (http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/freebe/).
* Windows graphics drivers using DirectX in fullscreen and windowed modes, plus routines for drawing onto GDI device contexts.
* Unix graphics drivers for X, DGA2, fbcon, SVGAlib, VBE/AF, mode-X, and standard VGA.
* BeOS graphics drivers using BWindowScreen in fullscreen and BDirectWindow in windowed modes.
* MacOS X native graphics drivers using CGDirectDisplay API for direct fullscreen gfx access and QuickDraw in a Cocoa window in windowed mode.
* Hardware scrolling and triple buffering (where available), mode-X split screens, and palette manipulation.
* FLI/FLC animation player.
* Plays background MIDI music and up to 64 simultaneous sound effects, and can record sample waveforms and MIDI input. Samples can be looped (forwards, backwards, or bidirectionally), and the volume, pan, pitch, etc, can be adjusted while they are playing. The MIDI player responds to note on, note off, main volume, pan, pitch bend, and program change messages, using the General MIDI patch set and drum mappings. DOS version currently supports Adlib, SB, SB Pro, SB16, AWE32, MPU-401, ESS AudioDrive, Ensoniq Soundscape, and Windows Sound System. Windows version supports WaveOut and DirectSound interfaces and the system MIDI drivers. Unix version supports OSS, ESD, and ALSA sound drivers. BeOS version supports BSoundPlayer and BMidiSynth interfaces. MacOS X native version supports CoreAudio, Carbon Sound Manager and QuickTime Note Allocator interfaces. All versions provide software wavetable MIDI playback.
* Easy access to the mouse, keyboard, joystick, and high resolution timer interrupts, including a vertical retrace interrupt simulator in the DOS version.
* Routines for reading and writing LZSS compressed files.
* Multi-object data files and a grabber utility.
* Math functions including fixed point arithmetic, lookup table trig, and 3d vector/matrix/quaternion manipulation.
* GUI dialog manager and file selector.
* Built-in support for 16-bit and UTF-8 format Unicode characters.

Mmm... doesn't look like it.

[JaxDragon]

Grrrr. I don't plan on doing anymore online projects until Kanoba is done anyways.