Beginner's Guide (Basic4GL)

Welcome to our Basic4GL Beginner's Guide. The Basic4GL Beginner's guide links to tutorials and other pages in the order you should read them to advance from complete noob to intermediate Basic4GL developer.

You should bookmark this page. It links to several weeks worth of material and you will want to check back often as you advance. Do This Now.

Getting Started

The first thing you should do is get involved in the Game Design Novice Community. We've been where you are and we're always happy to help. Check out the GDN Beginner's Guide. It will tell you everything you need to know to get involved and how to get help quickly.

What is Basic4GL?

Basic4GL is based on the BASIC programming language. Basic4GL is suitable for making simple text games, 2D games, and even 3D games using OpenGL. It is open source and absolutely free. For more information about what Basic4GL is, see the Basic4GL BullSheet. It will help you decide if Basic4GL is the game programming language for you.

Getting Set Up

Before you can make games with Basic4GL, you first have to Download and Install Basic4GL. After you have Basic4GL downloaded and installed, open it and take A Quick Look Around Basic4GL to get your bearings. Finally, you'll probably want to know how to Run Basic4GL in a Window, as it runs full screen by default and this can easily get annoying.

Before You Begin

We highly recommend you read our article Some Things Every Noob Should Know before moving on. This article will tell you how to become a success at creating your own video games, instead of being just another noob. Also, here's our Basic4GL FAQ and List of Basic4GL errors for easy reference later.

Your First Steps

The first thing you should know is the absolute minimum you need to get an error-free window open. Believe it or not, it requires no code whatsover.

The next step is the obligatory Hello World Tutorial. Every game programmer has read a tutorial like this at least once.

This page has been recommended for cleanup, integration, etc.

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