GLBasic SDK Reviews

Easy learning curve from other versions of BASIC. Fun to use and mature product.

A great little language, like a modern interpretation of old-school Commodore BASIC.

Okay, I've only used it for three hours. Steam was updated and then my programs created with glbasic crashed (when using the SETSCREEN command). Otherwise I like this product. It reminds me of a cross between dark basic pro and blitzbasic. The editor could be better. They should make it more like visual studio. Don't get me wrong the editor is okay and is better than blitz basic. I think I'll have a lot of fun using glbasic. The price is a good price in my opinion. I got it for $24.99.

So, what propells me to buy this old fashioned product? The Syntax likes Vitual Basic.... The Demos are too ............. old ...... to accept for my taste. The tutorial is not friendly to me, and I just atracked by the inline "C/C++" property, but It's too hard to find that..... So, If you are a rookie... just leave it alone. It needs more time to improve its apperarance. The same old sytle, you can choose 001GAME meanwhile it's not a good option too. So, Why I refuse to refund and give the postive postscript? Cause its my first Germany Software. as a chinese, I believe its quality will be awesome some day later.... But for now.... I'd like to prefer the GMS2 and Unity.... So, make it better, please.

I've been using GLBasic for about 5 years and am glad to see its been released on Steam and open to a much wider audience. I'm mainly a retro-style coder and use GLB as my go-to language for all things 2D. It is lightning fast for 2D code, very simple to use but also really powerful. It's a compiled language so you're not going to have problems with stuttering and slowdown associated with interpreted alternatives, in fact for most projects I find I have to slow the code down which is easy to do with the inbuilt commands which is very forgiving if your code doesn't have the best optimisation. The community is excellent and very helpful with any problems, and there are loads of project examples around that are good to learn from. I find I can knock together basic game concepts in couple of sessions and getting stuff onto the screen fast helps with motivation. I definitely recommend GLBasic and a free 2d trial version is available for download on the main site so you can give it a go first and run through the sample games and projects that come with it to see just what it can do.

I thought I added a review already - not sure where it went?! Anyway, GLBASIC is fab and it a great tool for people not interested in drag-n-drop game making...so gamedevs that like working with 'code' It is quite easy to learn and its easy to make a small demo. I have multiple games created like Zen Blocks here on steam. I also have multiple successful Android apps that I built using GLB. I highly recommend this for small, medium and even some large projects. Super-handy for indie game jams and quick prototyping. For me it has been worth every penny!!

I've been using the non-steam version of this for about 8 years, after using the likes of DarkBasic and BlitzBasic. I bought this on Steam pretty much to just give the DEV some support (and my thanks), and give it some praise. I've used lots of tools for game making over the years, and this is the one I always come back to for anything 2D. I can't comment on the 3D side of things as I've not ever used it for that but for 2D game making, its great. Because it's essentially a 'proper' programming language, hiding under a BASIC syntax language, you really can do anything you like, and output your stuff to lots of different platforms. You will need to use your brains a bit to work out how to achieve what you want, but It's quite easy once you get to grips with it, and the compiled code runs faster than you will ever need it to. If you need help with anything, the official glbasic forums are a wealth of info. Highly recommended.

[h1]PROS:[/h1] - Very complex language with many features - expandable with C++ code and DLLs [h1]CONS:[/h1] - Documentation varies from good to not followable and plain incorrect - Examples in the IDE don't even know how to use the poorly documented functions, errors on import - Tiny community, hard to get questions answered - IDE is extremely basic, notepad++ has things over this - Language follows the old BASIC formatting and style to the letter, making it feel very dated [h1]Summary:[/h1] This for me was not worth $50, I would not pay over $20 for this unfortunately. I like older style programming (I write in everything from COBOL to HTML to Java at work) but for how feature rich this language is the documentation really killed it for me. The IDE was another pain point missing many nice keyboard shortcuts and formatting help. I refunded this but maybe might pick it up again if I see changes. I think GLBasic could take some real pointers from AGK on it's documentation (AGK has glorious documentation) and compared to AGK the only thing this has is inline C++ over it (to which I have no idea how far that support goes since this is not a OO language, nor do I think it supports threads which is a big part of C++). Because of this I do not recommend this software :(

A hidden gem :) Only had time to look around the samples.. loved the scramble demo, brought back alot of memories. Looks very powerfull and straight forward. The networking code looks interesting and I have a few ideas. I think I made a good choice in buying this.. lol, Just wish I had my time and less hobbies :D

I used GLBasic years ago as a hobbyist, and the hobby grew into a career for me. GLBasic is great for anyone interested in learning programming. While there are options out there with many bells, whistles, shiny thingamabobs and doodads, which may attract someone interested in learning game programming (or any programming for that matter), I would recommend starting here instead. First, in many of the other options, you are programming within a structure / pattern already defined by someone else, and you likely won't learn design from the fundamental "main loop". Second, many will try to learn in the sleek looking modern environment everyone is talking about, quickly get overwhelmed by all of the features provided, and give up before they get started. GLBasic gives you a simple, and easy to learn environment, without boxing you in as you grow. Later, you can venture into INLINE and even wet your feet with C++ while using GLBasic, wrap other libraries for use inside GLBasic, write advanced functions beyond the original scope of the GLBasic command set, etc. Finally, the skills you learn here will carry over as you venture out further into the programming world. I can say this from personal experience.