Blitz BASIC and you
What do you think of when you hear the term Blitz BASIC? If your answer is “speed and action,” then keep reading. Blitz BASIC was designed as a compiler for programming games and graphical interfaces. The first version of Blitz, designed by Mark Sibly, appeared on the Amiga computer and was published by Memory and Storage Technology, an Australian company. Blitz Basic, published by the company Idigicon, appeared in October 2000. Since then, the language has been continuously refined.A 2001 update added a 3D graphics engine, and a 2003 2D-only version offered control support for native Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The latest version, released in 2004, is called BlitzMax and was the first Blitz language compatible with Mac OS X and Linux, in addition to the original Microsoft Windows. BlitzMax also included object-oriented concepts for the first time and represented strings using the 2-byte Universal Character Set (UCS-2), making it possible to write programs outside the standard ASCII set of characters.Blitz has always been designed for creating innovative and entertaining games, and they’re a far cry from the minimalistic recreations that the original BASIC developers came up with (see our earlier article “Early BASIC games” for more on that subject). You may be familiar with the computer game series Worms, in which players take turns trying to blast their opponents’ worms with a variety of outlandish weapons. The first entry in the series was developed as Total Wormage using the Amiga Blitz language, before being released as Worms in 1995.More recently, Squash Software (aka developer Anthony Flack) developed Platypus, a side-scrolling shooter with claymation graphics. The game originally appeared on the PC before being released on the PSP in 2006 and the Playstation Network and Xbox Live in 2009. A traditional role-playing series, Eschalon, has also been developed for the language. The story is being told over three different games, known as Books. Eschalon: Book I was released in November 2007, while Eschalon: Book II appeared in May 2010. Whether you’re a game developer, fan, or both, the continuing innovation of the Blitz language can only mean good things.