Didn't mean to start a screaming matching. I have in one weekend almost completed a game. Mind you it is fairly simple, but then that is exactly the type of games
I want to build. I'm sure at some point I'll find something I can't do in Blitz.
hehe I went to
www.retro64.com to try out some games, just to leave it again, when I remembered how tedious installers are for small puzzel games you'll just play for a short while. I guess Webstart, Applets and Shockwave has made me lazy

WebStart is an installer.
There seem to be two disadvantages:
1) File size - the produced executables are pretty huge.
2) Flexibility - seems like all the examples I look at are pretty damn similar looking and feeling. Although this could just be down to the developer...
EDIT: 3) Can't find any support for standards. No XML processing!!!? Web connections would have to be implemented by hand?
EDIT: 4) Can't find any support for database access?
1> MY little game is < 1 meg and needs no JVM.
2> I get the impression these guys are no very worried about making killer demos to include with the compiler.
3> It is a language, libraries can be written, if absolutely needed.
4> I don't see anything here either however a simple ISAM library should suffice for most games and that is easy to write. You don't need a SQL database on the gamers computer in most cases.
I've been playing a lot with DarkBASIC. I've been impressed by it, but frustrated at the same time (I guess it's like that with anything). I haven't tried BlitzBASIC to compare, but you might try it out to see what you think.
Thanks I'll check it out.
TYPE - seems to be structs for Blitz3D.
Kev
Yep same for BlitzPlus, but if you write littel modules with types and functions that act on the types then you
basically have classes.
i.e. it's an excellent proposal at first, especially if you "try before you buy" rather than examining/evaluating on spec and/or have no "deep" example use-cases to test it against, but then you soon get more and more frustrated - unless your inventiveness and time are both quite small and you can stay within the tiny playpen without noticing how small it is.
For simple games that don't require complex terrain algorithms, complex AI behaviors or a scene graph its the right tool.
In my case simple is exactly what I want, I'm never going to write a game that is like Doom or Quake. I'm more concerned about Solitare.
I think this is an excellent summation of the problem with those "super weapons" like Blitz.
I think this is backwards, c++ and Java are the super weapons.
This pseudo OO just isn't really fitting in with my over zealous Java tastes.
Kev
I know the feeling, it took me about eight hours to stop trying to think like I do when coding in Java. Once I let go of that I made real progress.
I started programming Basic games when I was 8 years old. 1978. Retro-chic is one thing, but that's taking it a bit far.
Use the right tool for the right job.
An idiot can write idiotic games with Blitz better than he can write them with any other language. If people want to make a good game they need a good game idea and that is not the programming language that is going to do the miracle.
Right, so why are you arguing against Blitz being used when it fits the particular problem?
Besides there ae other things Blitz doesn't offer. For instance an IDE like Eclipse; a tool for automatic code checking/correction like JML; a package like JUnit to create tests; all the UML tools available for java. This may look like an overhead for a simple game but for a bigger one its a "pain in the ass" saver.

IDE
http://www.proteanide.co.uk/index.php?pid=shotsJUnit has nothing to do with Java the language it's just a library, same could be written for Blitz.
As far as UML tools I assume your mean UML tools that perform code generation for Java. Otherwise UML has nothing to do with what language you are working in.