Still Making Things

Welcome to another issue of NinjaSparks. With the summer holidays over and a new season starting, I’ve been thinking about the past.

I feel like the world knows that the summer holidays have ended. Almost as soon as September begins the grey clouds come out, the shorts get put away, and I’m back in my waterproof coat.

I have recently been spending time thinking about Brush Ninja and how to make it more popular. I hate doing marketing, and I don’t like having to push things at people, but it’s also my main source of income so it needs to keep growing and reaching new users.

Marketing makes me feel dirty. Sometimes I want to go back to the old days where I had a “real job” and didn’t have to worry about promoting my work. I could just have fun making things.

But sometimes the old days aren’t quite what we remember. The reality is often more complicated than the nostalgia suggests. And, as I’ve been reminded recently, I’ve actually been making things and putting them out into the world for a very long time.

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DarkBASIC Online

Back in the late 90s, whilst I was at university, I discovered DarkBASIC. It was a programming language specifically designed for creating 3D games, and it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. I was studying Digital Art with the hope of working in games or films, so this was a perfect fit.

I think discovering DarkBASIC was a pivotal moment for me. It combined my interests in games and art, and gave me an easy entrance into the world of game development. Being able to build games on my own is what set me on the path to my current position. If I’d started making games later, in a team or for a company, I might not be where I am today.

DarkBASIC was eventually replaced with DarkBASIC Professional and gained competition from tools like Blitz3D. For a while there were quite a few languages trying to make 3D game development accessible to people like me.

Then last week I found out that the original DarkBASIC has been revived as a web-based platform.

DarkBASIC Online includes many of the original demo programs, alongside newer examples showing things the original couldn’t do. It now has features including 3D physics, real-time shadows and shaders.

It’s amazing what you can do in a browser these days. There’s something strange about seeing a tool from my past brought back to life inside the technology I spend most of my time working with now.

Back in 2002 I actually made quite a long series of DarkBASIC tutorials for making a game called Limit Rush. I no longer have the source code for the tutorials, but they’re still available at the Internet Archive.

Naturally, I tried running Limit Rush in DarkBASIC Online. Unfortunately, not all of the commands I used are supported yet, so it doesn’t quite work. However, the developers are actively improving compatibility. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to run a game I made in 2002 directly in my browser.

I’ll let you know if it happens!

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DarkBASIC Online - A Trip Back to the DarkBASIC Days

I tried to find old videos of DarkBASIC in action, before remembering that at its peak YouTube didn’t exist.

However, I did find this video by Kevin Picone, showing some of his old code running in DarkBASIC Online.

Kevin is a developer I remember from the DarkBASIC community back in the late 90s and early 2000s. Seeing DarkBASIC again is strange enough. Seeing people I remember from the old community appearing alongside it makes the whole thing feel even more like stepping back in time.

It’s great to see him still active and sharing his work.

Watch the video

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A Minecraft City

In other “Flashback” type news, Minecraft is STILL massive, and people are still making crazy things with it.

Minecraft is another one of those things that has been around for so long that it’s easy to stop noticing it. Yet people are still finding new things to build and new ways to push what you can do with it.

Mike Tomlin started building a city with his kids 12 years ago. They eventually drifted off to other interests, but he kept going. What started as something they did together has gradually turned into a sprawling city full of hotels, apartment blocks and all sorts of little details.

There’s something I really like about that. You don’t necessarily need the newest tools to make something interesting. More importantly, he’s building it because he enjoys building it. There’s no social pressure or expectation, he’s just spent 12 years making his city. I’m a little jealous that he’s been able to focus for so long on something purely for the joy of it.

Watch the video

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Recent N64 Game Releases

The N64 stopped being made in 2002, but people are still releasing new games for it.

This video covers some recent releases, and I’m amazed not only that people are still making them, but that many of them look genuinely fun to play.

The N64 is one of my favourite consoles. It came out when I was a teenager, and I have very fond memories of playing it. I certainly didn’t imagine that nearly 30 years later people would still be figuring out new things to make with it.

Perhaps that’s the thing I like most about all these projects. Creativity doesn’t always need more powerful hardware, bigger worlds or fewer restrictions. Sometimes giving yourself a smaller box to work inside gives you more reason to find something interesting to do with it.

Watch the video

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The Mini Book Maker

Which, rather neatly, brings me back to tiny books. After the last newsletter a friend of mine said he loved the Mini Book device I mentioned. I do too, which is why I shared it. That got me thinking about whether I could make my own.

Rather than making a physical tool to create them, I made a small app instead. The first version of my Mini Book Maker is now live on the Brush Ninja website.

I think part of the appeal is the restriction. You’re making a tiny book from a single sheet of paper, so there isn’t much room to work with. You have to decide what really needs to be there. It turns out a smaller box can be quite fun to work inside.

You can see some photos of an early book I made with it. My printer isn’t very good, so I want to find another one and see how good I can make these little books look.

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Currently…

I purchased a Nintendo Switch 2 in the summer holidays and am currently playing Star Wars Outlaws.

I’ve always been a generation or two behind what is considered modern, so after an issue full of DarkBASIC, Minecraft and N64 games, it’s been fascinating to see what more modern gaming experiences are like.

Plus, the game is rather good fun. There’s something cool about jumping on a speeder bike and flying through the environment at high speed. I’ve just got to the stage where you get to fly a spaceship between planets, and am currently infiltrating an Imperial base.

Very cool. It makes me feel like a rebel. I’m also enjoying trying to avoid fighting wherever possible, since I don’t particularly enjoy shooting games. Unless it’s GoldenEye on the N64, obviously.