After almost 4 years and a few preview releases, VBDE has finally reached version 1.0.0! VBDE is an all-in-one portable Virtual Boy development environment for Windows. Only download, unzip and start working! No installation, no hassle. It comes in the form of a lightweight editor (Notepad++) with buttons for compiling with gccVB 4.4.2 (running inside Cygwin), running on an emulator, flashing to a FlashBoy or on-the-fly image conversion using grit. It contains a lot of example code which can be used as a starting base for new projects. Thanks to the loose coupling of the individual components, you can of course also use VBDE with your favorite IDE, such as Eclipse or IDEA (my personal favorite).
Also included and fully integrated in the package is the brand-new version 4.0 beta 1 of Jorgeche’s VBJaEngine! The engine saw an extensive overhaul and after 10 years in the making (development started in November 2005 as “VB Game Development Kit”), we now have a very mature and powerful engine at hand that is much more accessible and comfortable to use than ever before. Here’s a few highlights of the engine’s features, check out the included readme for the complete list:
- Object Oriented support
- Automatic dynamic memory management with defragmentation
- Generic State machine
- Event system
- Messaging system
- Parenting system
- Physics engine
- Particle system
- Advanced animation system
- 3D stages with level streaming and automatic z-layer sorting
- Extensive debug tools, including an in-game level editor
In the samples folder, you’ll find a VBJaEngine barebone project, which can be used as a starting point for your own project, as well as a platformer demo.
Please note that the engine is still in beta. Thus, there are still some rough edges here and there like some unfixed bugs, the documentation being very incomplete or the platformer demo ending abruptly. We hope to have it all sorted out next year. There is, however, no reason to not get started right now! For help, check out the new VBJaEngine support forum.
Download: Virtual Boy Development Environment 1.0.0
