By Simon Price
Table of Contents
aMAZEing 3D is a 3D maze game written in Visual Basic. It uses no DLL's or controls written in faster languages such as C++ or assembler. Yep, this is a 3D game in pure VB code. It uses DirectX 7 although there is another version which doesn't. Just a bit of maths, a few textures and a few pictureboxes - that's all there is to it! If you see a similar game, I'd be interested to see it. Please inform me at webmaster@VBgames.co.uk if you know any cool 3D VB games. If you have any other good VB games please also send them to submitgames@VBgames.co.uk and I will put it on my website ( www.VBgames.co.uk ) for others to learn from.
If you have never visited my website before, please do because it has a collection of quality VB games (some written by me) available for download with source code. There are also a few tutorials, including one covering how I made this game.
The objective in the game is to find your way through the maze. If you walk up to and touch the wall with a large 'X' on it you have won.
However, I am trying to make this game into a shoot-em-up, just like the classic Doom. This game would be really amazing if I chucked in a few baddies, guns and ammo.
Well, my name is Simon Price and I have been learning Visual Basic for about 6 months now. I am 16 and I am only really interested in making games and graphical programs. I find if difficult / boring to make stuff like databases or word processors. I have a website with both my games and other peoples at www.VBgames.co.uk . You can email me at SimonPrice@VBgames.co.uk .
You people are the guinea pigs I'm afraid. I don't know how this game will perform on other computers. What I do know is this : you do need DirectX 7, you do need the VB run time files. Your monitor must support 16 bit colours (most do). My PC is 430Mhz and the game performs well on my PC. If you have a fast PC then the larger levels will look stunning with no slow-down. If you have a slow PC then you might find the game runs a little too slow. Feel free to give feedback on this subject, because I need to know before I finish the game how it will perform on other PC's.
To decrease file size so that I could upload this game to Planet Source Code, I have devised a graphics expander program. It's a little inconvenient but you MUST run the file 'RunMeFirstToInstall.exe' before playing - but the good side was that the size of the download was more than halved!
At the moment, collision detection in the game is quite unreliable, you often get stuck on walls - so this option by default is left off. I recommend you keep it that way, but I do not recommend that you try walking through the walls. If you walk out of the level the game may stop working.
There are ten levels to choose from. 1 is the easiest and the smallest. It also runs the fastest. 10 is the biggest and most difficult, and also runs the slowest.
There are two styles of graphics to choose from - realistic or surreal. One will make the walls from realistic textures such as stone, brick, rock, leather and sandstone etc. The other option will load up walls where the textures are bright, colourful patterns. Choose depending on your own tastes, but I think the realistic textures look best.
Use the arrow keys to walk around. Explore the 3D maze, and try to find the wall marked with an 'X'. When you see it, go up to it and touch it, and you should get a message telling you that the level is complete. If you want to exit the game early, or you simply give up, press the Escape key to exit. That's about all there is to it.
You can press 'C' to capture the screen, and it will be saved in this folder as 'Pic'. Alternatively, press 'Print Screen' and it will be copied to the clipboard. Exit, open up your favourite graphics program and paste it where you want.
Yes, you can create your own levels with and ordinary paint program! Create a new bitmap - it must be square, with sides of length 10 - 100 pixels (try a small maze at first) and fill it in black. Then make a border wall with one of the following colors:
White, vbCyan, vbMagenta, vbYellow, vbBlue, QBcolor(6), QBcolor(7)
Make sure the wall surrounds the entire level, otherwise the game will freeze when it tries to draw an infinity on empty space where the leak is. Now draw in more walls using the colors listed above. Each color represents a different wall texture. Then, to finish off get the color vbGreen and paint one pixel green. This will be where the player will start the level. Then make one pixel vbRed - this will be where the wall with an 'X' will appear - so you shouldn't put in right in front of the start position! Save your picture in the 'Levels' folder and overwrite one of my levels, by naming it a number between 1 and 10. You must save it as a bitmap ans leave the correct '.bmp' file extension. The load up the game and select your own level! Cool huh? All the 3D, lighted, textured wizardry was created from that tiny bitmap!
The major bug in this early version of the game is that it does not always put your screen resolution back to normal. If you have to manually adjust your monitor, you can do this my right clicking on the desktop, select 'Properties' and then go to the 'Settings' tab where you will be able to change the screen resolution / colours manually.
The collision detection is also very dodgy at the moment. If you find any more bugs, please email me at gamefeedback@VBgames.co.uk
All source code here belongs to Simon Price. Do not copy it, claim it to be yours, put it on a website without permission, or anything else that'd be conning me. I've spent a long time making this game and getting it up on mine and other websites. You should respect the fact that I have given this source code out for free by giving me a fair mention in any games you make based on my source code, and sending them to me at submitgames@VBgame.co.uk so that it can be put on my website. OK?
This software has to been given to you for free. I will accept no responsibility for any damages / loss of files / any sort of muff-up that happens to your computer as a direct / indirect / whatever you like use of this software. So, if your computer crashes and your monitor explodes, tough.
Send any bug reports, questions, answers(!), maybe even some praise to gamefeedback@VBgames.co.uk . Please visit my website : www.VBgames.co.uk to see more cool VB games. Please send your VB games to me at submitgames@VBgames.co.uk to be considered for submission to my collection of quality downloads.
Simon Price, 28/5/00
Creator of www.VBgames.co.uk
Email : SimonPrice@VBgames.co.uk
VB games programmer since Dec '99