[casual_games] DirectDraw or Direct3D

[Gabriel]

Hi Cristian,

        So far, I have seen that the preferred tool for developing games
        is Flash. So, what do you thing of making casual games using C++
        and DirectX? And if DirectX and C++ are good choices too, what
        is better? To use the old DirectDraw API or just forget that
        there are still people who don't own a 3D card, and use Direct3D
        instead (I'm thinking of developing 2D games only, anyway)?
        
Over the years I've developed a game framework all our games are based
on (think PopCap's but more portable and higher level, it's much closer
to Flash). There are several backends; for people with 3D hardware
available, there are Direct3D and OpenGL renderers. The Direct3D
renderer uses the 7.0 API which I ships with Window since approximately
the beginning of times, that is, it's almost guaranteed that the player
will have it installed. For people without a 3D card, I also have a SDL-
based software renderer with highly optimized dirty rects so it runs
reasonably (our game Wild West Wendy has a LOT of stuff moving on the
screen at the same time at 800x600 and works pretty well without any
hardware acceleration!).

Having a good abstraction layer and using portable libraries makes the
framework run at least in Linux (which I use to develop), Windows and
Mac, and it should be easily portable to other platforms and even on top
of other proprietary frameworks. I definitely recommend this route.

        PD: I'm glad to hear that there are people outside the US making
        games too. I live in Chile! ;)
        
Cool! We should get together at least once a year ;)

        --Gabriel
        
-- 
Gabriel Gambetta
Mystery Studio - http://www.mysterystudio.com
Gabriel on Graphics - http://gabrielongraphics.blogspot.com