Blitzbasic WAS very game focused, it allowed you to do a lot quickly and simply. Mark, having written a number of mainstream games had a very good idea of what a games programmer needed and tried to deliver it in the simplest, fastest and most accessable way. This was done very sucessfully.
Blitz 3D captilised on this and managed to mix together a lot of gaming power in a very simple and accessable package. It also provided a lot of functionality "out of the box" which is what a lot of people where looking for at the time. A lot of people had written off being able to write 3D games as too complicated and difficult. Blitz 3D changed that, it was during this time that Blitz gained it's (PC) reputation as THE gaming basic even with very little marketing.
However the product was never really developed in later years and was tied down by its own strucuture and methods, some short comings where never really satifactorily solved (collisons, shaders, DX7 base etc.). All the while other game development systems clawed back the gap Blitz 3D originally opened up and then eventually supersceded Blitz 3D.
Blitzmax was a lot more ambitious than Blitz 3D and much more open, however I've always felt it lost a LOT of what made it attractive in the first place: ease of use, simplicity, deliver a big payload to the user.
Development on BlitzMax seems to have slowed for a long while so many next generation features that where originally anticipated have not arrived. So Blitzmax is now a bit of a strange offering in that it doesn't have the features of C#, C++, Java but doesn't have the attractive features of Blitzbasic or Blitz 3D either. TBH I'm not sure what the current design goal of Blitzmax is, I don't think anyone really knows for sure.
Darakheart
Blitz 3D captilised on this and managed to mix together a lot of gaming power in a very simple and accessable package. It also provided a lot of functionality "out of the box" which is what a lot of people where looking for at the time. A lot of people had written off being able to write 3D games as too complicated and difficult. Blitz 3D changed that, it was during this time that Blitz gained it's (PC) reputation as THE gaming basic even with very little marketing.
However the product was never really developed in later years and was tied down by its own strucuture and methods, some short comings where never really satifactorily solved (collisons, shaders, DX7 base etc.). All the while other game development systems clawed back the gap Blitz 3D originally opened up and then eventually supersceded Blitz 3D.
Blitzmax was a lot more ambitious than Blitz 3D and much more open, however I've always felt it lost a LOT of what made it attractive in the first place: ease of use, simplicity, deliver a big payload to the user.
Development on BlitzMax seems to have slowed for a long while so many next generation features that where originally anticipated have not arrived. So Blitzmax is now a bit of a strange offering in that it doesn't have the features of C#, C++, Java but doesn't have the attractive features of Blitzbasic or Blitz 3D either. TBH I'm not sure what the current design goal of Blitzmax is, I don't think anyone really knows for sure.
Darakheart