AppGameKit Studio – Let’s begin

Before diving deep into the topic, let me give you a bit of context. Be patient—I’ll share some details you might not know.

The prelude – Gorillas

No, it’s not a typo—you read it right. It’s «Gorillas,» not «Gorillaz,» because I’m not referring to the band, but to a video game with that name.

Have you ever heard of it? It was a game programmed in QBasic (for MS-DOS). I’m not sure if it was a free game or if it came bundled as a demo to showcase QBasic’s graphics and sound capabilities. But as far as I know, the game’s source code was accessible, and you could even modify it using the QBasic editor.

Although I remember seeing the source code, I had no clue what I was looking at or how to change anything. I didn’t even know how to adjust a color or modify a line of text to my liking.

If you’ve never had the chance to see or play it, let me explain: it was a two-player game where each player named a gorilla, and the goal was to engage in a 1-on-1, turn-based battle. The two gorillas were placed on a game board—a city skyline with buildings drawn on the screen. Each gorilla stood on top of a building. At the start of each turn, the player had to input an angle and a launch velocity, which the program would use to make the gorilla throw an explosive banana toward their opponent. The objective? Hit the other gorilla to score a point.

Once the player inputs the launch parameters, the game animates the gorilla throwing the banana. You can watch the explosive fruit soar through the air, destroying part of the board if it hits a building, disappearing off-screen, or hitting the other gorilla—or even yourself, if your aim is way off.

If the gameplay sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve played Worms or a similar game.

If you want to play them, both Gorillas and Worms are available online at these links:

Qbasic – Gorillas | ClassicReload.com

Worms | ClassicReload.com

Back to my story—seeing the source code of Gorillas, along with taking basic computer courses and learning programming in Pascal, sparked a growing interest in me. It fueled a desire to create and publish my own video games.

In 2006, after finishing my degree, I started working at a company focused on IT security auditing. There, I met someone who wasn’t just passionate about video games, but had already developed one by that time. During our conversations, he introduced me to a tool that marked the beginning of one of the paths I’ve been following ever since.

The Game Creators

Thanks to my friend and colleague, I discovered Dark Basic. It was a programming language specifically designed for game development, based on Basic—the same language in which Gorillas was originally created. With this software, you could not only make 2D games but also 3D games with audio and video. Nowadays, that might seem like the norm, but back in the 2000s, having access to 3D, audio, and video from within a programming environment—without diving into complex audio or video libraries—was pretty remarkable.

Dark Basic was created and marketed by The Game Creators (TGC), a UK-based company focused on game development tools. As of today (January 2025), you can still get the tool, as its creators have made it available as an open-source project.

TheGameCreators – Dark Basic Pro Open Source

At the time, I experimented a bit with Dark Basic, but I didn’t make much progress. Those were my early professional years, and I was more focused on my job.

In this video, you can watch the demo of Dark Basic running. You can also see the IDE and a bit of the source code at the beginning and the end of the video:

Years later, I went back to see what was new with Dark Basic and TGC. To my surprise, Dark Basic was no longer available, and it had been replaced by AppGameKit (AGK). Its key selling point was quite appealing and very similar to Java’s promise: “Code once, deploy on multiple platforms” (Windows, Android, iOS).

AGK follows the same principles. Its programming language is still based on Basic, although it also provides libraries for C# if you want more control and access to additional features. As far as I know, AGK has gone through two major versions before becoming App Game Kit Studio.

When version 2 reached the end of its support cycle, I wasn’t entirely convinced about purchasing the new product (AGK Studio). After all, I already had tools like Godot, GDevelop, and other free options. So, why buy AGK again?

One of my target markets for games and apps is Android, and this was one of the key reasons that convinced me to upgrade to AGK. While exporting to Android using Godot or GDevelop can be a tedious process, AGK makes it incredibly simple—it only takes a few clicks from within its interface, this has been the case since version 1.

As you can see, the export windows are almost identical. All the necessary parameters are captured from this single window. It’s not a multi-step wizard; it’s a single dialog. Once you click Export, the result is an APK or AAB file, depending on your selection:

Compilation message

Back to AGK—the source code of games and programs created with previous versions compiles and runs almost flawlessly on AGK Studio. This means that all the knowledge gained and the existing codebase can be fully recovered and reused.

Catastrophe

My flagship game—and the only one I’ve published to date—hit a crisis about a year ago. Every so often, Google updates its security policies and app requirements for its store. My game no longer met some of those requirements, and since the last update, AGK V2 didn’t allow me to address them.

I considered letting the game die and rebuilding it from scratch in GDevelop or Godot. But as I mentioned in my articles about those tools, the learning curve was steep for me. After seeing what it takes to generate an APK/AAB in those platforms, I realized it would be a medium-term project.

Finding AGK Studio on sale at a more than reasonable price—and the fact that it was 100% compatible with my existing source code—allowed me to meet Google’s requirements within a matter of hours.

I was thinking about making another update to the game, adding a few more features, but I’ve decided not to. Let me share the reason why.

Full and Lite versions

Back in 2013, when I was close to delivering a production-ready version of the game, I considered offering two versions. A lite version, free to download, where players could experience the entire game but would only have access to the easier levels, encouraging them to purchase the full version. The complete version, on the other hand, would unlock everything for a modest price of $1.00 USD.

Fortunately, during the first two years, the lite version attracted over 3,500 players. However, it only resulted in 17 purchases over 11 years, and around nine of those were from friends and family.

The original lite version didn’t include any ads. It was essentially the same game, but limited to lower difficulty levels with a message on the screen encouraging players to buy the full version to access higher levels.

As you can see, things didn’t turn out as I expected. I thought about adding ads to the free version. I was already experimenting with this using AGK V2, but I wasn’t fast enough to complete the implementation before AGK V2 went out of support, leaving me unable to publish updates on Google Play.

I didn’t have separate codebases for both versions. Instead, the differences were controlled by a single variable that indicated which version was running and restricted access to certain levels and screens accordingly.

Managing that code, publishing updates, and handling the certificates I generated for it was a tedious and error-prone process. Even version control was done manually, without using Git or any similar tools.

So, I decided to drop the lite version and focus solely on the paid one. However, the sales history didn’t work in my favor. I considered adding ads to the paid version and making it free, but I soon abandoned that idea. Personally, as a player, I lose interest in games that change their policies—from free to paid or from paid to ad-supported.

In the end, I decided to make the current full version of Catastrophe Slide Puzzle free and to start working on a new Version 2 with all the improvements and ideas I’ve had. I’m still unsure whether I’ll include ads in the new version—we’ll see when the time comes.

For the new game, initially, I thought about creating a fresh codebase, building everything from scratch, and gradually bringing in useful code from Version 1. However, that approach seemed like a massive effort. After reviewing the current source code, I realized it would be easier to restructure and reorganize it to derive the new version from there.

AGK Studio provides some interesting tools in its IDE that make this process easier. Its compiler also includes improvements that help avoid the messy code I ended up with during the initial development.

I’ll wrap up this chronicle here, marking the beginning of a new journey in this particular hobby that has been with me since my youth. I will use AGK Studio to develop the new version of my game. I’ll keep sharing updates as I progress with the development of Version 2 of the game in future articles—I hope you’ll join me for the ride.