Game Reviews 42 RPGs 55 Arcade 34 Puzzle 18 Platform 10 Strategy Sections QB News Site Archives Game Guides Our Projects Entertainment Awards QB Links Interact QB Chatroom Mailing List Submissions Link to Us Job Openings (9/10/2001) Make sure your legacy isn't forgotten! Here's the definitive guide to labelling your QB games. One of the saddest things about writing game reviews is when credit isn't given where credit is due. With each QB game released, there are times when the documentation included in the download doesn't include the name of the people who programmed the game, the artists who made the graphics for the game, the musicians who composed the music for the game, or even the URL or e-mail of the QB game's creators, for the sake of feedback. That's why it's just as important to make sure you include a list of credits in your program as much as the programming code itself. And it's important to give all people who made your program possible credit, including composers, artists, programmers, library makers, and even a mandatory thank you to Microsoft for using the QuickBasic language to make your program. One way to show credits for your program is to include a README.TXT file in your zip. You should always have a README.TXT file included with your QB game when releasing it on the Internet with instructions on how to Install your game along with known system requirements and file requirements (make sure to inform gamers that they need a copy of Microsoft QuickBasic if you're only releasing only the source code of your game). Now here's the important part. In your README.TXT file, include a Credits section where you include the names of the programmers, composers, sound editors, and artists who helped put together your game. Include appropriate headings so that everyone who downloads your game knows exactly who did what. Also, include e-mails of each individual member at their request or include e-mail addresses and URLs representing the coding group as a whole. One example of this would be something like: "Programming by QBShire (qbshire@yahoo.com)
Additional information you should include are the names and URLS of people who made any of the QB libraries or utilities you use in your program, like Future Library, DirectQB, Dash!, Blast!, Nexus-13, or music utilities like DS4QB and QMIDI. You should also include the names and URL/e-mail to these programmer's websites.The people who made these programs to increase the functionality of QB worked especially hard and would likely appreciate the credit if you spread the word about their utilities through your game. With most of the QB utilities provided free of charge, it's the least you could do. A second place that would be good for adding credits to your QB game is through the source code, through a series of REM comments on the top of your source code. This should be the last thing you add to your program since QB does limited space for each programming module, and REM comments can take up valuable space that could be used for storing extra programming code. However, you should include at least the head programmer's name, coding group, and e-mail so that people wishing to contact you about your game will be able to do so.
Finally, a very effective way to promote your coding group from your game is to add a Credits sequence at it's end. It's up to you to decide whether you want this Credits page to show up by accessing it from a Menu screen, when you quit a game, or (as in the case of the game above) when you beat the game. But no matter how you do it, you should include the names of the people who made it possible, along with a means for programmers to contact you and pat you on the back. Hey, as long as it's free space, you might as well promote your websites as well! With so many QB games being submitted and so many other QB games in development, it's just too easy for QB game reviewers and QB game developers to lose touch. The best way to ensure that that critical point of communication isn't cut off is to label the one source where QB gamers and journalists will be the first to look: through the games themselves. Article written by QBShire |
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