README
Fenix is an interpreted script programming language, specially designed to develop and execute 2D games. Fenix has a full graphic library, sound engine and full featured 2D game engine, making game developement extremely easy. Fenix major features include:
Fenix language is specially designed for game developement. A PROCESS (or function) can be created as a graphical object on screen. A single change in it's LOCAL variables and a call to FRAME command will almost be enought to have it stay resident in cooperative multitasking mode, moving and interoperating with other PROCESSES as it's variables are changed and the FRAME command is called inside a loop. There's also a set of functions designed to kill, stop, frezze and search for active PROCESSES, also multiple instances of a process can be run at the same time allowing multiple objects with the same behaviour on screen at the same time.
Even experienced coders will find in Fenix a practical tool. The language is powerful enough to match most other script procedural langauge (datatypes, pointers, multidimensional arrays, structs, loop and flow control statements...).
Fenix is distributed under GNU General Public License, so it's source code is available to anyone who wants to get it, extend it or change it in any way fitting his/her own purpose.
DIV Games Studio is a commercial product including an IDE, debugger, profiler, graphic editor and installer. Fenix is only a compiler and an interpreter. Anyway Fenix has many similitudes to DIV and most DIV code will be easy to port thought this is not the main target for Fenix. Remember, Fenix is NOT DIV.
Many similitudes exists betwen DIV and Fenix, but also many incompatibilities exist as well. DIV borrows features to C, Pascal and other languages, as well as Fenix borrows many to DIV. Some old simple DIV games compile almost without a single change in Fenix due to Fenix supporting most of DIV syntax, but keep in mind many functions and internal management in Fenix is not working like it's DIV counterpart, specially Mode 7, string manipulation and DIV 2 MODE8 features (wich Fenix does not implement)
Fenix is still under heavy developement. Many bugs are waiting for fix, features come and go and many features are at a very early stage. Current official release is 0.84a.
Even thought not finished, Fenix is stable and powerful enough to allow you a big brand range of developement experience. Give it a try and help us polish and fix the bugs.
It is a good idea to have a look into the bugtrack section in the official website for a list of known bugs and keep an eye in the devel status for new releases (the webiste can be found @ http://fenix.divsite.net)
The current official site for Fenix is located @ http://fenix.divsite.net. A CVS and a CVS-documentation site can be found @ http://cvs.jlceb.com and http://fenix.jlceb.com respectively. Fenix has also a sourceforge project, though current state for this project is a bit outdated http://fenix.sourceforge.net/
Fenix is the initial effort of Jose Luis Cebrian, and is currently maintained by the so called Fenix-Team. You can contact the team in the official website.
Fenix is a command line utility. The base package includes a test program... to execute it just type in a console (dos-box, linux console, etc) the following commands
FXC TEST.PRG FXI TEST.DCB
The first sentence invokes the compiler, the second one invokes the interpreter. If everything goes well the compiler will create the DCB file for the interpreter from the PRG source code. Check the documentation included with the package and in the site for further reference. It is also a good idea to have a look to the FAQs in the site.
The site has several demo games for you to check and test. Also Fenix has a big user community with a big load of game projects (complete or under developement) that you might find interesting.
Sure... take your time and have a look into Fenix code. It is a quite not well commented ANSI C and not so ANSI C (sometimes... ) big code.
If you're still in the mood, contact us, get the last CVS and you'll be on the run!
This program is only distributable under GNU General Public Licens, version 2.0 or higher.
A License text should have been distributed along this program. If not contact us @ http://fenix.divsite.net.