Tony Sharp

Unfortunately, no such high level input exists in SDL. You need to do it yourself, or find a higher level library (possibly written in terms of SDL).

That sucks... I may just have to look for another cross-platform multimedia library, or just make a CLI-based game. Trying to connect everything to these graphics is the only thing that's getting in my way.

For instance, you could have a collection of rectangles, and write or find a function that can do a point/rectangle intersection test. You need to listen for mouse events, and test the mouse pointer position against this rectangle set when a click or drag is detected.

Very clever. I'll look around for some non-SDL tutorials to detail this.

It is hard to give more than a broad overview to such a broad question. The details are up to you - but given how far you've gotten you should be capable. If you have a specific question about how to achieve any particular piece of this puzzle then it will be easier to provide a more detailed answer.

I just want the mouse to work with the board. When the player clicks a spot, I want a piece to show up in that spot. And once the computer calculates its move, I want a piece to show up there. I'll eventually figure it out. You've pointed me in a better direction.

Thank you for your time and help.

The designs and gameplay for my game are done, and the image elements are saved. I have some experience with C++, but very little experience with SDL. To get things started, I'd like to know how to load my board.png file into a window as a background.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

This is a pretty good tutorial that will show you how to get an image on the screen, but if you want support for PNG files you will want to follow up with this tutorial. The site also has other tutorials if you want to learn more about SDL.

Thank you for the links.

After I figure out how to get SDL to work in Ubuntu 11.10, I'll get started.

Edit: Finally got it working. Woot woot.

Oh, sorry, I missed the 'mobile devices' part. That changes things somewhat.

But, the free version is definitely functional. Playing around with the free version a bit should definitely give you an idea of the engine's capabilities and allow you to compare it to the other engines you're considering.

After spending the last few days with the free version of Unity, I see now why it costs as much as it does. It's definitely the most refined and complete package for independent game development. It's very impressive, and I think I'm going to stick with it.

Thanks again folks for the help.

I checked out Unity3D, and was really impressed with the features, cross-platform abilities, and so on, but I had a hard time coming to terms the hefty price tag. That's a point I forgot to clarify in my OP. I'd like to get a game engine that offers a complete professional package for under $2,000.

Unless things have changed recently, the pro version of Unity falls within your specified price range.

On their site they list a different pro version for each platform. Unity Pro is $1,500, and iOS + Android Pro totals to $3,000. I can get the same compatible and features from ShiVa3D for only $1,500. I have no idea how it compares to Unity in terms of ease of use and stability though.

Also, in addition to the pro version, there's also a free version of Unity. The pro version has some features that the free version doesn't, but the free version is fully functional and might be worth at least taking a look at.

I assumed since the Pro versions were so expensive that the free version was completely stripped of features. After taking a closer look, I see I might have assumed wrong. I'll get the free version now.

Thanks!

Look at Unity3D.

Thank you for the reply.

I checked out Unity3D, and was really impressed with the features, cross-platform abilities, and so on, but I had a hard time coming to terms the hefty price tag. That's a point I forgot to clarify in my OP. I'd like to get a game engine that offers a complete professional package for under $2,000.