Epic Games, Inc. and The Game Creators have both released a free version of their video game programmers. Unreal Development Kit (Epic Games) and Dark Basic (Game Creators).
From Epic Games, their Unreal Engine has been featured in a lot of high profile X-Box 360 and PS3 games such as (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; The Unreal Tournament; Brothers In Arms; Spider-Man 2; Bio-Shock 1&2) Just to name a few. With this free edition at http://www.udk.com, you can start to learn all about game design. But everything you create will be for non-commercial use.
And from The Game Creators, the Dark Basic Pro. If you are new to creating video games and don't know anything about C++, or scripting in general. Dark Basic gives you a clear cut Direct X commands. Any one with a computer can now create a game if they wanted http://www.darkbasic.thegamecreators.com.
So what is the difference between the two software's? Well Dark Basic Pro will be more for beginners who have never made a game before. Even though UDK will be good for beginners, there are still things like content creators that you may have to learn with UDK. UDK is used by most of the gaming industry to make games for gaming consoles like X-Box 360, PS3, and The Wii, where as Dark Basic Pro is for computer and online games. Even though you can make your own X-box games with UDK, it can't be used for commercial use, and there for you can't use the C++ scripting that can give you more control with the Unreal Engine, instead you can only us the Unreal scripting language. And you will have to pay a royalty fee if you do sell your games. Dark Basic Pro on the other hand, if you create it, its your. You can give it away for free or sell it without paying the software creators anything. Additional information can be found on both sites.
