7DRL Development

To save time I decided to develop my roguelike entry this year in the C++ programming language. I downloaded Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Normally this software costs around $600, especially since I got the professional version. Luckily I am a student at a community college. Microsoft gives the software for free to poor students like me.

I know Visual Studio can target a "console application". To me that means you get text output on an old DOS box style window. I got an app to come up and display the DOS box. However I can't get the thing to display text where I want it on the screen. I am calling the WriteConsoleOutput function. You would think that would be simple. But the darn thing keeps throwing an error.

The optimal development environment would be one where I could concentrate on the mechanics of the game. I feel like I am wasting time trying to figure out the mundane programming tasks now like just drawing anything on the screen. If this keeps up, I am going to be doomed and fail in producing anything that looks like a game. I need luck. If you know how to do ASCII output with Visual Studio easily, let me know.