Yea, you might want to check TIBD. There are alot of differences, built in sprite support being one of many.

TI-89 BASIC is more powerful than TI-83 Plus BASIC, but it is a bit harder, because it is closer to regular computer languages. It supports sprites and the like. However, as with 83+ BASIC, the 68k one is very slow. I think some stuff is even slower than on the 83+ series, while some other is a bit faster.

I think the equivalent of xLIB for 68k is Flib, altough it doesn't do as much. Also the annoying thing is that it's hard to get rid of the top menu and the bottom info bar, so it doesn't look very esthetical in games. The games using it that I tried also seemed to run a bit slow. I don't know if it's because of poor programming, but if they're well programmed, maybe you may have to forget BASIC grayscale for example.

Another thing to note is that with the arrival of TIGCC on 68k, there are barely anymore TI-89 BASIC programmers who are regulary active. Most have moved to C, because C acts as a bridge between BASIC and ASM. It's much harder than BASIC but still much less hard than ASM. The result is that it might be harder to get much help. Again, even for C and ASM there isn't as much support anymore these days either for the 68k series, as Kevin Kofler pretty much scared the entire audience away by starting flame wars on french forums (which had the majority of 68k programmers) and then the english ones. I think the following news comments speak for themselves:

http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/14/145/145485.html
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/14/144/144591.html
http://tichessteamhq.yuku.com/topic/1577/t/ticalc-org-POTY-voting-recommendations.html

But I'm not really gonna go more into details. Fortunately, despite everyone who left the 68k community because of a few dozens of threads like this, over here there are a bunch of users who owns a 68k calculator as secondary calc.

Well, back when Casio and TI started, only BASIC was possible. It took a few years until ASM was discovered. At first, people would discover how BASIC can do some games, despite being slow and limited, and this is what started calc popularity. Then someone hacked the 85 to allow ASM on it. It made things better. But at first, there was just TI-BASIC. Today some people still use TI-BASIC because it's much easier to code and can be done on calc and for the 83+ there are now libs and the like.

IMHO I think here are the advantages of each TI-BASIC languages I tried:

TI-81:

Pros
variables, matrices, Y= functions, program execution and program names won't take any user RAM. Has the fastest Disp command and some other commands are quite fast considering the slower processor

Cons
Fewer commands and limited in memory. It's the first TI graphing calc after all.

TI-73/82/83/83+/84+
Pros
Easy to learn while having enough features to make decent games. Wide range of ASM libraries on Plus/SE models, some of which even allows grayscale with scrolling.

Cons
Fewer features than TI-85 and 86 BASIC and more limited RAM than the 86, altough this can be worked around on the Plus and SE models using ASM libs.

TI-85
Pros
Non token-based programs, meaning you can type commands without having to select them through menus. More features than TI-82/83/84/+/SE, such as infinite possible variables, unlike the 83 series which limits you to 27 vars, 10 pics and the like, unless hacked.

Cons
Limited memory. Programs takes more space than their lower numbered models counterpart, even after tokenization

TI-86
Pros
Same as TI-85, plus more features and 96 KB of RAM to work with

Cons
About 50% slower than on the TI-82/83/84/85 models

TI-89
Pros
Much less limited than on z80 calcs, can do stuff that requires ASM libs on z80 calcs, such as sprites and pics. A LOT of RAM to work with.

Cons
Some slower functions, programs takes more space than their z80 counterparts, even after tokenizing, harder to learn.

TI-Nspire
Pros
Very fast math calculations

Cons
Extremly limited language, even more than on the TI-81, as for OS 1.7. There isn't even an Input function (it's coming in OS 1. Some bugs and some very slow commands.

Well, the sad thing with TI-89 BASIC is that lack of luck for the TI community caused several 68k programmers to be extremly narrow-minded to fanboyism extents when it came to programming languages. Kevin Kofler brainwashing everyone about how bad BASIC is and threatening to ban everyone who disagrees with him from every site and IRC channel he moderates caused many coders to hate 68k BASIC. As a result, when somebody comes up with a BASIC game, no matter how good it is, even if as good as your stuff (or Hiryu's), you may get flamed and told to just use C or ASM else no one will care. This attitude from many 68k programmers that are or were on Kevin Kofler side has caused new 68k coders including myself to be scared of using TI-89/92 BASIC as primary language, thus, causing a major lack of interest in 68k BASIC games. Today it is worse because even some ASM/C coders left because of him. However most people didn't see this right away because most of it happened on french forums.

This is frustrating in some ways because I did try a bunch of your stuff and a lot of other BASIC RPGs before and they're pretty nice, even if a little slow. I think it may even spark some interest here now because some of us, despite only coding on z80 calcs (and TI-Nspire), also own 68k calcs.

As for forums, I think the major issue today is that the amount of TI forums exceeds the demand so it can be very hard for a forum to survive in terms of activity now. Some even had to branch out, like Cemetech with LEGO's.

TI-Nspire-wise, there are two TI programming forums with TI-Nspire sections out there, but they're both in french.

Frankly, I could care less what someone's opinion of Ti-BASIC is anymore.

I already know that the majority of the community hates TI-BASIC's guts. I also know that there is no convincing them that a good game can be made out of Ti-BASIC no matter how good the actual game is. I've seen Basic flames that make the Stuff that Kofler says look like it came from a Basic Lovers Standpoint.

The way I've always see it, Programming Ti-BASIC is my hobby, and I do it because I enjoy doing it. If someone likes or dislikes what I make, great. I could care less as long as I like it when I release it. If I was doing this to impress somebody, I would have quit a long time ago. That's the secret to longevity in this community. Code because you like to code and not because you want to be on ticalc.org's top 25.

That's also why you don't see my name popping up more often in IRC channels. I learned back in the 90's that all they do is start flame wars and I was staying out of them. Hell, the entire Ticalc.org vs Ti-files.org mess started in the #calc-ti channel and frankly, I wasn't going to join IRC just to find out how big a Dickhead Bryan Rabeler was today or if Alex Highsmith "Banged his girlfriend" today. I just didn't care. In fact, it's one of the reason's I affiliated with calc.org back then because they didn't care either.

I've just recently started getting back into forums, but before that the only activity you'll see where I was involved is my old site, bit.listserv.calc.ti, ticalc.org, calc.org (which is dead) and Hays guestbook which I flamed under a pseudonym.

Amen to that.

I have humongous respect for people taking basic to extremes (something of which I've never been capable myself). You CAN create very good stuff in basic, but it has limits (and so does asm, but asm's extremes are rarely met, except in calc84's stuff I guess )

As for TI-BASIC, I would disagree that the opinion about TI-BASIC is bad from everyone, though. I'm not sure about 68k, but if you look at Omnimaga, United-TI and TI-BASIC Developper, pretty much everyone there code in BASIC or respects it. A BASIC project today will get more recognition than a few years ago because today, people finally realized that what counts is your contribution to the TI community.

First, I never said everyone, but there is a majority negative opinion overall.

When I got online in 96, the community was broken into three groups, (and still is to a point) the 82 users, the 85 users and the 92 users.

The 82 community was the largest (and still is) and to top it off, the 82 didn't get ASM until OS-82 hit in 97, So right off the bat that community was very BASIC friendly and did whatever it took to get programs running as fast as possible which is why there are so much optimized code out there and Basic Lib Hybrids started showing up. even to this day it's the most basic friendly of the three.

The 85 users were all ASM nuts. They had ASM the longest with ZSHell, and would jump on anyone still writing in basic, which was sarcastically great considering that this was my main basic programming calc at the time. I used to get E-mails all the time to port Punisher to ASM even though it made absolutely no sense to do so. Telling them this usually got a response of "you must not be good enough to program ASM then" or something of that nature when I've always maintained that if I was going to learn ASM, it was going to be on an x86 and not on a calc.

As for the 92 community, it was a mixed bag there. many of the ASMers from the 85 started moving on the 92 once Fargo came out, but 92 basic was so powerful out of the box that many basic people stuck to it. Also Fargo wasn't getting too many good games until much later. This is a lot of the reasons why I started focusing on the 92 so much because it was a very good language and the community wasn't so "I hate your guts" like the 85 was.

The other calcs just fed from their parent community, So the general attitude gravitated towards whatever the previous calc community was like. the 86 was pure ASM from day one, the 89 was mixed but for awhile gravitated towards BASIC until ASM went critical mass, and the 83,84 was basic with some ASM in it. When the 86 was axed, most of those guys retired but some flocked to the 83 or the 89, and their attitude for ASM went with them.

I'll agree that BASIC hate is definitely not as bad as it once was, but it's definitely a majority, even if it's around 55-60%