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Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

franz.com

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Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#21

Post by agavin »

mtogo wrote: post #4

The Jak and Daxter series (PS2) was also written (almost?) entirely in Lisp, too.

All of the AI and character control in Way of the Warrior and the first 3 Crash Bandicoot games was written in GOOL 1&2, my first and second generation LISP systems: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/03/12/making-crash-ban...

I have all sorts of articles on Crash 1 on my blog: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/category/games/

For Jak & Daxter 1-3 + Jak X I did a new Scheme based compiled language (GOAL) in which 99% of the games were written. I haven't yet done a big write up on that for my blog, but I will one of these days.

Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#22

Post by ajg1977 »

Luc wrote: post #18
tzs wrote: post #12

Note that the article seems to be talking about the tools used to build the game, not the game code itself. I'd guess this means things like texture editing, level design, and such.

As far as I can tell N.World was a modelling and animation (and rendering) package comparable to Maya. See this press release from 1996: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1996_August_6... "[... ] our tools were used to model the characters for Super Mario 64". I bet SM64 was written in C++. EDIT: ... and possibly large chunks of it in C, too, since the C++ compilers always seemed to lag several months be…

It was written in C and assembly.

Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#23

Post by agavin »

Mario 64 wasn't itself written in LISP at all. It's models were built in Nichimen graphics, a SGI based 3D design tool written in Allegro CL.

As far as I know, the games we did at Naughty Dog (Crash 1-3, Jak 1-3 + X), and later Uncharted were the only major console games which large amounts of runtime Lisp. The Jak & Daxter series was 99% written in my Scheme dialect GOAL, including all the assembly. The only parts that weren't were libs talking to Sony's libraries (C++).

http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/category/games/

Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#25

Post by dgallagher »

agavin wrote: post #23

Mario 64 wasn't itself written in LISP at all. It's models were built in Nichimen graphics, a SGI based 3D design tool written in Allegro CL. As far as I know, the games we did at Naughty Dog (Crash 1-3, Jak 1-3 + X), and later Uncharted were the only major console games which large amounts of runtime Lisp. The Jak & Daxter series was 99% written in my Scheme dialect GOAL, including all the assembly. The only parts t…

I loved the "Making Crash Bandicoot" series on your site. It's well worth the read:

http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-ban...

Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#26

Post by st3fan »

It is cool but I wonder how many customers you get with a story that is 15 years old. The world has moved on.

I did some really early Apple Newton development work in around the same timeframe ('96, '97) and the early Newton development tools were also all written in Lisp. Probably Mac Common Lisp.

Not so strange of course since many people on the Newton team had a strong OODL (Object Oriented Dynamic Language) background. These are mostly the same folks with SmallTalk, Lisp, Scheme and Dylan experience.

Awesome times. But not much of it is left.

Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#27

Post by ericlavigne »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

Thanks for sharing this link. I'm giving a talk on Lisp and computer games at my university in less that two weeks from today. It's great to have more examples to share. BTW. Abuse is a half-C, half-Lisp game.

Good timing. You can also use the results of the Lisp Game Jam that starts today.

http://lispgames.org/

Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#28

Post by jbrennan »

thought_alarm wrote: post #13

Doom was built with a system written in Objective-C. Clairvoyant, those 90s game developers were.

Can you describe it? I thought the code was all C? Or were the tools written in Objective-C? Either way, that's very interesting (big Objective-C fan, here).

Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#29

Post by rbanffy »

jbrennan wrote: post #28
thought_alarm wrote: post #13

Doom was built with a system written in Objective-C. Clairvoyant, those 90s game developers were.

Can you describe it? I thought the code was all C? Or were the tools written in Objective-C? Either way, that's very interesting (big Objective-C fan, here).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_of_Doom#Programming

Doom code is C, DoomEd is Objective-C and ran on NeXT boxes.

Re: Super Mario 64 was built with a system written in Lisp

#30

Post by JabavuAdams »

agavin wrote: post #23

Mario 64 wasn't itself written in LISP at all. It's models were built in Nichimen graphics, a SGI based 3D design tool written in Allegro CL. As far as I know, the games we did at Naughty Dog (Crash 1-3, Jak 1-3 + X), and later Uncharted were the only major console games which large amounts of runtime Lisp. The Jak & Daxter series was 99% written in my Scheme dialect GOAL, including all the assembly. The only parts t…

Much respect!

Reading about GOOL and GOAL is what got me into Lisp.

Working at a previous game company, on a PS2 title, we spent a lot of time oohing and aahing over J&D's beautifully fluid animations.

I'm actually still playing through the game as part of my "PS2 classics" backlog. Very nicely done!

I didn't realize Uncharted used any runtime Lisp -- could you elaborate?

/gush

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