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Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

verdagon.dev

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Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#101

Post by selfmodruntime »

onion2k wrote: post #56
quickthrower2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That many react apps look like that is not a react thing but a design thing. You can make a react app that looks like HN. Or like a game!

You can make a React app that's wildly different to all the others, but if you follow "best practises", and you learned from the same tutorials, and you're using the same component libraries as other React devs your app will probably drift towards looking and working like other React apps unless you make a conscious choice to stop that happening.

That is just not true, no matter how hard you try to make it seem that way.

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#102

Post by Tomte »

thyrox wrote: post #95
Centigonal wrote: post #46

I don't know what it is about game development that really brings out the yak shaving in people. One time, about 8 years ago, I backed a game called Nowhere[1] by a very talented programmer. The original premise was an alien life simulator. Well, it's been eight years, and development is still going strong! The developer is currently working on the String implementation for the programming language he invented[2], wh…

I read an amazing quote online about any satelite company trying to create their own custom rocket to launch its satellite instead of using existing infrastructure. The day they decide to get into that is the day they stop being a satelite company and become a rocket company instead. The person put in much more eloquent words so wish i could find that comment but its sounds similar to that.

Similar: https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html

> 39. Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program.

> 39. (alternate formulation) The three keys to keeping a new human space program affordable and on schedule:

> 1) No new launch vehicles.

> 2) No new launch vehicles.

> 3) Whatever you do, don't develop any new launch vehicles.

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#103

Post by RugnirViking »

We did this for Patafour https://github.com/OwocekTV/V4Hero

Hasn't gone quite as far as making our own language, we did it all in c++. For us we know doing things this way is a vastly more difficult approach, but nonetheless we plough on. Yesterday I was learning how bezier curves work so we can animate wind effects. The list of interesting maths and physics problems to solve are endless but oh so satisfying, and ultimately its a hobby not something we sell for money.

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#104

Post by maccard »

csande17 wrote: post #37
Townley wrote: post #19

It's interesting that this phenomenon is much more prevalent in game development, as opposed to (for example) web development: some people build their own web development frameworks, but it seems like every game dev tries to make an engine at some point. My theory why: good web frameworks consider developer experience to be of paramount importance, and invest heavily into examples, documentation, and API improvements…

For me, at least, I like to write my own engines to get the end-user experience I want. Every game engine comes with a million little decisions about how games should work by default, and writing my own engine lets me make those decisions for myself. In the same way, every React app eventually starts to look and act like the Reddit redesign, but many web developers consider that more of a benefit than a drawback.

> every React app eventually starts to look and act like the Reddit redesign,

Not every unreal engine game starts to look and behave like gears of war. If you drop a bunch of asset packs from the store it's going to look like every other asset flip out there, but so will your game engine if you use the same assets.

> , I like to write my own engines to get the end-user experience I want.

My day job is working in unreal engine, and in the last 7 years of using it I can only think of one scenario where the engine was the limiting factor in the user experience I wanted, and not something I could easily work around. If you think you're going to be limited in your end user experience in unity or unreal you probably need to reconsider how much you know about those engines.

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#105

Post by alwyn »

Nijikokun wrote: post #38

It's unfortunate that the majority of comments are centered around Yak Shaving rather than the amazing leaps that this small language has done.

I didn't even know what yak shaving was! Not sure if I'd ever heard the term before.

Alas: http://catb.org/jargon/html/Y/yak-shaving.html

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#106

Post by thyrox »

Tomte wrote: post #102
thyrox wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read an amazing quote online about any satelite company trying to create their own custom rocket to launch its satellite instead of using existing infrastructure. The day they decide to get into that is the day they stop being a satelite company and become a rocket company instead. The person put in much more eloquent words so wish i could find that comment but its sounds similar to that.

Similar: https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html > 39. Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program. > 39. (alternate formulation) The three keys to keeping a new human space program affordable and on schedule: > 1) No new launch vehicles. > 2) No new launch vehicles. > 3) Whatever you do, don't develop any new launch vehicles.

Wow these are just excellent and even though it says spacecraft design most of them ring just as true for software design.. or maybe just true in general!

This one really made me laugh :D

> At the start of any design effort, the person who most wants to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it.

What an excellent link, thanks for sharing. Definitely bookmarking this.

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#107

Post by jasfi »

moonchrome wrote: post #85
Centigonal wrote: post #46

I don't know what it is about game development that really brings out the yak shaving in people. One time, about 8 years ago, I backed a game called Nowhere[1] by a very talented programmer. The original premise was an alien life simulator. Well, it's been eight years, and development is still going strong! The developer is currently working on the String implementation for the programming language he invented[2], wh…

>I don't know what it is about game development that really brings out the yak shaving in people. People get into game development because they want to have fun programming. Getting projects done involves a lot of things that are not fun, so it usually goes nowhere because the incentives are misaligned. I've noticed this in many hobby professions - eg. hobby woodworkers spending more time on creating workbenches/tool…

That is absolutely fine, and you can learn a lot with that sort of approach. It really depends on your objective.

The only thing to keep in mind is that writing software for business (e.g. SaaS) requires the exact opposite approach. You go lean, write what other people want, and go for an MVP first.

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#108

Post by WJW »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #100
meheleventyone wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d go an order of complexity above again. The real comparison is to the browser, particularly for general purpose engines like Unreal and Unity. I’d hazard most game engine teams are bigger than most browser teams.

I disagree. Modern web browsers are the most complicated pieces of technology we have today. The amount of work that goes into sandboxing and security alone probably eclipses the complexity of game engines.

That seems very optimistic when compared to some of the bigger engineering projects we have going as humanity. Aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines as a whole system (including the multiple computer networks and their software) are much more complex than browsers, to say nothing of one-offs like the ISS (lots of cutting edge hardware but also full of software) and the systems controlling modern factories. Browsers don't even come close.

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#109

Post by qw »

Townley wrote: post #19

It's interesting that this phenomenon is much more prevalent in game development, as opposed to (for example) web development: some people build their own web development frameworks, but it seems like every game dev tries to make an engine at some point. My theory why: good web frameworks consider developer experience to be of paramount importance, and invest heavily into examples, documentation, and API improvements…

Web developers may not create their own frameworks as much as game developers, but many spend a lot of time switching frameworks, libraries or simply just rewriting existing applications. I see this tendency at work, where the relatively simple React app has been rewritten 4 times in a couple of years. The recent hires would rather rewrite it from scratch than to refactor / improve the existing one. Apparently, the 5th rewrite will solve all problems with the first 4...

Re: Accidentally making a language, for an engine, for a game

#110

Post by pjmlp »

Kuinox wrote: post #77
pjmlp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the game engine, most 2D ones are quite comparable.

No no, browser contain components similar to a game engine, browser are way more complex, and frustrating, because you do not control the specs.

Depends on what the game engine X and Web Framework Y are trying to achieve.
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