This is not as hard as it sounds as long as Forth and Lisp variants qualify.
You can write a basic Forth or Lisp interpreter in a day.
Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
31–40 of 60 posts
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#32Any recommendations on books / resources to read in order to participate as a beginner (language creator that is..., not beginner with programming games)?
Racket for sure, it goes straight to the heart of everything. You want simple macro compilers so you can see how simple it all is, not being confused by complex interpreters which totally obscure what is being done here.
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#33Challenge accepted, but no way I can finish this in 7 days even with a head start of a few months.
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
This looks promising. How come I hadn't heard of it?? My own ideas for an ideal syntax included keywords like "on" instead of "func" etc. (i.e. be totally event/signal driven) Taking a look!
Haha I wish I knew how to reach more people like you! Yeah exactly! I think the event-driven/signal-driven way of coding is the high-level way of coding a game, and so with Easel I was trying to make a game programming language where that is first class. It's different from the frame-by-frame state machine kind of model that is used by a lot of other game engines, and I find it's super productive. I know that I am un…
> I know that I am unable to single-handedly compete with Godot
You could package your language as a GDExtension for Godot.
I'm planning my fantasy language from the top-down, syntax first: how it would look like to users/developers to use it, then think about how to implement that language if ever :')
Right now I'm just fiddling with a extension for VSCode/ium to syntax highlight the hypothetical language, then I'll put it up on a brainstorming repository on GitHub.
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#35Challenge accepted, but no way I can finish this in 7 days even with a head start of a few months.
So you are not accepting the challenge then. Sounds like you are over thinking or over scoping the problem.
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#36What is a minimal-ish programming language that could be used to express some interesting class of games? It's easy to think of pathologically trivially useless "languages" that could "make a game". E.g. the single instruction language where the instruction P is defined to mean "execute a game of pong". Or a zero instruction language where the empty program is defined to mean "execute a game of pong". Also easy to th…
Let D be the language used to express the gameplay, C be an implementation of a compiler for D in a language L. You want to minimise the length of D + C across all languages L. This gives you a unique language D (a DSL) for each game which is the most semantically dense and expresses the essence of the problem domain the best. The language or languages D is discovered (not designed) and is the essence of the problem,…
I’m hearing FORTH, but surely that’s not what you meant to say. :)
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#37Holy cow the diversity of skill sets required to do this is insane. I'll be very impressed at any Devs who takes this on solo.
A programming language could be as simple as a domain-specific-language done in a JSON format. It could just abstract away a bunch of thing, and most of the logic would just be in your "game engine".
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#38Challenge accepted, but no way I can finish this in 7 days even with a head start of a few months.
So you are not accepting the challenge then. Sounds like you are over thinking or over scoping the problem.
or just keenly aware of their own strengths, weaknesses, and time budget for this? the leap to “over scoping” is wild.
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let D be the language used to express the gameplay, C be an implementation of a compiler for D in a language L. You want to minimise the length of D + C across all languages L. This gives you a unique language D (a DSL) for each game which is the most semantically dense and expresses the essence of the problem domain the best. The language or languages D is discovered (not designed) and is the essence of the problem,…
I’m hearing FORTH, but surely that’s not what you meant to say. :)
I like to lisp but it might be time to finally learn FORTH :)
Re: Langjam Gamejam: Build a programming language then make a game with it
#40Holy cow the diversity of skill sets required to do this is insane. I'll be very impressed at any Devs who takes this on solo.
Easy, create a DSL that represents dialogue in a visual novel style game. Add some branching, looping, and variables, maybe some labels for jumping to and you’re good. Tada! You’ve basically reinvented Ren’Py.