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Loom: Native mobile game engine with live reload of code and assets

theengine.co

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Re: Loom: Native mobile game engine with live reload of code and assets

#2

Post by davedx »

This looks pretty nice, and the live reload is great - though I have to say I've needed live reload more when working with native apps than with games. That's probably because I always use cross platform engines for mobile game development (libgdx and Unity).

Incredible effort though, I'm particularly impressed that it works over Wi-Fi, and the technology choices look sound. Anyone given it a try yet?

Re: Loom: Native mobile game engine with live reload of code and assets

#3

Post by lukifer »

I doubt that Apple will let Loom-based games into the App Store if live reload is enabled; my understanding is that scripting languages are only acceptable if all code is bundled and not loaded remotely. (As a web guy, the concept of waiting days to push a fix is crazy, but it's their Garden.)

All in all, this looks like a good toolset, particularly for those techie/creative hybrids who liked making games in Flash.

Re: Loom: Native mobile game engine with live reload of code and assets

#4

Post by bengarney »

lukifer wrote: post #3

I doubt that Apple will let Loom-based games into the App Store if live reload is enabled; my understanding is that scripting languages are only acceptable if all code is bundled and not loaded remotely. (As a web guy, the concept of waiting days to push a fix is crazy, but it's their Garden.) All in all, this looks like a good toolset, particularly for those techie/creative hybrids who liked making games in Flash.

Loom's live reload is mostly for development purposes. You could try using it in deployed games but obviously it presents issues (for instance with Apple). Some game studios do ship bytecode on the fly to their iOS games, but they understand the risks they are taking...

Re: Loom: Native mobile game engine with live reload of code and assets

#6

Post by bengarney »

felixr wrote: post #5

When I read the headline I was somehow expecting a native port of the Loom adventure game ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loom_(video_game)

I love me my old school adventure games but we got to the name in a wholly different way. :) Technically it is the "Loom Game Engine."

Re: Loom: Native mobile game engine with live reload of code and assets

#8

Post by primitur »

I've got the same development capabilities with my current MOAI environment - dev on Linux or OSX, deploy to repo, get app for any of the architectures built by my build server: linux-amd64, linux-x86, linux-arm, osx app bundle, ios appbundle, android, windows, NaCL ..

For live code-reloading, I simply use MOAI Remote when needed:

https://github.com/seclorum/metalab_sessions/tree/master/MOA...

But the whole point of having a native build environment for my dev machine, in the first place, is not really having to do much live-redeploy to mobile environments .. I easily spend 95% of my time developing MOAI code on Linux, running it on Linux, and then a little time spent just testing the build on all the target platforms. For the most part, it works extremely well ..

Re: Loom: Native mobile game engine with live reload of code and assets

#9

Post by diverted »

I have been using LOOM for the past few months in beta. The live-workflow really streamlines development and changes how you build apps and games. The live-reload feature is development-time only. With -live-reload enabled, you simply press save and new bytecode and game assets are pushed to running apps over wifi. The edit/run cycle is very fast and provides for great team iteration on gameplay and graphics.

LOOM uses a dialect of AS3/ES4+(hint of C#) but compile to LuaVM bytecode. The runtime uses Lua/LuaJit(where allowed) and has a 2Mb footprint but this can be optimized in the native sdk.

Since early alpha the sdk has been very solid and as @bengarney's 3rd development platform, it has it where it counts.

Ted :)

Re: Loom: Native mobile game engine with live reload of code and assets

#10

Post by diverted »

primitur wrote: post #8

I've got the same development capabilities with my current MOAI environment - dev on Linux or OSX, deploy to repo, get app for any of the architectures built by my build server: linux-amd64, linux-x86, linux-arm, osx app bundle, ios appbundle, android, windows, NaCL .. For live code-reloading, I simply use MOAI Remote when needed: https://github.com/seclorum/metalab_sessions/tree/master/MOA... But the whole point of…

In LOOM arrays start properly at 0 and @primitur your MOAI is showing... https://www.google.com/search?q=primitur+moai
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