So I'm currently a full stack javascript developer. I'd like to learn a new/modern language (Go, Clojure, etc) and also tinker with some game development in the process. What language with that criteria has the best libraries or would lend itself best to game dev?
Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#2I'd venture to say "The one you know best". If you find yourself struggling to do something in the language of your choice, see how others are accomplishing it and then decide.
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#3I'd venture to say "The one you know best". If you find yourself struggling to do something in the language of your choice, see how others are accomplishing it and then decide.
In this case, I'm actually using game dev as the excuse or motivator to learn a new language. So the one I know best doesn't necessarily apply here. Haha
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#4That's kind of a backwards goal (instead of trying to make a game, and moving towards the technology that enables that) but to entertain your question: there isn't one.
The game development community doesn't really buy into the crap that the web development world does. People care more about results than process there, and as a result, care far more about performance and ease of development, too. That means using tested technologies.
Large game engines are built in C and C++, and their exposed scripting APIs are provided in Lua, C#, and JavaScript.
I don't know anyone that writes games other than Flash ones that don't subscribe to the language ecosystems of the ones above or general game development ecosystem that you can take seriously.
Game development is a multidisciplinary field, don't test the waters there for playing around with a new language. You're missing so much more when you make that your goal.
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#5C/C++ (or possibly C# if you count Unity) is still the only choice for "real" game dev.
But Haxe (http://haxe.org/) has some great momentum these days, and with a bit of cleverness can target native and web at the same time. Checkout out http://snowkit.org/ and http://haxor.xyz/ for some examples.
It might also line up nicely with your javascript background.
Dart + StageXL (http://www.stagexl.org/) also looks like an appealing choice, especially if you're coming from the JS world. It lacks an easy way to build a native target, though.
But pretty much any language out there has bindings for input, graphics and sound, so if you're more interested in just learning a new language, use whatever you want.
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#6That's kind of a backwards goal (instead of trying to make a game, and moving towards the technology that enables that) but to entertain your question: there isn't one. The game development community doesn't really buy into the crap that the web development world does. People care more about results than process there, and as a result, care far more about performance and ease of development, too. That means using tes…
So you're saying I should embrace C/C++/a scripting language and not try to chase something new? I think my main reason for both requirements was so that I could learn something that'd help me in my current position, and also get started on the path I'd like to be on: toward game development.
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#7That's kind of a backwards goal (instead of trying to make a game, and moving towards the technology that enables that) but to entertain your question: there isn't one. The game development community doesn't really buy into the crap that the web development world does. People care more about results than process there, and as a result, care far more about performance and ease of development, too. That means using tes…
So you're saying I should embrace C/C++/a scripting language and not try to chase something new? I think my main reason for both requirements was so that I could learn something that'd help me in my current position, and also get started on the path I'd like to be on: toward game development.
If you are a full stack JavaScript developer looking at game development, then you might look at Phaser JS. It wouldn't involve learning a new language, but I've found its fun to work with both privately and professionally.
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#8This clojure wrapper for libgdx has been fun to play with https://github.com/oakes/play-clj and a relatively accessible way to write games in a functional way. You can run it on Android and iOS as well.
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#9C/C++ (or possibly C# if you count Unity) is still the only choice for "real" game dev. But Haxe ( http://haxe.org/ ) has some great momentum these days, and with a bit of cleverness can target native and web at the same time. Checkout out http://snowkit.org/ and http://haxor.xyz/ for some examples. It might also line up nicely with your javascript background. Dart + StageXL ( http://www.stagexl.org/ ) also looks lik…
I'd second Haxe, there's a lot of nice things going on in that space, and the language itself[0] has a lot of nice [1]
features too, things like algebraic data types and static typing make me slightly less queasy with the idea of writing a game which also deploys to the web (and somewhere else for that matter once you realise you want a native app). (writing a game in it myself right now too)
You're probably going to be going through some more untested ground (compared to working in straight JS if you're going for web), but I quite like working in Haxe personally, and the #haxe irc channel at freenode is very helpful :)
I think it's weird to say process doesn't matter, it definitely does, the fact that (some parts of) the gamedev world sticks almost entirely to "tested" technologies is more a sign of it's conservativeness than anything else. (okay, it's not just that (cue endless memory and performance arguments), but in large part, it really is!, okay and sure friction may be slightly less in something which is more well used, but that's not an excuse to not go for the interesting alternatives!)
So for the OP, if you want to learn an interesting, but sort of fringe language, take a look at haxe (people like: http://grapefrukt.com/) use it for game dev for example!
[0] http://haxe.org/manual/lf-pattern-matching-guards.html [1] http://haxe.org/documentation/introduction/language-features...
Re: Ask HN: Best new or modern languange for game dev?
#10That's kind of a backwards goal (instead of trying to make a game, and moving towards the technology that enables that) but to entertain your question: there isn't one. The game development community doesn't really buy into the crap that the web development world does. People care more about results than process there, and as a result, care far more about performance and ease of development, too. That means using tes…
So you're saying I should embrace C/C++/a scripting language and not try to chase something new? I think my main reason for both requirements was so that I could learn something that'd help me in my current position, and also get started on the path I'd like to be on: toward game development.
You should decide what you are really trying to accomplish, because learning a trendy language and game development are not really on the same path. Maybe you could learn Go and use GLFW, but if you want to do things you can't do in javascript you will likely want to learn C++11/14 and get familiar with a couple of solid libraries. Cinder might be worth checking out.