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Defold: cross-platform game engine

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Re: Defold: cross-platform game engine

#161

Post by geokon »

James-Bennet wrote: post #144

I am looking for a game framework that allows interactive programming like LISP for browser games. So far I have tried love2d, TIC-80, and defold. Fennel (Clojure like language for Lua) works with love2d and TIC-80, but I could not get emacs repl to connect to TIC-80. Also I couldn't get Fennel to work with defold. Maybe there's a way I haven't found yet, but for now the only way to achieve interactive programming is…

If you get it working, please share..

I assume you've seen:

https://ertu.dev/posts/i-made-an-online-shooter-game-in-lisp...

Re: Defold: cross-platform game engine

#162

Post by jbverschoor »

noodletheworld wrote: post #33
jbverschoor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For small scripts. Lua is a huge minefield

That seems kind of unfair. There are things that aren't great about lua, and I'm not going to pretend they're not. buuuut... - It's really perfectly ok if you use competently. - There are large complex systems and games built using it (eg. factorio) that show that scaling it is both pragmatic and possible. - It has a big active community. When you compare it some other scripting solutions (boo, unityscript) that were…

> - It's really perfectly ok if you use competently.

That's the case with assembler too. It's exactly my point.

I love how lua works, is easy to embed, fast, and can compile to bytecode. But I really miss "compile time" checks, but my biggest issues are:

- You have to kind of invent your own modules / class-system. It's a lot of boilerplate and error prone - The 1-based indexing is horrible - Looping over 'arrays' would require sorting the keys first. i.e. there are no arrays.

It's been little over 10 years since I've done lua (gaming). Oh, and I used lua in an nginx handler after that

Re: Defold: cross-platform game engine

#163

Post by sirtaj »

nurettin wrote: post #160
executesorder66 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can make proprietary changes to the engine without releasing them (unlike GPL). Why is that a good thing? >You can freely monetize games built with the engine, You'd also be able to do the same if it had a GPL license >and they make some assurances that there won't be a bait-and-switch. If it was licensed under a GPL license you wouldn't need to rely on "some assurances"

>> You can make proprietary changes to the engine without releasing them (unlike GPL). > Why is that a good thing? Instead of writing an internal project from scratch, you modify an existing project and tightly couple it with your internal process. What's wrong with that?

I don't think that violates the GPL, it does only if you distribute the modified version without also providing the source changes.

Re: Defold: cross-platform game engine

#165

Post by dahart »

Zambyte wrote: post #110
sbarre wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the answer to "why" is on the website if you read about the foundation's objectives: https://defold.com/foundation/

> Prevent the Defold software from being commercialised by a third-party. Why?

It says why multiple times, right on the page parent linked to. They want Defold to be free to use, they are trying to guarantee it’s always available to developers free of charge, and that the source remains always available. Why do you ask?

Re: Defold: cross-platform game engine

#166

Post by spacechild1 »

nprateem wrote: post #155
aaroninsf wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this! I am torn about backing off to focusing on first getting the UX (which is really "the thing") right, and just emitting a MIDI MPE stream. That obviously has some other benefits but there were things I was keen on having low-level control over... but I can get over that maybe... Ambivalent also about target—really, the iPad is the ideal and canonical target, in terms of what it can and the UX it affor…

You can't create prototypes in Godot, etc to test out your idea but you want to try someone's half-baked project instead?!? You do need to speak to someone.

Hey, my project is quarter-baked at most!

Re: Defold: cross-platform game engine

#167

Post by rpdillon »

sarchertech wrote: post #97
bee_rider wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an unusual license, it is sort of impressive that this is the only issue folks can come up with in this thread. It does seem like a bit of problem, but it also seems like a very specific thing that could be… cleared up, and then it would be all sorted.

It’s not an actual problem. Games don’t ship with the editing tools from the engine because engine editing tools aren’t suitable for that purpose. That would be like shipping photoshop with your game to allow people to customize their character’s hair color.

I think there's a misunderstanding about the license. The license doesn't care at all about whether or not you're using the tools from Defold. They care about whether or not you're giving the ability to modify game content in a commercial product.

> “Game Engine Product” shall mean software used for video game development. This includes both the content authoring software and the software used to show the created content.

The license allows redistribution so long as:

> a) You do not sell or otherwise commercialise the Work or Derivative Works as a Game Engine Product; and

So my read is that any tool that allows you to modify game content constitutes a game engine product and they specifically do not allow you to sell a game engine product built with Defold.

This weird technicality that is invented in this discussion about whether or not you're using Defold's built-in engine tools, or developing your own tools on top of Defold is entirely irrelevant to the language of the license.

Re: Defold: cross-platform game engine

#168

Post by rpdillon »

Tepix wrote: post #89
rpdillon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current license makes it unclear whether it would be a violation to distribute a commercial game that has a built-in map editor.

You have have to write your own map editor if you want to sell it, yes.

The license doesn't indicate that you can get out of the terms by developing your own map editor. A map editor would qualify as a game engine product because it can edit game content and their license specifically prohibits you from redistributing a game engine product that's built with Defold.

Re: Defold: cross-platform game engine

#170

Post by aaroninsf »

nprateem wrote: post #155
aaroninsf wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this! I am torn about backing off to focusing on first getting the UX (which is really "the thing") right, and just emitting a MIDI MPE stream. That obviously has some other benefits but there were things I was keen on having low-level control over... but I can get over that maybe... Ambivalent also about target—really, the iPad is the ideal and canonical target, in terms of what it can and the UX it affor…

You can't create prototypes in Godot, etc to test out your idea but you want to try someone's half-baked project instead?!? You do need to speak to someone.

If you mean me,

Prototypes I already have made; at this point the goal is get something actually stable. I'm willing to look into any approach that has a stable application doing things that I need. I don't want to make another prototype; but I am open to trying an implementation that might not end up being final.

It's proven remarkably difficult to find who to even consult with. AFAICT it's too rarified a need.

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