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Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

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Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there is a SDL3 wrapper that comes with a scripting language[0], hot reload and build scripts for every major platform. Love2D seems close to that, but afaik it doesn't support SDL3 features like the new GPU API. [0]: It's not like I'm allergic to C++, but I firmly believe when developing something that is mostly interactive, such as complex GUI or games, a language that is garbage collected and can be ho…

Try https://dragonruby.org/ . It's great! Still on SDL2, but will migrate to SDL3 eventually. Code reload (because it uses MRuby) is just :chef-kiss:

It looks like Love2D, except you pay $50 to use Ruby instead of Lua (admittedly I think Ruby is a better language.)

I haven't used DragonRuby though, so if my above snarky comment is off please point me out.

Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try https://dragonruby.org/ . It's great! Still on SDL2, but will migrate to SDL3 eventually. Code reload (because it uses MRuby) is just :chef-kiss:

It looks like Love2D, except you pay $50 to use Ruby instead of Lua (admittedly I think Ruby is a better language.) I haven't used DragonRuby though, so if my above snarky comment is off please point me out.

Very often you can snatch free copies. Join the Discord. Just ask :)

Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#24
post #12

Cute looks like a modern version of SDL or maybge SFML[1]. Anyone have any experience with it? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19677201

Cute uses SDL3 under the hood, but provides an entire framework for game development, ready to use. It loads Aseprite files automatically, manages animations, collisions, networking, what have you.

Since it uses SDL3, it should be able to do more than 2D, right? Last time I checked SDL3 wraps around a lot of GPU API that you can pretty much do whatever you can do with WebGPU.

Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#25
Hah I just recently was doing some soul searching for a game dev environment to get started with. I did a wee bit of 2D game dev in college 15 years ago, and wanted to scratch the same itch.

At this point, I demand a good IDE experience: as much intellisense as possible, great debugger, hot reloading.

Anyway, C# and MonoGame was what won at the end of the day, at least to just get the ball rolling. Rider is a great IDE, and MonoGame… at least has great getting started documentation to get me going again. Once I knock out a few cutesy games I’ll probably go build my own thing on top of SDL3, so that I’m not held back by MonoGame. Also the MonoGame content builder is just completely broken on Mac, so on the side I am building my own Rider plugin to bring actually good intellisense to the mgcb file, so that I don’t need the broken editor gui (all it does is manage the mgcb file anyway, arguably should have just been an IDE plugin the whole time)

I tried Dragonruby, really wanted to like it, but the development experience is just… not there. It live reloads, but seems to offer no IDE tooling whatsoever. They talk a lot about emacs, maybe you’re supposed to use it with emacs, which I just have zero interest in doing. You’re also not using MRI, or the full Ruby language, so a lot of tooling for “normal Ruby” may not work. C# is just C# with MonoGame, I can use all the tools, import all the nuget packages (if you really want to), etc.

I felt like going with a C based project would lock me out of having hot reloading, but that might not be true, please let me know if I am wrong!. I know of a C++ hot reloading thing specifically made for game dev, it’s in my notes somewhere, just not sure if it’s suitable for use (you sure do have to sift through lots of abandoned experimental stuff in this world)

Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#26

> For many games variable timestep is a good choice. It really isn't.

If you divorce the game's time-step from your math it isn't too much of an issue. You just need to keep track of the time-delta so you have it for your calculations.

Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cute uses SDL3 under the hood, but provides an entire framework for game development, ready to use. It loads Aseprite files automatically, manages animations, collisions, networking, what have you.

Since it uses SDL3, it should be able to do more than 2D, right? Last time I checked SDL3 wraps around a lot of GPU API that you can pretty much do whatever you can do with WebGPU.

Yeah. It's just tailored for 2D gamedev. Cute uses the new SDL3 GPU API internally. Shaders and sprite batching, automatic sprite atlases etc. that Cute provides is just very specific to 2D games.

Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#28
post #11

Last night I tried for maybe about 6 hours so many combinations of efforts to compile a C++, SDL3 and Lua program on Windows, with different IDEs, build systems, compilers, package managers etc. Finally I'm just giving up and using VS with CMake and vcpkg. The main problem is that there's way too many words on all those documentation pages. It would have taken 3 or 4 days to read them all, and maybe only 2 hours wort…

I wonder if there is a SDL3 wrapper that comes with a scripting language[0], hot reload and build scripts for every major platform. Love2D seems close to that, but afaik it doesn't support SDL3 features like the new GPU API. [0]: It's not like I'm allergic to C++, but I firmly believe when developing something that is mostly interactive, such as complex GUI or games, a language that is garbage collected and can be ho…

That's what I'm working on, basically love2d but SDL3 and TS/JS (via QuickJS). And no box2d builtin, but easily importable via CDN.

Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like Love2D, except you pay $50 to use Ruby instead of Lua (admittedly I think Ruby is a better language.) I haven't used DragonRuby though, so if my above snarky comment is off please point me out.

Very often you can snatch free copies. Join the Discord. Just ask :)

As someone who dreams of making a living selling software that I've poured years and years into, that comment makes me very sad.

Re: Swift and the Cute 2d game framework: Setting up a project with CMake

#30
post #11

Last night I tried for maybe about 6 hours so many combinations of efforts to compile a C++, SDL3 and Lua program on Windows, with different IDEs, build systems, compilers, package managers etc. Finally I'm just giving up and using VS with CMake and vcpkg. The main problem is that there's way too many words on all those documentation pages. It would have taken 3 or 4 days to read them all, and maybe only 2 hours wort…

I agree. I used chatgpt to write a makefile to compile sokol+Tracy. It's a pretty solid, generic makefile. But "build system complexity" pushed me away from sdl, magnum graphics and bgfx into the arms of sokol.

And I'm a 10+ year gamedev.

Out of all of c++'s sins, the lack of a solid integrated build system is the one that bites me the most.

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