Game dev in Rust: a year later
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Game dev in Rust: a year later
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Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#2Tiny Glade (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/Tiny_Glade/) is an impressive example of a game written in Rust.
Apart from that exception, Rust game development seems more about releasing half baked crates than actual games
Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#3Tiny Glade ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/Tiny_Glade/ ) is an impressive example of a game written in Rust. Apart from that exception, Rust game development seems more about releasing half baked crates than actual games
I was surprised to find out The Gnorp Apologue was written in Rust, it's done surprisingly well: https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/18ul125/writing_a_gam...
Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#4Tiny Glade ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/Tiny_Glade/ ) is an impressive example of a game written in Rust. Apart from that exception, Rust game development seems more about releasing half baked crates than actual games
Which follows the pattern of only partially using the ecosystem and doing the relevant parts themselves.
Bevy is the most advanced Rust engine, and it doesn't work well if games that succeeded commercially, did so by not using most of the ecosystem to start with.
Game development, what could be more unsafe than Assembly coding and taking advantage of hardware tricks pushing the hardware to the limits, aren't going to rush in grooves to Rust due to safety.
Rather what can an engine, written in Rust, offer that they aren't having already wiht existing engines, also noting that the safety aspect is already taken care by Java/C#/Verse/Blueprints/Lua/Python/JS scritping.
Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#5Tiny Glade ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/Tiny_Glade/ ) is an impressive example of a game written in Rust. Apart from that exception, Rust game development seems more about releasing half baked crates than actual games
I was surprised to find out The Gnorp Apologue was written in Rust, it's done surprisingly well: https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/18ul125/writing_a_gam...
From the trailer, it looks like something I would have played on an Amiga 500 or PC MS-DOS VGA with a Soundblaster/Adlib, so hardly a selling example for modern game development, even if it happens to be quite enjoyable.
Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#6Tiny Glade ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/Tiny_Glade/ ) is an impressive example of a game written in Rust. Apart from that exception, Rust game development seems more about releasing half baked crates than actual games
Which follows the pattern of only partially using the ecosystem and doing the relevant parts themselves. Bevy is the most advanced Rust engine, and it doesn't work well if games that succeeded commercially, did so by not using most of the ecosystem to start with. Game development, what could be more unsafe than Assembly coding and taking advantage of hardware tricks pushing the hardware to the limits, aren't going to…
The promise is to write the whole game in Rust, rather than having a split between C++ and a scripting language. The most common example of this is Unity with C++/C#.
Having one language makes certain debugging tasks easier and can lead to faster execution.
Using only one language is difficult in C++ due to the lack of garbage collection.
What the Rust community is finding out is that it is also difficult in Rust due to compile times and the rigid borrow checker rules.
Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#7Tiny Glade ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/Tiny_Glade/ ) is an impressive example of a game written in Rust. Apart from that exception, Rust game development seems more about releasing half baked crates than actual games
> Rust game development seems more about releasing half baked crates than actual games
It's because these are mostly passion projects by hobbyists. A lot of the stuff is written by undergrad students with a lot of time on their hands, and once they graduate and move into professional life they no longer have the time and the projects get abandoned.
Creating high quality, reusable components (like game engines) takes a lot of effort. It's unlikely to happen without funding.
And that's only half of the story, to make an actual game (or other product) you'll still need the art content which is expensive.
I'm about 3 years worth of Saturdays and 20kLOC into my current project in this field and I haven't even released anything because I don't need anyone to tell me it's "half baked". While I have some stuff that's starting to be in a shape where it could be usable to others, it would still need a lot of effort to make it friendly for others (e.g. api docs, examples and stuff) to jump in. That again takes effort (there are only so many Saturdays in a year) and it's much less interesting work than doing the research-ey bits and experimental work.
Unfortunately I think this is a chicken and egg problem. No-one with the funds and the staffing to build a game or an engine isn't going to jump in to unproven technology. Not using Unreal or Unity is a huge gamble to take with your business venture.
Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#8I'm learning Rust at the moment (I'm going to join a new team that uses Rust). I'd say it's quite fun and I'm not good enough to have a strong opinion on the language, but I have a few thoughts though.
So far, I find the language design not super elegant. There are restrictive ownership rules, which are fine, but then a myriad of data structures that let you circumvent these rules. It feels somewhat ad-hoc.
Regarding pattern-matching and enum types, I can see why a C++ programmer is impressed with such constructs, but it's really underwhelming for an OCaml/Haskell programmer.
That being said, C++ is hard and complex and it's refreshing to be able to use a more modern language. Assuming you're certain you can't live with the performance overhead of a GC, Rust fills a gap, but it doesn't seem it's the end of the story. I even wonder if it's necessarily a better choice than modern C++ for someone starting a new project.
Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which follows the pattern of only partially using the ecosystem and doing the relevant parts themselves. Bevy is the most advanced Rust engine, and it doesn't work well if games that succeeded commercially, did so by not using most of the ecosystem to start with. Game development, what could be more unsafe than Assembly coding and taking advantage of hardware tricks pushing the hardware to the limits, aren't going to…
The promise is to write the whole game in Rust, rather than having a split between C++ and a scripting language. The most common example of this is Unity with C++/C#. Having one language makes certain debugging tasks easier and can lead to faster execution. Using only one language is difficult in C++ due to the lack of garbage collection. What the Rust community is finding out is that it is also difficult in Rust due…
Doing whole games in C++ has been a thing for decades, granted with plenty Assembly in the mix, since Watcom C++ days in MS-DOS, or PlayStation being the first console with a C and C++ SDK.
There was no garbage collection in all those 8 and 16 bit home computers and game consoles programmed in straight Assembly.
If Rust can't top this, then its value for game development community isn't as great as many think it is.
Re: Game dev in Rust: a year later
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which follows the pattern of only partially using the ecosystem and doing the relevant parts themselves. Bevy is the most advanced Rust engine, and it doesn't work well if games that succeeded commercially, did so by not using most of the ecosystem to start with. Game development, what could be more unsafe than Assembly coding and taking advantage of hardware tricks pushing the hardware to the limits, aren't going to…
The promise is to write the whole game in Rust, rather than having a split between C++ and a scripting language. The most common example of this is Unity with C++/C#. Having one language makes certain debugging tasks easier and can lead to faster execution. Using only one language is difficult in C++ due to the lack of garbage collection. What the Rust community is finding out is that it is also difficult in Rust due…
Rust does not suit for scripting. The goal of scripting is to write code more easily without worry of system programming concepts like memory management.