5 ms·

Snake in Elm with WebGL

82 points by tibastral2 9y ago

Kiro 9y ago
How is the actual game loop executed? I don't know Elm but I only find update, not how it's run.
- kornish 9y ago
  The function `Html.program`, in `main`, takes an update function which handles (among other things) ticking the game loop. http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm-lang/html/latest/Html#program http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm-lang/html/latest/Ht...
dyarosla 9y ago
Bug: Create snake of length two. Move RIGHT. Quickly press UP LEFT in quick succession. Lose. Similar bug with RIGHT->DOWN->LEFT And so on for all the other initial directions.
- KurtMueller 9y ago
  Why not file a Github issue? :)
  - dyarosla 9y ago
    Done
- fb03 9y ago
  Not the author, but I've implemented my own snake game and this bug is fairly easy to kill. (1) - You can only change directions that will change your axis, if you're going left your possible changes are up and down, .... (2) - You should be only able to consume one direction change per game tick, what is happening here is that rule (1) is working but you can change into the other axis, and then back to the other axis again before the game loop computes another frame. Direction change can be read asynchronously but the actual change should be tied by each tick.
  - baddox 9y ago
    Maybe it makes it too easy, but I would enjoy the mechanic that quickly pressing UP LEFT when moving right would make the snake head move one square up then turn left and continue left. I suppose that would require some special casing, and you wouldn't want to support longer queued direction changes. Maybe a nice implementation would be that for inputs queued within a single game tick, execute the first input for one square of movement, then the last input for the next tick.
- fareesh 9y ago
  Yeah happened to me too, thought it was my mistake but now I blame the bug :D
donatj 9y ago
I attended a two day Elm workshop a while back. There is a lot there to love, I just think it's Haskell inspired syntax is a major impediment to it's mainstream adoption. I however would love to be proven wrong as the webs reliability would be so remarkably improved.
- KurtMueller 9y ago
  Imho, Elm's syntax is more akin to OCaml than to Haskell. Besides OCaml, it reminds me a lot of F#.
  - fpoling 9y ago
    Or any other strict language in ML family like SML. Still it tells something about language popularity when is Elm is only compared with Haskell.
- mikekchar 9y ago
  Here's a challenge for you: what syntax would be better? I don't mean that in a derogatory way. I think you are right that the syntax (being very foreign to people) does provide an impediment, but puzzling out how to implement the same functionality with a more familiar syntax would be extremely difficult (though potentially very fun).
  - winstonewert 9y ago
    Well, something like C-like, for maximum familiarity. What functionality is difficult to render in C-like syntax?
    - orblivion 9y ago
      Currying
      - winstonewert 9y ago
        I can get the same effect as currying with C syntax by deliberating invoking a special function: functools.partial(old_function, my_new_argument) Is this such a useful thing that you need the functional style syntax to make it even easier to do?
pgt 9y ago
I made Snake in 103 lines of ClojureScript for a talk from 2015: https://github.com/theronic/cljs-snake https://github.com/theronic/cljs-snake It would be fun to implement WebGL as a renderer.
- DrPhish 9y ago
  I'm going to make this the "Other awesome snake implementations" sub-conversation Here is a snake in 4k (sn4ke) mapped onto a sphere instead of a 2d playsurface, which is one of my favourites. http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61035 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61035 Here is an awesome music-driven one that modifies the songs based on level and "danger" http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=57518 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=57518 But the best snake ever was the one from FastTracker 2 by Triton! http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13350 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13350
lolc 9y ago
Cool demo. And I learn there was an Elm conference close to where I live and I missed it.

82 points by tibastral2 9y ago

Kiro 9y ago

How is the actual game loop executed? I don't know Elm but I only find update, not how it's run.

kornish 9y ago
The function `Html.program`, in `main`, takes an update function which handles (among other things) ticking the game loop. http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm-lang/html/latest/Html#program http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm-lang/html/latest/Ht...

dyarosla 9y ago

Bug: Create snake of length two. Move RIGHT. Quickly press UP LEFT in quick succession. Lose. Similar bug with RIGHT->DOWN->LEFT And so on for all the other initial directions.

KurtMueller 9y ago
Why not file a Github issue? :)
- dyarosla 9y ago
  Done
fb03 9y ago
Not the author, but I've implemented my own snake game and this bug is fairly easy to kill. (1) - You can only change directions that will change your axis, if you're going left your possible changes are up and down, .... (2) - You should be only able to consume one direction change per game tick, what is happening here is that rule (1) is working but you can change into the other axis, and then back to the other axis again before the game loop computes another frame. Direction change can be read asynchronously but the actual change should be tied by each tick.
- baddox 9y ago
  Maybe it makes it too easy, but I would enjoy the mechanic that quickly pressing UP LEFT when moving right would make the snake head move one square up then turn left and continue left. I suppose that would require some special casing, and you wouldn't want to support longer queued direction changes. Maybe a nice implementation would be that for inputs queued within a single game tick, execute the first input for one square of movement, then the last input for the next tick.
fareesh 9y ago
Yeah happened to me too, thought it was my mistake but now I blame the bug :D

donatj 9y ago

I attended a two day Elm workshop a while back. There is a lot there to love, I just think it's Haskell inspired syntax is a major impediment to it's mainstream adoption. I however would love to be proven wrong as the webs reliability would be so remarkably improved.

KurtMueller 9y ago
Imho, Elm's syntax is more akin to OCaml than to Haskell. Besides OCaml, it reminds me a lot of F#.
- fpoling 9y ago
  Or any other strict language in ML family like SML. Still it tells something about language popularity when is Elm is only compared with Haskell.
mikekchar 9y ago
Here's a challenge for you: what syntax would be better? I don't mean that in a derogatory way. I think you are right that the syntax (being very foreign to people) does provide an impediment, but puzzling out how to implement the same functionality with a more familiar syntax would be extremely difficult (though potentially very fun).
- winstonewert 9y ago
  Well, something like C-like, for maximum familiarity. What functionality is difficult to render in C-like syntax?
  - orblivion 9y ago
    Currying
    - winstonewert 9y ago
      I can get the same effect as currying with C syntax by deliberating invoking a special function: functools.partial(old_function, my_new_argument) Is this such a useful thing that you need the functional style syntax to make it even easier to do?

pgt 9y ago

I made Snake in 103 lines of ClojureScript for a talk from 2015: https://github.com/theronic/cljs-snake https://github.com/theronic/cljs-snake It would be fun to implement WebGL as a renderer.

DrPhish 9y ago
I'm going to make this the "Other awesome snake implementations" sub-conversation Here is a snake in 4k (sn4ke) mapped onto a sphere instead of a 2d playsurface, which is one of my favourites. http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61035 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61035 Here is an awesome music-driven one that modifies the songs based on level and "danger" http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=57518 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=57518 But the best snake ever was the one from FastTracker 2 by Triton! http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13350 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13350

lolc 9y ago

Cool demo. And I learn there was an Elm conference close to where I live and I missed it.