10 ms·

Gamedev from Scratch 1: Scaffolding

158 points by luu 3y ago

OnlyMortal 3y ago
The author mixed view with model. I trust they’ll disconnect the two at some point.
barbariangrunge 3y ago
eev.ee wrote some great articles about doom, and made one of my favourite doom maps
- junon 3y ago
  eev.ee also writes a lot about programming language design that I've really enjoyed in the past. Definitely worth the read.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> Part 2: Collision → (coming soon!) Harrumph!
- bardan 3y ago
  A) is the thing maybe gonna intersect with the thing? B) how much does the thing intersect with the thing? C) move the things so they aren't intersecting. I don't know, the author might go into more detail.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    But when your position is inside your object, how do you check if you're intersecting with all the other things efficiently? That's the bit I was hoping to read about.
  - vntok 3y ago
    (C) is much more complex than you make it to be, fyi.
    - bardan 3y ago
      just a little joke
sovietmudkipz 3y ago
I really like watching other people do game dev from scratch. If this is a space you’re into and are fine with an nonstandard opinionated developer, I’d recommend Molly Rocket’s YouTube channel. However; I shutter in horror at the thought of embarking on this journey for myself. This is a statement about me rather than a general statement. I know I fixate on problems and “perfect” solutions at the detriment of my project’s velocity e.g. TDD for my game projects —- especially since most tutorial code isn’t written with testing in mind. I highly suspect I would be doomed to misery if I tried. Maybe if/when I get more skilled. I feel like projects like these are an expression of programmers who are very comfortable and experienced with writing complex systems.
- themodelplumber 3y ago
  I find that I tend to get to the interactivity parts of gamedev and go "maybe it'd be neat if this ran itself as a simulation". ChatGPT even wrote a game for me and I thought the same then. I think this might be related to why I write so many dashboards as a hobby. Spectating is pretty cool by itself perhaps?
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  " I know I fixate on problems and “perfect” solutions at the detriment of my project’s velocity" I have the same, which is why my current game is still not released. Perfectionism made me reject all existing engines and write my own (I do use a physics libary, box2d, but actually am thinking about writing my own soon). I am happy with the result now, but I really had to learn to cut corners and abolish perfectionism again. And now that WebGPU has come out(I programm on the web), I have to restrain myself to not overhaul everything again, because the GPU would unlock so much more power, making awesome new things possible in the simulation beneath.. So I am just doing one simple wgsl module to speed up one important part of the simulation, giving hopefully great performance improvements. And then do it all differently and right with the next game.. "Maybe if/when I get more skilled." And the alternative would be tonstart now, making a very simple game, or using an existing engine. It depends what you want to do. If you are really into complex systems, then yes - making everything from scratch, UI, Game logic, Rendering - then it all really gets complicated soon and if you didn't start right, you will never finish. But a simple game, like a flappy birds clone or something alike, is not too complicated and will tell you, if you are really into it. Just give it a try in a language you are comfortable with. And of course there is no shame in using the right frameworks, libaries and engines, if you mainly want to get stuff done and play the result (which is very rewarding). Or rather, if you really want to ship a game, that runs stable and bugfree also on other peoples computers, then you will have to use existing work, or you won't get far, or will be buisy with it for a looong time, if you want to do anything not trivial.
citizenkeen 3y ago
I'm sad that this is the second part and then the series stopped.
ehaveman 3y ago
saw how old this was and really hoped to find more in the series!
jezzamon 3y ago
Cool to see there's demand for articles like this. I program all my games from scratch in plain old JavaScript without using a game engine, so maybe I should start doing some writing about it...
SeanAnderson 3y ago
I really should get to blogging about my experiences with game development so far instead of just rambling incessantly on Discord. I'm a complete noob at it, but feel like I've got a decent amount to say and the game isn't going to market itself, ya know? :) Just hard to know where the right place is to put time and energy each day when doing indie game development. Pretty sure the first post will talk about my experience building out a simple prototype in React + PixiJS, the landscape for JS development, and rationale for rebuilding in Rust/WASM/Bevy and then the second will be on my experiences learning those tools and opining on the pros and cons. Would that be interesting to people? Are there specific aspects of development that people want to read more about than others? I don't feel like I have much to say on graphics and sound assets or anything like that (yet?)
- vgb2k18 3y ago
  > Are there specific aspects of development that people want to read more about than others? The pros and cons of the tools you mentioned. As a hobby Unity dev I appreciate reading about the ups and downs of tool chains excluding the big-3 (Unreal, Unity, Godot).
aquova 3y ago
At one point, I tried to figure out what the recommended way to do OOP in Lua was, and if the method I'd come to use was alright. After some searching around, I came to the conclusion that every resource does it differently. I've made games in Pico-8 as well, and use something I suppose you'd call factory functions rather than what the author does here. I gave up worrying about it.
gravypod 3y ago
Meta comment: it is very fun seeing people who I read quite a bit of (luu) explore into topics which also interest me. I wish web rings were a thing still because pulling the ring off of danluu would be a lot of fun.
riverg 3y ago
I found Pico-8 to be an enjoyable entry into finishing a game. I’ve just released my first finished game today using it (https://ferm.itch.io/centauri https://ferm.itch.io/centauri). The limitations helped me to define a scope and really helped towards the end to determine what a completed game would look like. When I would think to add a new cool feature, I’d remember I was near the token limit and prevent myself from doing that.
- keyle 3y ago
  I've done games with unreal engine on PS4 and Godot on PC. I agree with you, PICO-8 is fun and I can knock an original game in a weekend without worrying about any marketing or slogging through content. PICO-8 and the TIC-80 are both great little platforms that will push your creative juices without getting you bogged down in realistic graphics, hi-q music and assets. It's also a pleasure to do as it's very easy to navigate and comes with all batteries included.

158 points by luu 3y ago

OnlyMortal 3y ago

The author mixed view with model. I trust they’ll disconnect the two at some point.

barbariangrunge 3y ago

eev.ee wrote some great articles about doom, and made one of my favourite doom maps

junon 3y ago
eev.ee also writes a lot about programming language design that I've really enjoyed in the past. Definitely worth the read.

robertlagrant 3y ago

> Part 2: Collision → (coming soon!) Harrumph!

bardan 3y ago
A) is the thing maybe gonna intersect with the thing? B) how much does the thing intersect with the thing? C) move the things so they aren't intersecting. I don't know, the author might go into more detail.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  But when your position is inside your object, how do you check if you're intersecting with all the other things efficiently? That's the bit I was hoping to read about.
- vntok 3y ago
  (C) is much more complex than you make it to be, fyi.
  - bardan 3y ago
    just a little joke

sovietmudkipz 3y ago

I really like watching other people do game dev from scratch. If this is a space you’re into and are fine with an nonstandard opinionated developer, I’d recommend Molly Rocket’s YouTube channel. However; I shutter in horror at the thought of embarking on this journey for myself. This is a statement about me rather than a general statement. I know I fixate on problems and “perfect” solutions at the detriment of my project’s velocity e.g. TDD for my game projects —- especially since most tutorial code isn’t written with testing in mind. I highly suspect I would be doomed to misery if I tried. Maybe if/when I get more skilled. I feel like projects like these are an expression of programmers who are very comfortable and experienced with writing complex systems.

themodelplumber 3y ago
I find that I tend to get to the interactivity parts of gamedev and go "maybe it'd be neat if this ran itself as a simulation". ChatGPT even wrote a game for me and I thought the same then. I think this might be related to why I write so many dashboards as a hobby. Spectating is pretty cool by itself perhaps?
hutzlibu 3y ago
" I know I fixate on problems and “perfect” solutions at the detriment of my project’s velocity" I have the same, which is why my current game is still not released. Perfectionism made me reject all existing engines and write my own (I do use a physics libary, box2d, but actually am thinking about writing my own soon). I am happy with the result now, but I really had to learn to cut corners and abolish perfectionism again. And now that WebGPU has come out(I programm on the web), I have to restrain myself to not overhaul everything again, because the GPU would unlock so much more power, making awesome new things possible in the simulation beneath.. So I am just doing one simple wgsl module to speed up one important part of the simulation, giving hopefully great performance improvements. And then do it all differently and right with the next game.. "Maybe if/when I get more skilled." And the alternative would be tonstart now, making a very simple game, or using an existing engine. It depends what you want to do. If you are really into complex systems, then yes - making everything from scratch, UI, Game logic, Rendering - then it all really gets complicated soon and if you didn't start right, you will never finish. But a simple game, like a flappy birds clone or something alike, is not too complicated and will tell you, if you are really into it. Just give it a try in a language you are comfortable with. And of course there is no shame in using the right frameworks, libaries and engines, if you mainly want to get stuff done and play the result (which is very rewarding). Or rather, if you really want to ship a game, that runs stable and bugfree also on other peoples computers, then you will have to use existing work, or you won't get far, or will be buisy with it for a looong time, if you want to do anything not trivial.

citizenkeen 3y ago

I'm sad that this is the second part and then the series stopped.

ehaveman 3y ago

saw how old this was and really hoped to find more in the series!

jezzamon 3y ago

Cool to see there's demand for articles like this. I program all my games from scratch in plain old JavaScript without using a game engine, so maybe I should start doing some writing about it...

SeanAnderson 3y ago

I really should get to blogging about my experiences with game development so far instead of just rambling incessantly on Discord. I'm a complete noob at it, but feel like I've got a decent amount to say and the game isn't going to market itself, ya know? :) Just hard to know where the right place is to put time and energy each day when doing indie game development. Pretty sure the first post will talk about my experience building out a simple prototype in React + PixiJS, the landscape for JS development, and rationale for rebuilding in Rust/WASM/Bevy and then the second will be on my experiences learning those tools and opining on the pros and cons. Would that be interesting to people? Are there specific aspects of development that people want to read more about than others? I don't feel like I have much to say on graphics and sound assets or anything like that (yet?)

vgb2k18 3y ago
> Are there specific aspects of development that people want to read more about than others? The pros and cons of the tools you mentioned. As a hobby Unity dev I appreciate reading about the ups and downs of tool chains excluding the big-3 (Unreal, Unity, Godot).

aquova 3y ago

At one point, I tried to figure out what the recommended way to do OOP in Lua was, and if the method I'd come to use was alright. After some searching around, I came to the conclusion that every resource does it differently. I've made games in Pico-8 as well, and use something I suppose you'd call factory functions rather than what the author does here. I gave up worrying about it.

gravypod 3y ago

Meta comment: it is very fun seeing people who I read quite a bit of (luu) explore into topics which also interest me. I wish web rings were a thing still because pulling the ring off of danluu would be a lot of fun.

riverg 3y ago

I found Pico-8 to be an enjoyable entry into finishing a game. I’ve just released my first finished game today using it (https://ferm.itch.io/centauri https://ferm.itch.io/centauri). The limitations helped me to define a scope and really helped towards the end to determine what a completed game would look like. When I would think to add a new cool feature, I’d remember I was near the token limit and prevent myself from doing that.

keyle 3y ago
I've done games with unreal engine on PS4 and Godot on PC. I agree with you, PICO-8 is fun and I can knock an original game in a weekend without worrying about any marketing or slogging through content. PICO-8 and the TIC-80 are both great little platforms that will push your creative juices without getting you bogged down in realistic graphics, hi-q music and assets. It's also a pleasure to do as it's very easy to navigate and comes with all batteries included.