8 ms·

Luxe Game Engine

182 points by garrypettet 1y ago

garrypettet 1y ago
This looks neat. It uses Bob Nystrom's Wren language for scripting and has been in development for a few years.
pvg 1y ago
A thread in 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615251
- CaptainFever 1y ago
  Interesting that they intended to release it as open source in the past, but have instead stayed proprietary.
  - pyman 1y ago
    From what I read once, Sven wanted to open source it to make it more stable and actually finish it but then realised that doing so could affect his business model
pier25 1y ago
> luxe itself is written in c++ Wasn't it written in Haxe originally or am I confusing it with something else?
- dismalaf 1y ago
  Armory maybe?
  - pier25 1y ago
    Luxe was initially written in Haxe and they migrated to C++ eventually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16616052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16616052
  - prismatic6 1y ago
    Armory did, and it does still look like it's using Haxe - https://github.com/armory3d/armory/wiki/setup https://github.com/armory3d/armory/wiki/setup - it bundles it in.
- tecleandor 1y ago
  Seems like there was a previous version of the engine that was written in Haxe [0] > alpha - deprecated 2015~2016. unrelated to the new engine! view the new engine here - https://luxeengine.com/ https://luxeengine.com/ Also, that old version used to be open source, but I think this new one isn't anymore. Old thread mentioned by @pvg still mentions being open source, but right now the repositories only have docs.[1] 0: https://github.com/snowkit/old-haxe-alpha https://github.com/snowkit/old-haxe-alpha 1: https://github.com/luxeengine https://github.com/luxeengine
  - prismatic6 1y ago
    It does still mention source here as well https://luxeengine.com/faq/#source-access https://luxeengine.com/faq/#source-access
    - cosmojg 1y ago
      Sounds like they might be switching to a source-available model rather than an open-source model.
999900000999 1y ago
It's neat, but not better than real open source solutions. Pay is what you want unless your at work and then it's price is under NDA isn't friendly. Godot is still probably the best FOSS engine right now. Arguably it's strongly in 3rd place behind Unity/Unreal.
- prismatic6 1y ago
  The FAQ mentions source https://luxeengine.com/faq/#source-access https://luxeengine.com/faq/#source-access Where do you see an NDA?
  - 999900000999 1y ago
    https://luxeengine.com/get/ https://luxeengine.com/get/ >Business - If you need more than 16 seats, or you have access to > $1m USD in the last 365 days, this tier is required, you must contact us to customize pricing. Customized pricing is very scary. It's whatever we feel like charging you under NDA. Why would I pitch this to my boss over using Godot under an MIT license?
    - prismatic6 1y ago
      I read that as cheaper in bulk, but I see what you mean.
      - swsieber 1y ago
        Given that the prices are going up in with each tier, and you can get into that tier just by having a lot of money (x users OR x money), I'm not optimistic it'll be cheaper per user.
  - crustaceansoup 1y ago
    It's "source available", not open source. Unreal is "source available" as well. > Where do you see an NDA? The top price tier says > If you need more than 16 seats, or you have access to > $1m USD in the last 365 days, this tier is required, you must contact us to customize pricing. This is really weird, honestly. If you hire a 17th seat your pricing goes from $50/seat/mo to... what? How do I plan around this jump? I would also like to know what happens if my subscription lapses. Can I continue to use a version I previously downloaded? What if luxe goes out of business or, heaven forbid, suddenly increases their pricing to unsustainable levels? With Unreal I can keep using an old version.
npalli 1y ago
> luxe itself is written in c++ Good, it bodes well for the future of this game engine.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
jmiskovic 1y ago
I love this bit <3 You may not use luxe for the following, no exceptions: * military use * the gambling industry * crypto/NFTs/related
- ekianjo 1y ago
  interesting because you could still make gatcha games which is just like digital gambling
  - georgeecollins 1y ago
    Or you could use it to promote vaping, or a cult! How exactly would you write terms of service to preclude gatcha games? No in game transactions?
    - efilife 1y ago
      FYI it's gacha without the t
  - CooCooCaCha 1y ago
    Perfect is the enemy of good.
    - CaptainFever 1y ago
      Sometimes, doing something is worse than doing nothing at all. > For that matter, using licensing to restrict government abuse obviously isn’t going to work, because licensing relies on state enforcement of rights anyway. If the state itself is compromised, having a clever little license isn’t the failsafe the OES thinks it is. It’s really just asking the police to arrest ICE with extra steps. This isn’t hypothetical, this is already codified in the law: even the international treaties that govern copyright have explicit exemptions for government action related to security interests. A license like this one can only ever possibly do harm. https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2021/10/29/ethical-source-is-a-crock-of-hot-garbage/ https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2021/10/29/ethical-source-is-a... And if you want something more old-school: > It is worse than ineffective; it is wrong too, because software developers should not exercise such power over what users do. Imagine selling pens with conditions about what you can write with them; that would be noisome, and we should not stand for it. Likewise for general software. If you make something that is generally useful, like a pen, people will use it to write all sorts of things, even horrible things such as orders to torture a dissident; but you must not have the power to control people's activities through their pens. It is the same for a text editor, compiler or kernel. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...
progx 1y ago
Have a look at the underrated Flax Engine: https://flaxengine.com/ https://flaxengine.com/
- reactordev 1y ago
  What has it shipped?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- detaro 1y ago
  What do you like specifically about it?
  - progx 1y ago
    c#, easy development and integration of own extensions, it starts really quick.
pinoy420 1y ago
[dead]
socalgal2 1y ago
Maybe I missed them but given they say at the top of the page > make games for Mac, Linux, Windows, and *Web* it would help a bunch if they linked to some web demos/games
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- joeld42 1y ago
  Some Jam Games with web builds: https://itch.io/jam/luxe/entries?ref=luxeengine.com https://itch.io/jam/luxe/entries?ref=luxeengine.com https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/terrarium-combinarium https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/terrarium-combinarium https://joeld42.itch.io/bridges https://joeld42.itch.io/bridges More jam games that I didn't make a web build for but downloads are available: https://joeld42.itch.io/lighthouse-keeper https://joeld42.itch.io/lighthouse-keeper https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/cargo-space https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/cargo-space https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/last-mile https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/last-mile https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/artichoke-key https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/artichoke-key On Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1836400/Mossfield_Origins/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1836400/Mossfield_Origins...
  - socalgal2 1y ago
    Thanks. Though, I guess I didn't make myself clear. To sell me on the engine working on the web I'd need to see a high quality game/demo running on the web. Instead, the links are to a bunch of game jam games that look no better than raw JS and then several native only games. I'm not trying to diss the engine. It looks great. Rather, I'm suggesting that impressive instant live demos speak louder than words.
shayway 1y ago
I played around with it a few months back. Interesting project, but it never quite clicked for me. Sort of for the same reasons I bounced off Wren; both it and Luxe are more carefully structured and verbose than I want from something high-level, but not as flexible as something more low level. For ease of use I'd go with Godot, for control I'd go with something like Raylib. It's worth noting though that I'm a hobby game dev looking to make smaller solo projects, and Luxe seems more conducive to studio workflows; there's an emphasis on artist-focused tooling, for example. Godot is the obvious comparison for a new open source-ish engine but it's really more of an Unreal competitor. I'm still keeping an eye on it though, minimal docs/examples made it trickier to learn than it probably is (it is still in alpha after all). I'd highly recommend checking out the blog posts [0], they're great reads that go into a lot of detail. [0] https://luxeengine.com/blog/ https://luxeengine.com/blog/
dzonga 1y ago
this is dope, made by an all female team. hopefully the games industry gets more female led, minority led studios
ang_cire 1y ago
I really wish I was a video game dev. Alas.
vhodges 1y ago
Unrelated to https://sillysoft.net/lux/ https://sillysoft.net/lux/ (I know the spelling is different)
joeld42 1y ago
I've been playing with this engine for a while. I really like the engine. For me the best features are: - Scripting is really ergonomic, and fairly fast performance-wise. And if you need something to be really fast writing native extension modules for wren is pretty straightforward. So it's a choice between "reasonable" perf scripting and "fast" native code, which is much better than something like Unity where everything is kind of in the middle. - Wren fibers (a form of cooperative threading) are fantastic for dealing with game logic (NPC state, game AI, etc) without introducing the complexity of true multithreading. - The graphics/render module is extremely configurable. The whole render module is just a script that sets up a fast c++ execution graph, and you can modify/script this. - The tools are very nice and a lot of care put into them. I don't use the editor too much, and mostly interact through code, but for things like level design it's really nice to have. - Many game engines feel like a good fit for a large project or a small one but not both. Luxe is great for small jam games and full-sized projects. A project can be pretty much just a project file, a few configs and a script, or a large structure and the editor encourages (but doesn't enforce) a good project layout. - Drawing is super flexible. You've got sprites and shapes and meshes and tiles and everything, but there's also an "immediate style" drawing api that is very high quality. Similar to having "Shapes" extension in unity but it's a first class citizen and built in. - The "Modifiers" (which is Luxe's ECS-like component thing) took me a while to get used to using, and can be a source of friction at first, but once I got it it really feels like a better way to do things. And it's entirely optional so you don't have to if you're still learning. - Outside of code and raw assets like images and mesh, almost everything is stored in ".lx" files which are very json-like, which can be really helpful for debugging and understanding what's going on, and on many occasions I've been able to automate stuff from script just by writing out or modifying lx files. - Features and fixes are added constantly, but done carefully in a way that doesn't break existing code too often or without a clear migration strategy (glares at bevy). It feels like an engine built for small teams and experimental workflows. Especially if you're looking for alternatives to Unity, I'd recommend it.
krapp 1y ago
I see two games in progress by the engine authors' studio mentioned, but has anyone actually shipped a game in this framework?
josephcsible 1y ago
The "Restrictions" section is incompatible with ever being FOSS, and for people who don't care about that, there's no advantage to this over Unreal or Unity.
- npinsker 1y ago
  It's not pretending to be FOSS. Like other engines, you need to pay them if you make money. But no advantage seems like a stretch? (or at least, in future, might be a stretch) They're aiming for a superior workflow for small games (e.g. making stylized rendering way easier for non-technical devs). Also their pricing is 10% of Unity's, which is itself around 10% of Unreal's.
clessed 1y ago
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- slater 1y ago
  https://anypercent.studio/team/ https://anypercent.studio/team/ ?
  - clessed 1y ago
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    - slater 1y ago
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      - clessed 1y ago
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        AlexeyBelov 1y ago
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        clessed 1y ago
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        clessed 1y ago
        My comment at the top of this thread got detached, but originally it was a reply to this misleading comment: > this is dope, made by an all female team. > hopefully the games industry gets more female led, minority led studios Can we stop pretending that male programmers with "she/her" next to their names are female? This does nothing positive for actual female representation in this industry. It's very grating to see work done by males in this male-dominated field be celebrated as if it's from the very small minority of female programmers. To everyone doing this: please stop these misogynistic lies. Writing a game engine is a good enough achievement without spinning tall tales about it being an all-female team and then censoring anyone who points out that this is complete bullshit.

Luxe Game Engine

182 points by garrypettet 1y ago

garrypettet 1y ago

This looks neat. It uses Bob Nystrom's Wren language for scripting and has been in development for a few years.

pvg 1y ago

A thread in 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615251

CaptainFever 1y ago
Interesting that they intended to release it as open source in the past, but have instead stayed proprietary.
- pyman 1y ago
  From what I read once, Sven wanted to open source it to make it more stable and actually finish it but then realised that doing so could affect his business model

pier25 1y ago

> luxe itself is written in c++ Wasn't it written in Haxe originally or am I confusing it with something else?

dismalaf 1y ago
Armory maybe?
- pier25 1y ago
  Luxe was initially written in Haxe and they migrated to C++ eventually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16616052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16616052
- prismatic6 1y ago
  Armory did, and it does still look like it's using Haxe - https://github.com/armory3d/armory/wiki/setup https://github.com/armory3d/armory/wiki/setup - it bundles it in.
tecleandor 1y ago
Seems like there was a previous version of the engine that was written in Haxe [0] > alpha - deprecated 2015~2016. unrelated to the new engine! view the new engine here - https://luxeengine.com/ https://luxeengine.com/ Also, that old version used to be open source, but I think this new one isn't anymore. Old thread mentioned by @pvg still mentions being open source, but right now the repositories only have docs.[1] 0: https://github.com/snowkit/old-haxe-alpha https://github.com/snowkit/old-haxe-alpha 1: https://github.com/luxeengine https://github.com/luxeengine
- prismatic6 1y ago
  It does still mention source here as well https://luxeengine.com/faq/#source-access https://luxeengine.com/faq/#source-access
  - cosmojg 1y ago
    Sounds like they might be switching to a source-available model rather than an open-source model.

999900000999 1y ago

It's neat, but not better than real open source solutions. Pay is what you want unless your at work and then it's price is under NDA isn't friendly. Godot is still probably the best FOSS engine right now. Arguably it's strongly in 3rd place behind Unity/Unreal.

prismatic6 1y ago
The FAQ mentions source https://luxeengine.com/faq/#source-access https://luxeengine.com/faq/#source-access Where do you see an NDA?
- 999900000999 1y ago
  https://luxeengine.com/get/ https://luxeengine.com/get/ >Business - If you need more than 16 seats, or you have access to > $1m USD in the last 365 days, this tier is required, you must contact us to customize pricing. Customized pricing is very scary. It's whatever we feel like charging you under NDA. Why would I pitch this to my boss over using Godot under an MIT license?
  - prismatic6 1y ago
    I read that as cheaper in bulk, but I see what you mean.
    - swsieber 1y ago
      Given that the prices are going up in with each tier, and you can get into that tier just by having a lot of money (x users OR x money), I'm not optimistic it'll be cheaper per user.
- crustaceansoup 1y ago
  It's "source available", not open source. Unreal is "source available" as well. > Where do you see an NDA? The top price tier says > If you need more than 16 seats, or you have access to > $1m USD in the last 365 days, this tier is required, you must contact us to customize pricing. This is really weird, honestly. If you hire a 17th seat your pricing goes from $50/seat/mo to... what? How do I plan around this jump? I would also like to know what happens if my subscription lapses. Can I continue to use a version I previously downloaded? What if luxe goes out of business or, heaven forbid, suddenly increases their pricing to unsustainable levels? With Unreal I can keep using an old version.

npalli 1y ago

> luxe itself is written in c++ Good, it bodes well for the future of this game engine.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

jmiskovic 1y ago

I love this bit <3 You may not use luxe for the following, no exceptions: * military use * the gambling industry * crypto/NFTs/related

ekianjo 1y ago
interesting because you could still make gatcha games which is just like digital gambling
- georgeecollins 1y ago
  Or you could use it to promote vaping, or a cult! How exactly would you write terms of service to preclude gatcha games? No in game transactions?
  - efilife 1y ago
    FYI it's gacha without the t
- CooCooCaCha 1y ago
  Perfect is the enemy of good.
  - CaptainFever 1y ago
    Sometimes, doing something is worse than doing nothing at all. > For that matter, using licensing to restrict government abuse obviously isn’t going to work, because licensing relies on state enforcement of rights anyway. If the state itself is compromised, having a clever little license isn’t the failsafe the OES thinks it is. It’s really just asking the police to arrest ICE with extra steps. This isn’t hypothetical, this is already codified in the law: even the international treaties that govern copyright have explicit exemptions for government action related to security interests. A license like this one can only ever possibly do harm. https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2021/10/29/ethical-source-is-a-crock-of-hot-garbage/ https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2021/10/29/ethical-source-is-a... And if you want something more old-school: > It is worse than ineffective; it is wrong too, because software developers should not exercise such power over what users do. Imagine selling pens with conditions about what you can write with them; that would be noisome, and we should not stand for it. Likewise for general software. If you make something that is generally useful, like a pen, people will use it to write all sorts of things, even horrible things such as orders to torture a dissident; but you must not have the power to control people's activities through their pens. It is the same for a text editor, compiler or kernel. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...

progx 1y ago

Have a look at the underrated Flax Engine: https://flaxengine.com/ https://flaxengine.com/

reactordev 1y ago
What has it shipped?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
detaro 1y ago
What do you like specifically about it?
- progx 1y ago
  c#, easy development and integration of own extensions, it starts really quick.

pinoy420 1y ago

[dead]

socalgal2 1y ago

Maybe I missed them but given they say at the top of the page > make games for Mac, Linux, Windows, and *Web* it would help a bunch if they linked to some web demos/games

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
joeld42 1y ago
Some Jam Games with web builds: https://itch.io/jam/luxe/entries?ref=luxeengine.com https://itch.io/jam/luxe/entries?ref=luxeengine.com https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/terrarium-combinarium https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/terrarium-combinarium https://joeld42.itch.io/bridges https://joeld42.itch.io/bridges More jam games that I didn't make a web build for but downloads are available: https://joeld42.itch.io/lighthouse-keeper https://joeld42.itch.io/lighthouse-keeper https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/cargo-space https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/cargo-space https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/last-mile https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/last-mile https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/artichoke-key https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/artichoke-key On Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1836400/Mossfield_Origins/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1836400/Mossfield_Origins...
- socalgal2 1y ago
  Thanks. Though, I guess I didn't make myself clear. To sell me on the engine working on the web I'd need to see a high quality game/demo running on the web. Instead, the links are to a bunch of game jam games that look no better than raw JS and then several native only games. I'm not trying to diss the engine. It looks great. Rather, I'm suggesting that impressive instant live demos speak louder than words.

shayway 1y ago

I played around with it a few months back. Interesting project, but it never quite clicked for me. Sort of for the same reasons I bounced off Wren; both it and Luxe are more carefully structured and verbose than I want from something high-level, but not as flexible as something more low level. For ease of use I'd go with Godot, for control I'd go with something like Raylib. It's worth noting though that I'm a hobby game dev looking to make smaller solo projects, and Luxe seems more conducive to studio workflows; there's an emphasis on artist-focused tooling, for example. Godot is the obvious comparison for a new open source-ish engine but it's really more of an Unreal competitor. I'm still keeping an eye on it though, minimal docs/examples made it trickier to learn than it probably is (it is still in alpha after all). I'd highly recommend checking out the blog posts [0], they're great reads that go into a lot of detail. [0] https://luxeengine.com/blog/ https://luxeengine.com/blog/

dzonga 1y ago

this is dope, made by an all female team. hopefully the games industry gets more female led, minority led studios

ang_cire 1y ago

I really wish I was a video game dev. Alas.

vhodges 1y ago

Unrelated to https://sillysoft.net/lux/ https://sillysoft.net/lux/ (I know the spelling is different)

joeld42 1y ago

I've been playing with this engine for a while. I really like the engine. For me the best features are: - Scripting is really ergonomic, and fairly fast performance-wise. And if you need something to be really fast writing native extension modules for wren is pretty straightforward. So it's a choice between "reasonable" perf scripting and "fast" native code, which is much better than something like Unity where everything is kind of in the middle. - Wren fibers (a form of cooperative threading) are fantastic for dealing with game logic (NPC state, game AI, etc) without introducing the complexity of true multithreading. - The graphics/render module is extremely configurable. The whole render module is just a script that sets up a fast c++ execution graph, and you can modify/script this. - The tools are very nice and a lot of care put into them. I don't use the editor too much, and mostly interact through code, but for things like level design it's really nice to have. - Many game engines feel like a good fit for a large project or a small one but not both. Luxe is great for small jam games and full-sized projects. A project can be pretty much just a project file, a few configs and a script, or a large structure and the editor encourages (but doesn't enforce) a good project layout. - Drawing is super flexible. You've got sprites and shapes and meshes and tiles and everything, but there's also an "immediate style" drawing api that is very high quality. Similar to having "Shapes" extension in unity but it's a first class citizen and built in. - The "Modifiers" (which is Luxe's ECS-like component thing) took me a while to get used to using, and can be a source of friction at first, but once I got it it really feels like a better way to do things. And it's entirely optional so you don't have to if you're still learning. - Outside of code and raw assets like images and mesh, almost everything is stored in ".lx" files which are very json-like, which can be really helpful for debugging and understanding what's going on, and on many occasions I've been able to automate stuff from script just by writing out or modifying lx files. - Features and fixes are added constantly, but done carefully in a way that doesn't break existing code too often or without a clear migration strategy (glares at bevy). It feels like an engine built for small teams and experimental workflows. Especially if you're looking for alternatives to Unity, I'd recommend it.

krapp 1y ago

I see two games in progress by the engine authors' studio mentioned, but has anyone actually shipped a game in this framework?

josephcsible 1y ago

The "Restrictions" section is incompatible with ever being FOSS, and for people who don't care about that, there's no advantage to this over Unreal or Unity.

npinsker 1y ago
It's not pretending to be FOSS. Like other engines, you need to pay them if you make money. But no advantage seems like a stretch? (or at least, in future, might be a stretch) They're aiming for a superior workflow for small games (e.g. making stylized rendering way easier for non-technical devs). Also their pricing is 10% of Unity's, which is itself around 10% of Unreal's.

clessed 1y ago

[flagged]

slater 1y ago
https://anypercent.studio/team/ https://anypercent.studio/team/ ?
- clessed 1y ago
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  - slater 1y ago
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    - clessed 1y ago
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      - AlexeyBelov 1y ago
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        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
        clessed 1y ago
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        clessed 1y ago
        My comment at the top of this thread got detached, but originally it was a reply to this misleading comment: > this is dope, made by an all female team. > hopefully the games industry gets more female led, minority led studios Can we stop pretending that male programmers with "she/her" next to their names are female? This does nothing positive for actual female representation in this industry. It's very grating to see work done by males in this male-dominated field be celebrated as if it's from the very small minority of female programmers. To everyone doing this: please stop these misogynistic lies. Writing a game engine is a good enough achievement without spinning tall tales about it being an all-female team and then censoring anyone who points out that this is complete bullshit.