4 ms·
A 3D voxel game engine written in APL
- Littice 4mo agoA voxel world is a pretty good sales pitch for APL: the weird-looking part is the notation, not the model.
- Vedor 4mo agoAPL game engine is indeed an unusual thing. I don't know much about APL, and never used it (toyed with J back in the days though). I am really interested in the development process and the challenges posed by using APL for that kind of project. Also, I really appreciate that the ReadMe file doesn't try to sell this project as something more than it actually is - a buggy passion project. Such honesty is, I feel, relatively rare nowadays.
- renyicircle 4mo agoThe author has written two blog posts about their game (the latter is more about APL than the game itself though). You may find these interesting https://homewithinnowhere.com/posts/2026-03-06-voxel-game.html https://homewithinnowhere.com/posts/2026-03-06-voxel-game.ht... https://homewithinnowhere.com/posts/2026-05-10-one-line.html https://homewithinnowhere.com/posts/2026-05-10-one-line.html
- DrewADesign 4mo agoIt’s crazy what people make games out of. When I was in a game design university program, one of my classmates used to make complete games (including a JRPG style adventure game) using excel formulas. Not even VBA, which would still be insane… just a bunch of formulas.
- threethirtytwo 4mo agoIs this what programming has become? We no longer admire the technical achievement itself and we only admire honesty. Because any technical achievement is easily replicated by AI.
- CamperBob2 4mo agoI wouldn't agree that "any technical achievement is easily replicated by AI," but porting software from one language or platform to another certainly qualifies. Who cares if something is written in Rust or APL or whatever? If you don't like the language it's written in, just ask for a rewrite. (That said, LLMs don't tend to be hip to Brainfuck, so I'd steer clear of that one.)
- nextaccountic 4mo agoAPL is sufficiently different to Rust that a direct port is less viable Rust programs usually have very deep dependency hierarchies, a gamedev project can legit have 500+ dependencies. It makes no sense to port them individually (though maybe LLMs actually make this dumb approach viable) APL programming.. isn't like that. It isn't just a different language, it has a different shape Rust and Javascript are interchangeable in some domains (and not interchangeable in others). You can convert between them more or less automatically But APL? You would need some taste to implement in APL what the game needs, even if the actual coding is done by a LLM
- creatorpilot 4mo ago[dead]
- eric_khun 4mo agoshameless plug, been working a a voxel editor to create voxels that you could use to decorate a home for a a little creature you have to take care of(a la sims). if anyone has some feedbacks, would be happy to take them! https://kamio.ai/studio https://kamio.ai/studio
- arendtio 4mo agoWhy not make a Show HN? In this thread, it feels a bit misplaced, even though it looks cool.
- jkwang 4mo ago[flagged]
- tsouth2 4mo ago[dead]
- ankitraj1224 4mo ago[flagged]
- Panzerschrek 4mo agoIt would be nice to know how fast it is in comparison to a similar voxel engine written in a language like C++ or Rust.
- fourthark 4mo ago> This started off as a bet with myself that APL notation would provide an easier way to make a voxel game. Did you win the bet?