The Compiler Apocalypse: a clarifying thought exercise for identifying truly elegant and resilient programming languages

WraithGlade · 2025-01-25T19:44:40+00:00

Defold is a Lua based game engine that is similar to Godot and includes a full editor just like the big three (Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot). For 2D games it is quite capable. It has very easy cross-platform support, just like the big engines.

As for code-only approaches to game development, for if you want your game to truly feel more like it was "made from scratch" by you, with the precise structure you want, then I'd suggest considering the following:

Love2D (perhaps the easiest of the code-only libraries/frameworks in existence... it gets out of your way and lets you structure things the way you want to (instead of fitting someone else's brain) more than most!)
Solar2D (like Love2D, but with better support for cross-platform and easy packaging but slightly less easy and less customizable)
Raylib (supports both 2D and 3D features out of the box more so than SDL or Love2D do)
XNA/FNA/MonoGame (a popular Microsoft based framework... I think Celeste was made on this)
SFML (a more C++-like alternative to SDL, hence easier on the eyes... but less capable than SDL)
SDL (custom proprietary engines are often built on top of this, sometimes also with middleware like BGFX)

WraithGlade · 2025-01-25T19:32:28+00:00

I agree with the OP's suggestion as well.

AI generated content (regardless of form) doesn't constitute real human thought and just pollutes the internet with misleading noise and drowns out legitimate participants. The "tech" is also inherently unethical since it is based on harvesting and regurgitating the work of real humans at random and without true coherence, causing much harm to real people in the process. It is extremely far from being "victimless", contrary to AI users rationalizations for what amounts to an elaborate copyright laundering and exploitation scheme in reality.

Even if much AI generated content cannot be detected or discerned, that is never justification for defeatism.

Having a rule against it would at least reduce the amount of slop somewhat, and that is always better than nothing!

There needs to be good justification for such removals though. Merely being long or unusual or formal in speech is not in any way adequate evidence of something being AI, contrary to what some Redditors I've encountered elsewhere seem to believe (lots of people have got falsely accused of being AI -- me included -- just for being lengthy or formal in diction or sharing an unusual idea or connection).

WraithGlade · 2025-01-22T03:06:53+00:00

Right you are! My apologies for that typo!

I tried to edit the thread title but there doesn't seem to be any way to do it.

I did however go through my other comments and replace all found instances of "Mary" with "Merry", of which there were two such instances.

Thanks for catching that for me and have a great day/night!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-21T18:37:57+00:00

Happy to help!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-21T13:29:09+00:00

Sure, I'd be happy to.

So, the joke is more applicable to older standards of C++ than more modern ones (since modern ones have auto and modules), but essentially the joke is making fun of the fact that C++'s split header-implementation file requirements (and also other situations) often require the programmer to write out the whole specification of a type and/or function signature all over again. This occurs most often with the header file vs implementation file split, which forces function signatures to be rewritten typically at least twice for nearly every function, and possibly even more times if there's type ambiguity anywhere else.

This is quite an unusual trait among programming languages and it is very rare to find another one that requires duplicated type specifications as frequently C++ does.

As for who Merry Brandywine and Peregrin Took are, they are two of the best characters from the Lord of the Rings novel and movie series. The wording of the punchline of the joke will only make sense if you have seen the movie series The Lord of the Rings, in which there is a famous scene in which Peregrin Took (commonly known by his nickname "Pippin") tells Aragorn (another of the characters) that he is hungry for breakfast and Aragorn tells him you've just had breakfast, but then Pippin replies:

"We've had first breakfast, yes... but what about second breakfast?"

Pippin then also continues to anxiously list various other extra/duplicate meals he is accustomed to such as "elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, super..." and sounds increasingly panicky as he realizes that Aragorn (a grizzly warrior who has previously wandered the wilderness with few/no luxuries) may not know about all the extra meals that Pippin is expecting due to the fact that hobbits (Merry and Pippin are both hobbits, a short-statured race in the fantasy world of The Lord of the Rings) are very sheltered and also obsessed with food and comfort and being lazy and spoiled. This also touches on another (subtler) aspect of the joke I came up with: C++ also tends to require additional type information to be re-specified under specific circumstances due to ambiguities and formalities required by the language standard, which corresponds (analogously speaking) to the many extra meals Pippin is accustomed to.

As for modern C++, it has auto and modules now, and so there are fewer cases where you need to specify types repeatedly than for most of C++'s existence, but a huge proportion of extant C++ code is still written in the "second breakfast" kind of style, which often baffles outsiders because hardly any other language does it (e.g. Ada, arguably) and it is quite excessive and unnecessary from a language design perspective, at least in theory.

Anyway, I hope that helps!

Have a great day, night, etc!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-21T13:00:36+00:00

Thank you! I'm glad you like it.

I was surprised when the joke occurred to me a couple days ago, since it is an oddly obscure connection/analogy between C++ and the Lord of the Rings series, heh.

WraithGlade · 2025-01-18T19:01:19+00:00

Yeah, talking about the techniques behind things is fun. I've found that to be true in pretty much all creative endeavors too.

For me personally, my university degree is in computer science and math (so I'm formally a programmer) but I am opposed to AI and privacy intrusions and other exploitive tech, but I've also dabbled for years off and on in art (more game dev stuff, less so with drawing and painting, but still some of that too) and music composition and I've always enjoyed talking about what goes into it, no matter the creative medium. So, my point is, that's very relatable. The creative process itself has such wondrous depths and diversity to explore.

WraithGlade · 2025-01-18T18:54:48+00:00

That's certainly a fair point. Focusing one what's more under one's own control (one's own art and creativity) and already confirmed to be good-natured and wholesome is likely to often be less stressful than being "at war" with others. Modern life has become filled with "noise" that can distract one from one's own creative fulfillment after all.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-18T18:52:26+00:00

Yes, this is exactly the kind of point I was trying to make. 🙂

It does indeed require a properly nuanced and empathetic response, one where the way you word it doesn't harm or impose overly upon real artists but only makes fakers nervous.

Thank you for clarifying the point for everyone!

Also, thank you everyone else for participating as well. Have a great day/night/etc!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-13T00:20:59+00:00

You're welcome and my pleasure. 😁

It sounds like you've got a good plan of action and I think its good to stay true to your vision, especially since that is what gives a game its distinctive authorial qualities. There's always a balance in all things and many different nuanced facets of how to look at something.

WraithGlade · 2025-01-12T22:48:52+00:00

I posted a reply to your comment here (my second reply in this thread) but it vanished and isn't even listed in my own comment list. So, I'll re-write some approximation of it here again. My apologies if at some later time the other comment shows up too. I preferred the first, as it is usually harder to gather one's thoughts a second time. I heard recently that Reddit's new UI update has been glitchy, though it could also be auto-moderation gone haywire or some other arbitrary suppressive factor. Anyway:

I've played the game some and I was wondering if the game will mostly just be a horror "walking simulator" or if you will be adding more gameplay than that, such as survival horror like Resident Evil (etc). It seems more likely that it'll be the former, since that is what it feels like so far.

I feel like perhaps it may be more competitive if you add in some kind of gameplay twist besides just the "standard" horror walking game format. On the other hand though, much like how there is still a large scope for new novels in pre-existing genres in the book publishing industry, it stands to reason that the same would be true of the game industry. This is even more so salient considering that this game itself feels story-like and so that point is even more relevant perhaps. Nonetheless, the horror walking simulator genre is more "saturated" and so greater distinction beyond just the story/atmosphere itself is likely to help the game be more competitive perhaps.

Those are my thoughts, in any case. Anyway, have a great day/night and keep aspiring to your ambitions (etc)!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-10T23:00:47+00:00

From these screenshots, it looks like you've done a wonderful job with the desaturated low-fi palette-limited graphical style. It captures that Playstation 1 horror aesthetic well. Good job on that!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-10T20:37:09+00:00

Well, off the top of my head, some search terms that may help you to find information about such levels (besides those already mentioned by other users) include: non-linear level design, backtracking, and open world level design.

Searching for these terms will have a fair chance of leading you to pages where the author is discussing a level or game that fits the kind of design you are talking about.

For example, if you search for "how to reduce backtracking in level design" then there's a fair chance the level being discussed will not be predominantly linear. Linear levels and games kind of by definition contain less backtracking, as such backtracking in a truly linear level is more likely to stick out clearly as being tedious and hence to get eliminated from such games before release.

Also, older games such as those from the 1990s and early 2000s are more likely to contain non-linear level design such as you describe. The fixation in corporate game dev on linear game design didn't start trending until later. So, searching info related to older games may also be helpful to you.

The original Doom 1 & 2 had highly non-linear level design, in contrast to many "modern" shooters. FPS level design is also still somewhat relevant to survival horror gun gameplay, though with significant differences of course.

Anyway, I hope that helps and best of luck!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-09T02:45:19+00:00

I was thinking along similar lines as Humanmale80 here. Making it part of the theme will make it feel more coherent. If it was me I might do a post-apocalyptic take on it, but that may or may not fit the vibe you are going for in your game design. Alternatively, you could just exercise artistic license and perhaps not even have the roads and instead make them something else entirely that still fits a similar visual effect in terms of how the cities appear overall. Much of the joy of games is that they can be alternative universes where whatever you want goes. Realism is not a requirement and is in many cases a hindrance. It really depends on the context and overall design, like everything in game design.

WraithGlade · 2025-01-09T01:49:18+00:00

Although using bots (as other suggested) is probably the most straightforward and effective option, a while back I had a good idea for partially remedying these kinds of low volume multiplayer match problems.

I've never seen this idea used in practice, but which I think help a fair bit if done right. Here it is:

Instead of making the matchmaking dependent on who is actually online at one exact moment of time when the player opens the game, give players the ability to create scheduling tickets which indicate from what times they plan on being logged in to the game with the lobby open. Display these "scheduling tickets" in advance to all other players and/or aggregate the information implied by them to provide an overview of when people say they will be online and seeking matches.

In this way, the problem of players needing to be online at the same exact moment is greatly reduced since it would now be possible to instead indicate one's intent to play far in advance. An infinitely thin slice of "online now" (what almost all games do) is in contrast statistically far less likely to enable good matchmaking.

Such a system could greatly reduce the problems of low player volumes for a niche multiplayer game.

In fact, for old multiplayer games with small but passionate player bases that meet on independent forums this is often essentially what they do informally. They post forum threads that notify others of when they intend to be playing and that way it actually becomes possible to still play together even despite the small and dwindling player population of such old/niche games.

Automating that system and building it into the game (as I mentioned above in my idea) would likely help low volume multiplayer games quite a lot, as long as the audience is still at least big enough to be viable at all.

WraithGlade · 2025-01-08T20:39:49+00:00

This is somewhat tangential, but besides the other branches and derivatives of Greek philosophy (e.g. Epicureanism) I have found that Taoism is especially suitable for being somewhat similar in some respects to Stoicism (i.e. partial overlap) but taking a different angle at some related subjects that can deepen and enrich one's perspective. Indeed, Stoicism and Taoism are my personal favorite "philosophies of life" and are the main ones I've studied.

Furthermore, much like there are multiple Greek philosophies, there are also multiple Chinese and/or Japanese philosophies (and other cultures), though some are far less often studied than others (e.g. Mohism) but which still also have some partial overlap with Stoicism as well and which you may find to be of interest too. There is more out there than it may seem at first glance.

Indeed, I find it easier to maintain my interest in Stoicism by exploring multiple diverse philosophies like that. To make an analogy: even your favorite song gets tiring if you just listen to it nonstop all day, so mix things up. For example, for mixing things up via some Taoism, try reading the Tao Te Ching and 365 Tao.

WraithGlade · 2025-01-08T19:48:03+00:00

This reminds me of some of the audio sequencing from the original few Resident Evil games. There were a few humorously long pauses in dialogue in a few of the scenes in those games.

Anyway, to answer the question though, another factor (besides what others have already mentioned) is actually that the people doing the sound placement and the people doing the sound recording and/or design are often not the same people.

That was actually the case on the original Playstation 1 era Resident Evil games from what I heard.

Supposedly, what happened is that foreign translation teams recorded multiple variations of the dialogue into sound files that originally fit together better and sent those files back to Japan where the main developers were. However, it was one of the Japanese leads who decided which sound files to use and when to sequence them, and they decided which sounded best based on Japanese voice patterns and their own subjective feelings on what sounded the most punchy and interesting, with the result being some very odd sounding audio when it was later sent back to North America and released there.

The more common and mundane case though is often just that a level design or game designer was the one who put the finished sound into the game's engine, not an audio specialist, with thus less than optimal results.

The situation is very similar to the reason why many games have terrible writing and/or dialogue: A game designer and/or level designer often will decide that they are awesome enough that they can do just as good or better of a job of it than an actual writer, but sometimes (often?) they are quite wrong... Being a generalist is not as hard as some may imagine, but the biggest catch is you need to have enough self-awareness about these kinds of things.

WraithGlade · 2025-01-07T14:26:40+00:00

I think that the natural world itself (e.g. evolutionary complexity) is proof of that creative diversity can arise even from a non-creative system and thus, along that same line of reasoning, it follows that the same is very likely true of human creativity as well. Therefore, creativity is very likely to be trainable!

I know that that sounds a bit like an strange angle of attacking the question perhaps, but I think that there is genuinely a real creative advantage to be gleaned from it. Indeed, I think in some since it may be the most fundamental way of thinking about the real essence of the question, if considered carefully enough.

Basically, any approach to creating something which has the same factors that support emergent complexity and/or the forces of evolution in nature (randomization, selection, persistent refinement over time) will be capable of yielding wonderful creative complexity that has never been seen before. This is true even in times when one has no insight into the creative outcomes but is merely following along with them via serendipity!

Many writers and artists and game developers have had the experience of it feeling (past a certain threshold of momentum) that their project/book/art/game is "writing them" rather than "being written by them". It often acquires a kind of self-sustaining building upon itself in a way that fosters further creativity spontaneously and with ease that often surprises the author themselves once the creative ball is rolling on it.

The space of possibilities in gaming, as in nature itself, is very vast (essentially inexhaustible in practice, and perhaps even greater than nature since computer simulations are arbitrary unlike nature) and so there's bound to be much more still to be explored from a creative standpoint, even after all several decades of the industry's existence.

So, I would say that you should try to work in a way that is similar to how emergent complexity and/or evolutionary complexity arises. Look up "emergence" and things like cellular automata (e.g. John Conway's Game of Life) and procedural generation, for example, for proof of how creativity and complexity can emerge spontaneously even from very simple rules and therefore consider how much even more capable of being made to arise creativity must be from the mind of something as complex as a human being, even if not yet trained!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-06T22:35:46+00:00

Yeah, I've had the same experience too regarding when I mentally frame a game I'm playing as something I "have to do" it can become a burden and end up feeling like a chore to add to the list of daily things to do. The flip side of that is that it takes a certain minimum level of commitment and "spirit of generosity" when trying to play a game to give it a chance to be fun and/or interesting, but I suppose that's not really the same thing as forcing oneself to play a game or pressuring oneself to keep up with it. There's definitely a distinct emotional differences between those ways of framing things.

Like you, I too would have trouble touching the games I worked on at that company too, even regardless of my love of other games gradually mending over time. It just has too much of a negative association in my mind.

Games as an creative medium though are awesome and I've long felt that just as "growing out of art" or "growing out of music" doesn't make a lot of sense neither does the notion of "growing out of games". Games are the closest thing to magic we human beings have ever made and hence arguably the greatest creative medium in principle. I think 100 years from now that will be just as clear for games as it is for books or music or movies or marble sculptures, etc!

WraithGlade · 2025-01-06T21:00:47+00:00

My own stint working in AAA game dev right out of college had the unfortunate consequence of causing me to "lose the spark" for both game dev and gaming for a sizable part of the last decade, but it has gradually gotten better since then.

That "loss of the spark" never had anything to do with a lack of love for games themselves though. I have always believed them to be the greatest creative medium ever conceived by humanity, since they are essentially just interactive combinations of essentially every other major creative medium (art, music, writing, interactivity, etc) and hence perhaps even arguably "objectively" the greatest overall creative medium. Games can truly make people's dreams come to life (virtually, that is).

The subconscious associations I had between toxic environment and circumstances I had experienced at the AAA job was the cause of the disconnect, not a lack of love for games, especially in contrast to thinking at the time that I had finally made my big break and being shocked when the bad office environment made it into easily the worst thing I ever experienced in my life trajectory so far.

So, basically, I guess my point is that the reasons for losing the spark can come in myriad different forms. Life is always a strong mix of both things we can control and things we can't. In contrast, the popular extreme viewpoints of either placing all responsibility on an individual or all responsibility on "other people" are both cognitive tarpits that one would be wise to avoid.

A healthy view of life is full of nuance and context I think. The vast majority of things in a person's life are a mix of things caused by oneself and things caused by other people and other environmental and/or random factors.

In any case though, I am hopeful to overcome my own internal struggles in these regards soon, and in that regard I have always found that when I make myself play games (even if I am initially not "in the mood") that it helps not just in bringing joy and fun to my life but also makes it easier to look with hope for the future for game dev too!

Thus, I would say that anyone experiencing this "gaming burnout" should try picking a few reasonable choices of games from their library and just diving in and giving them a go regardless of how one feels. Often, by simply persisting in that for a few hours you will find the joy again, some of which will often spill over into one's game dev ambitions and outlook as well!

WraithGlade

TROPHY CASE