Comments on That's a Terrible Idea: Towards a Universal Game Language

I've started working on a graphics engine seve...

2010-01-26T22:09:54.229-05:00

I've started working on a graphics engine several times, and it forced me to rethink how much Math knowledge I had. I knew I had very little but I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The thing about the context of the screen is that it represents what you can consider a very large set of possible combinations. In a game we are essentially limiting the permutations of the screen to a subset that literally is our own operators to try to keep the system "ordered" but incomplete. No one has the time to see every possible image on the screen.

A language attempts to take the role of the explicit operator but it has to do more than just select some set of images to render, it needs to have an impact in the mind of the reciever and be "interactive" to that reciever.

I often take a step back and consider the ramifications of the monitor. It was very fasciating when I realized you could generate any image of the past present or future on the monitor.

One of the projects I'm working on, and will continue to do so, is an image rendering framework that enables the highest degree of expressionability for rendering dynamic content. A general goal but an inquiry which I hope to learn many things.

To be quite frank, when I started building a graphics engine, I was 24 years (2 years ago) and had little to no math background, perhaps a 7th grade math background, a little prelagebra.

Now I'm studying fluid dynamics, and honestly infinite series blew my mind, there are a lot of really neat things in life that we fundamentally don't know until we somehow intersect that tidbit of knowledge or realization.

Wow, but there's just so much to do.

You might want to check out Zillions of Games (www...

2010-01-15T21:32:32.240-05:00

You might want to check out Zillions of Games (www.zillions-of-games.com). It's described as a "universal gaming engine", although it only works for abstract strategy games.

I'm honestly skeptical about the ability to create a truly universal game grammar because of the huge variety of possible games. It's definitely possible for specific subsets of games though.

Yeah, that's a topic that's occurred to me...

2010-01-13T18:19:03.808-05:00

Yeah, that's a topic that's occurred to me more than once as well. Game development would be drastically aided by a fairly high-level (in programming terms) language to describe mechanics; we're after all dealing with a fairly high level of abstraction. A modular approach would be optimal, allowing for design elements to be logically laid out and interconnected.

Google MetaProgramming System from JetBrains. Your...

2010-01-13T05:39:11.979-05:00

Google MetaProgramming System from JetBrains. Your GLang looks like another use of a Domain Specific Language.

I may have to take a shot at that myself. Either w...

2010-01-13T01:46:00.863-05:00

I may have to take a shot at that myself. Either way though, I'll be interested in seeing what you come up with.