Comment by tomtheelder
9 months ago
Absolutely agree. I think people saw that a lot of games are written in C++ and got confused into thinking that the right thing to do is to build your entire game in a systems language. The fact that we have games written entirely in C++ is mostly just due to the enormous amount of inertia that game engines have, and the fact that many of them have origins that go back decades to a time when the programming language landscape and broader development ecosystem were completely different.
And now, the most popular generally available game engines right now are: Unity - C++ in the engine, C# for game code Godot - C++ in the engine code, GDScript or C# for game code Unreal - C++ in the engine code, somewhat mangled C++ for game code BUT with also one of the most capable and widely used visual programming setups I have ever seen
I wouldn't be surprised if the "next great game engine" had a Rust core and some other language- I mean why not C# at this point?- for game code.
> I wouldn't be surprised if the "next great game engine" had a Rust core and some other language- I mean why not C# at this point?- for game code.
That's why, the first time I saw Bevy and Amathyst, I had an immediate "they're doing it wront$ reaction. IMHO, to be a true game engine in the modern sense, instead of merely a game framework, your engine needs to be a precompiled, standalone executable in a systems language that picks up, loads, and executes game scripts, data files, and assets that are totally separate from the engine itself and written in higher level languages. You don't want to be writing everything in a rigid systems language and especially don't want to have to compile your game logic and your engine together and then link them as if the engine were a library. That's why I'm (very slowly) feeling out what a proper game engine in Rust might be like with https://github.com/alexispurslane/embryo-engine. It will take me some time, since I have to learn real time computer graphics and a lot about game engines, but I've got the books, I've made a lot of progress in learning them, and the engine design and architecture is coming together very well in my big black notebook, so if you're interested, give the repo a watch ;)
I'm debating between embeddable common lisp (to satisfy my hacker impulses) or C# for the scripting language. I have figured out, I think, how I'll embed C# in Rust down to some pretty detailed steps, involving a two stage process, but .NET is so heavy I'm worried if it'll be worth it. I'd love input!
Yeah, that bifurcation makes practical sense. Have you considered WebAssembly for the game script layer?
Someone's brought that up to me before — I should probably consider it more seriously, because it'd be very cool