PGD - Some thoughts about the future

[Rodrigo Robles]

I have participated in some recent Global Game Jam and Ludum Dare. In GGJ I tried Construct and in the Ludum Dare I used Javascript. I wanted to test some new tools and my Object Pascal tools are not sharpened enough to rapid development (I thought...).

I made the games, but I think I could make it better if I did have used Object Pascal:

GGJ Construct game: http://www.cek.com.br/ggj/drink_or_die03/

Ludum Dare javascript game: http://www.futurosistemas.net/gettheseconds/

After testing another tools, my conclusions are: Object Pascal can compete and overrun the other tools. The best games I saw in this competitions were made by skilled developers in several kinds of development platforms.

So, be not afraid to use Object Pascal in this competition. To make a good game you need a good programmer, not a level editor. If you doubt you can ask about it to Jordan Mechner or John Carmack.

[Super Vegeta]

Having made a game for LD in ObjPas, I'd say that the main problem in game jams is pre-existing codebase. Although the goal is to create a game "from scratch", it's obvious that reinventing the wheel is not the point - people are allowed to use existing libraries, and many competitions (including Ludum Dare) also allow for some personal, pre-existing codebase, as long as it's publicly available. Putting it otherwise: if you want to create a game completely "from scratch", jumping on bare SDL / Allegro, then yeah, fitting in the 48h limit can be tough. But if you have some rendering tools, data structures et cetera ready to get plugged in and put to work, a rapid start becomes much easier.

[Ñuño Martínez]

I didn't read every messages here, but as I see I agree with most of you.

I'm not active lately. My Allegro.pas port and KOFFE engine stand still, and I don't have a lot of time. So sad.

Anyway, I have some stuff that may be you (we) can use in the game engine.

I'm working in a VM to be used in my current job. The "ASM" language used is FORTH-like but the idea is to build "compilers" from different languages (C-like, BASIC-like...). The VM will be too simple, but will be open-sourced, extensible and written in Object Pascal (we were wondering if a C port would be necessary, but we decided to wait until complete the Object Pascal implementation and then decide).

Also I have a fully functional state machine, inspired by "Writting Game AI by Example".