PGD - Some thoughts about the future

[SilverWarior]

I also think it could be interesting to have a non-gamedev contest - say, implement an algorithm, or maybe create some kind of game AI in .dll/.so which will then compete against each other. code_glitches ideas also seem interesting.

I was thinking about something similar but maybe not even in form of a competition.
My idea is something like this:
A comunity member creates a game related programming problem. For instance implementing some algorithm like you sad.
Also this same comunity member provides a posible solution to that problem.
The goal of the rest of the comunity is to go and try to provide as many different ways to solve the given problem.
In the end we can compare the solution, discuss and find benefits/weakneses of each of the provided solutions and maybe even ways of how to improve them in the end.

So what we would get from this is lots of different solutions (code snipects) which other pepole could use in their projects when needed. And since certain solution may not necessary the best solution for someone, pepole could go and chose that one solution which would be most suitable for them since they would have many ones to chose.
At the same time this would provide some kind of a joint knowledge of the whole comunity in one place.
Maybe some members might go even to the point of using that gathered knowledge and making a full blown tutorials out of it which would provide other members to gain that knowledge even more easily.

[Rodrigo Robles]

Instead of make our own competitions, should be good if we compete more seriously in competitions like Ludum Dare and even Global Game Jam. This way we put more Pascal games in this compos that are dominated by new tools like unity, construct and javascript.
We can compete to see who gets the better position for a Pascal game in the Ludum Dare.

OBS - I'm still hard working in my pascal unfinishable game - almost finishing

[SilverWarior]

This way we put more Pascal games in this compos that are dominated by new tools like unity, construct and javascript.

I think that the main problem is that we pascal developers have to do much more work to finish any of our entries into these competitions. That is mostly becouse there isn't any Unity like game engine for pascal.
You see there is a big difference when creating a game with Unity worshop becouse unity has integrated resource managing, most comon algorithms etc. or when you have to go and implement all teese by yourself and thus write many thousands of lines of code.
If I only check my code that I have written for ingame Supply and Demmand economic system I was working I see that it has over 100K lines of code and it is still not finished entirely.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong I'm not discouraging anyone from participating in those compos. If I find out the theme of one of them to be interesting enough I also might go and try. But I do realize that I have much harder task at hand.

[AthenaOfDelphi]

I think that the main problem is that we pascal developers have to do much more work to finish any of our entries into these competitions. That is mostly becouse there isn't any Unity like game engine for pascal.
You see there is a big difference when creating a game with Unity worshop becouse unity has integrated resource managing, most comon algorithms etc. or when you have to go and implement all teese by yourself and thus write many thousands of lines of code.
If I only check my code that I have written for ingame Supply and Demmand economic system I was working I see that it has over 100K lines of code and it is still not finished entirely.

This is one of the factors that kind of puts me off... you use Unity or some other engine of a similar ilk and you have a massive head start... but the rules do allow for the use of publicly available engines and libraries, so theoretically you could use any of the engines we currently have available... or if we create a community engine... that would be open source and from what I read of the rules, acceptable

Get to that stage and we could get everyone who worked on the engine to crash the compy

[SilverWarior]

Get to that stage and we could get everyone who worked on the engine to crash the compy

You mean each of us go and creates its own entry so that even if our entries are not the best we still win becouse if being in great numbers.
Dream come true!

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Well it would certainly be a nice amount of exposure :-)

[dj_sharp]

On competitions:
I personally don't like competitions. Always seems like a waste of time to me. Like I'm trying to prove something that I don't have to prove

About game engine:
1.

I want to try and help the rise and start showing all those nay sayers who believe you can't use Pascal to make games that they are quite frankly wrong

One can use Pascal to make games. Do you really want to prove it? What for? I personally don't feel like proving anything. There are games written in Pascal. What other proof one could possibly want.
The reason why Pascal is not widely used is not because one can't create games with Pascal.

2.
There are fewer and fewer developers who use Pascal. This is a problem. Not only this, but the development as we know it might soon cease to exist due to ever increasing pace of technological progress.
I am an experienced game developer, I probably could develop a game engine.... given infinite time.
What if most people stop using PC soon?
What if most people stop using Windows soon?
What if programming skills will be no longer needed soon?

3.
Like the author of the first post said, there are already game engines. So why create another one?
Commercial game developers can use commercial game engines like Unreal Engine. Hobbyists can use hobbyists game engines including existing game engines for Pascal.

Well, I am starting to feel that I produced too much text by now and I should stop this soon......

ACTUALLY I think that it's great idea but.... but..... at the same time it's difficult and pointless. Well, I don't know. Who is going to develop it? Who is going to test it? Who is going to use it? Too many questions

---
@Andru: what if I told you that you're doing it wrong? Don't use [0..0] arrays. Don't use debugger. Make ur engine more object-oriented; right now it looks much like it's written in C.

[Andru]

Funny coincidence, just few days ago I thought about returning to development "just for fun", and here we are - topic on PGD about something like resurrecting community, hmmm...

[SilverWarior]

Funny coincidence, just few days ago I thought about returning to development "just for fun"

Does that maybe mean that you are concidering to resume working on ZenGL?

[code_glitch]

Can I just say that when the thought of a community engine dropped - ZenGL was darn high on my list of things to look at for making it. That work you did on ZenGL was pretty darn good IMHO

That said, I see a recurring theme here when looking at pascal and competition entries - pascal seeming less suitable for rapid competition game development than some of the other alternatives. Thus, would it not make sens to build a "system" (and by that I mean tools/framework/snippets/methodology/engine/thing) that would help make pascal more competitive in this space?

For instance, it could be an early compo of the kind Super Vegeta mentioned (with implementing things AI/algorithms/whatnot) to get the base code set. Or one could establish the base code and then launcch a compo to make use of it - which would provide a good data to develop a game engine on.

In short, what I'm saying is that 1. we have a problem in the game-sphere. Fragmentation of the codebase (how many of us have our own personal frameworks/engines/so on?), a high barrier of entry (pascal is currently seemingly unsuited to the compo game development environment) and that 2. we have a LOT of components and people. I realize how hard making an engine/API is - more so for a robust and stable system. (Hey - my prometheus engine is well known at LD. For all the wrong reasons). and finally: were pascal programmers. Our problems are not boredom, lack of projects and the like. Its lack of time. And as pascal programmers we're practical people who seem to be known for being practical people who are good at making things that work and fixing things so they work.

Just some food for thougt. After all, I tend to get kind of excited when community projects are possibly going to happen because its one of the few instances where I can work on something I couldn't do on my own with my limited abilities and the PGD community has a lot of talent that I sure wouldnt mind to see at work on something that could make everyones lives easier and help cement pascal as something that isnt THAT obsolete teaching toy people seem to think it is when reading about what it once was.