So whatever happened to the whole PGDCE thing?

[dazappa]

I haven't been here in forever. For me it is all about language and tool popularity. First, where do we go to find news in the first place that we can post on this site? The only other thing really is working on custom projects and posting about them.

I stopped using Pascal for games probably 5 years ago. The tools are weak. The libraries are unmaintained. It just feels like Pascal as a language for game development has faded out of existence. I still like Pascal, and I still use it with Lazarus to create some desktop software. Without any decent momentum behind a project though I find it hard to work with. I would rather make games than engines. At this point, I am more interested in 3d games than 2d games. That's not easy to do with Pascal, especially if you want all these cool new features like PBR and VR (if you guys haven't tried a Vive, you should they're so much fun).

Quick edit: We have amazing tools available as free to use now. Unity 3d and Unreal Engine 4 are stellar. Has anyone tried to make a comparable game in Pascal and compared how long it can take? These large game engines are dominating the game dev scene for a reason. I got tired of dealing with issues, missing features, and lackluster tools.

Anyway. I through you a couple of dollars for hosting Athena. It's not much but hopefully others can chip in as well.

FYI there is a small Linux game jam happening. No prizes or incentive to "win" just for fun. Might be worth entering if anyone uses Lazarus: https://itch.io/jam/linux-jam-2017

[phibermon]

@SilverWarrior - Yes I do see what you mean but Pascal engines currently available as good as many of them are still don't come close to the ease of use and rapid development capable with some of large and free engines that are available in other languages - you're totally right - it's game development, not graphics engine development but due to what's available? if a game developer working in Pascal right now wanted to produce even half of what unreal engine 4 is capable of - they need to write it themselves.

which leads onto :

Quick edit: We have amazing tools available as free to use now. Unity 3d and Unreal Engine 4 are stellar. Has anyone tried to make a comparable game in Pascal and compared how long it can take? These large game engines are dominating the game dev scene for a reason. I got tired of dealing with issues, missing features, and lackluster tools.

A view probably shared by many - certainly anybody looking to choose between Pascal and another language. Many of us have been working hard for a number of years on better and more capable engines but compared to the dozens/hundreds of developers that contribute to something like Ogre3D, unity etc - progress is slow.

Things are changing though and there's some very capable engines out there. There's certainly a lot more capability than people seem to be making use of

[SilverWarior]

@SilverWarrior - Yes I do see what you mean but Pascal engines currently available as good as many of them are still don't come close to the ease of use and rapid development capable with some of large and free engines that are available in other languages

Yes I perfectly agree with you on that. But why is that? Is it because Pascal as a language is not suitable for game development? Or is it because none of the "weaker" Pascal based game engines never remained in development for so long as development of those powerful game engines that were developed in other programming languages have?
Below you are mentioning Unreal 4 game engine. Do you even know how long was Unreal 4 game engine in development? Development of the Unreal 4 engine started in 2003 and it was published in 2012. That is 9 years of development done by experienced team before publishing but its development still hasn't stopped. But we should not forget about Unreal 4 game engine predecessors as they also affected the Unreal 4 game engine development in a way.
First unreal game engine was published in 1998 which is 18 years ago. So this in a way means that there is almost 20 years of development behind Unreal 4 game engine.

So how many Pascal based game engines have seen so long development time? I could come up with only three potential candidates

1. Your unpublished JINK game engine that as you have said has been in development for over 8 years
2. Platform extended which is successor to several popular Asphyre game libraries where the oldest one was releast back in 2007
3. Castle game engine for which I don't have release date of its first iteration

if a game developer working in Pascal right now wanted to produce even half of what unreal engine 4 is capable of - they need to write it themselves.

That is true. But what would be better? For them to start from scratch (all the way from writing OpenGL basics)? Or perhaps by extending one of the above mentioned game engines?
I think that the latter would be better.

Many of us have been working hard for a number of years on better and more capable engines but compared to the dozens/hundreds of developers that contribute to something like Ogre3D, unity etc - progress is slow.

But why is progress so slow?
I guess main reason for this might be the fact that each of the above mentioned game engines is basically being developed by single developers or very small team.
Now you may argue that in the past you offered others to join development of your game engine but there wasn't interest in that. I'm willing to bet that main reason for that is the fact that since you still hasn't published your game engine no one had a chance to see its capabilities and with that also its potential for improvement.
But then looking back at my last sentence I think that the main reason for lack of decent progress with Pascal based game engines is not due the lack of developers but instead lack of users.

So how can we bring more users to these engines?
Is it by teaching them basics of OpenGL which would potentially allow them to start creating one of their own game engines?
Or by teaching them topics that I recommended which would allow them to use one of the existing engines and actually start making games with it and maybe even join developers of these existing game engines with goal of adding additional features to them in order to bring them closer to Unity or Unreal 4 game engines?

I personally think that later choice is much better. That is why I'm so adamant about it.

[phibermon]

Yes I perfectly agree with you on that. But why is that? Is it because Pascal as a language is not suitable for game development? Or is it because none of the "weaker" Pascal based game engines never remained in development for so long as development of those powerful game engines that were developed in other programming languages have?
Below you are mentioning Unreal 4 game engine. Do you even know how long was Unreal 4 game engine in development? Development of the Unreal 4 engine started in 2003 and it was published in 2012. That is 9 years of development done by experienced team before publishing but its development still hasn't stopped. But we should not forget about Unreal 4 game engine predecessors as they also affected the Unreal 4 game engine development in a way.
First unreal game engine was published in 1998 which is 18 years ago. So this in a way means that there is almost 20 years of development behind Unreal 4 game engine.

So how many Pascal based game engines have seen so long development time? I could come up with only three potential candidates

1. Your unpublished JINK game engine that as you have said has been in development for over 8 years
2. Platform extended which is successor to several popular Asphyre game libraries where the oldest one was releast back in 2007
3. Castle game engine for which I don't have release date of its first iteration

Yes I'd agree with you on that too - there's been numerous engines over the years that seemed to die off - another notable mention for your list would be GLScene - while not an engine in itself? it's still in development and is very capable if you know how to use it. GLScene, Jink, Platform extended/Asphyre and Castle are probably the most advanced pascal frameworks/engines that are actively developed, Cast II is noteworthy too although I've not seen updates for quite some time.

But why is progress so slow?
I guess main reason for this might be the fact that each of the above mentioned game engines is basically being developed by single developers or very small team.
Now you may argue that in the past you offered others to join development of your game engine but there wasn't interest in that. I'm willing to bet that main reason for that is the fact that since you still hasn't published your game engine no one had a chance to see its capabilities and with that also its potential for improvement.
But then looking back at my last sentence I think that the main reason for lack of decent progress with Pascal based game engines is not due the lack of developers but instead lack of users.

Agree again - lack of users - something I'm very much aware of! but it's certainly not a lack of potential users. To my mind the two biggest barriers to 3D development are :

1. Lack of knowledge in the 3D realm
2. Lack of 3D resources to use in games or the skills to make them cheaply

The first I think is still underestimated. We've had GLScene for years and it's very capable - so why isn't there a dozen, large 3D game projects making use of GLScene? well it's mainly number one - it's not good enough to say "here's a model loaded and rendered to the screen" and "here's a particle system with a fire preset" if you want an amateur to create a game using your engine - it has to be, as we've often said, a game engine and a game engine to my mind should be something like Quake or the engine used in Fallout/Oblivion/Skyrim etc

You should be able to load some resources, allocate some defaults - assign a few events and have a 'working game'.

If a great set of useful components were going to take the Pascal Gaming world by storm? it already would of done.

All engines so far, have stop too short in terms capability, to gain a meaningful user-base, given the already small number of potential users.

The second is an issue for game development in general and not just specific to Pascal but it effects all game developers and in terms of the adoption of Pascal 3D engines - I believe it's a factor.

So how can we bring more users to these engines?
Is it by teaching them basics of OpenGL which would potentially allow them to start creating one of their own game engines?
Or by teaching them topics that I recommended which would allow them to use one of the existing engines and actually start making games with it and maybe even join developers of these existing game engines with goal of adding additional features to them in order to bring them closer to Unity or Unreal 4 game engines?

I personally think that later choice is much better. That is why I'm so adamant about it.

Again I agree - perhaps then a tutorial that shows how to do the same basic thing in three different engines?

[SilverWarior]

Agree again - lack of users - something I'm very much aware of! but it's certainly not a lack of potential users. To my mind the two biggest barriers to 3D development are :

1. Lack of knowledge in the 3D realm
2. Lack of 3D resources to use in games or the skills to make them cheaply

Why are you so convinced that in order for a game nowadays to become popular it needs to have 3D graphics? You know there are many popular 2D based games out there?
Here is a list of 6 2D based games (that I know of who) are amongst top 100 most currently popular Steam games (http://steamcharts.com/top):

1. Terraria at 20th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/105600
2. Stardew Valley at 29th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/413150
3. RimWorld at 50th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/294100
4. Factorio at 54th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/427520
5. Oxygen Not Included at 67th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/457140
6. Starbound at 75th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/211820

All engines so far, have stop too short in terms capability, to gain a meaningful user-base, given the already small number of potential users.

Have you ever asked why did this happen? I did and I believe that the main cause for this is too low user base which is killing the motivation for engine developers to continue their work on them.

Again I agree - perhaps then a tutorial that shows how to do the same basic thing in three different engines?

I was more thinking about tutorials about game development parts that are not dependent on game engines but sure when you need to visually show something we could make examples that would work with different existing game engines.

[phibermon]

Why are you so convinced that in order for a game nowadays to become popular it needs to have 3D graphics? You know there are many popular 2D based games out there?
Here is a list of 6 2D based games (that I know of who) are amongst top 100 most currently popular Steam games (http://steamcharts.com/top):

1. Terraria at 20th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/105600
2. Stardew Valley at 29th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/413150
3. RimWorld at 50th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/294100
4. Factorio at 54th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/427520
5. Oxygen Not Included at 67th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/457140
6. Starbound at 75th place: http://steamcharts.com/app/211820

Yes I do know more or less, do you know how many popular 3D based games there are out there?

It doesn't need to have 3D graphics no but certain game styles only work in 3D (same for some 2D styles) and out of that top 100 how many are 3D? 70? 80?

Some people want to create 3D games - you might not want to and there's nothing wrong with that but it's not about what we want - if we're going off figures? how many games of a given type there are and what API's/hardware they use? we can't ignore 3D hardware and techniques - it's a games programming website and such games are the vast, overwhelming majority :\

And as far as generic tutorials are concerned - as I've already stated, you could have a thousand of the most perfectly written generic tutorials that aren't dependent on any API's or engines - that aren't dependant on 3D or 2D. And after reading them all? someone still can't make a game.

Like it or not you can teach gamification, state machines, AI and whatever else all day long - sooner or later they'll need to draw something to the screen, play some audio, send data across a network.

We have to teach people how to do the specifics in pascal too - we can't just cover generic topics and tell people if that want to actually draw anything to the screen then head over to a C++ tutorial site or to use Engine XYZ and not to worry their pretty little heads about how it actually works or even if Engine XYZ will still be supported next year.

I mean I think it's a good idea to provide source code to examples - you'd likely agree - so how are our examples going to draw things? or are we not going to have any examples that look like games on a games programming website?

Are they going to render in 2D using somebody's engine? whose engine? we have to be impartial, if we started using somebody's engine for the tutorials what will that do to other engines?

So we use the underlying API's? which one? GDI+? windows only? ok we'll add Quartz and X11 rendering - now we need an abstraction so our examples will compile across the board - oh whoops we've written a 2D graphics library.

Definitely I'll help write generic tutorials with you or anything you think is a good idea but you've got to meet me half way here, we need to cover 3D hardware and for that we need to use an API and is there a better choice than OpenGL when it come to cross platform and future proof 3D? No it might not last forever but OpenGL 1.2 still works just fine on Windows 10 with a DirectX12 graphics card - I think OpenGL 4.5 is safe for at least as long - which has been well over 10 years now.

And finally one thing you've not realised is that nearly every game you just listed - renders using 3D hardware and that their scale and even aspects of their game-play are only possible due to 3D hardware.

When somebody is frantically scanning back and forwards through our generic, API agnostic tutorials as to why their Terraria clone is only running a 3fps then you can be the one to tell them that we skipped 90% of what they needed to know because you decided they didn't need to know it.

Come on dude - you know I'm right, agreed - generic things first, general techniques - good practices, good designs - but you can't escape 3D hardware - it will find you.

[SilverWarior]

Are they going to render in 2D using somebody's engine? whose engine? we have to be impartial, if we started using somebody's engine for the tutorials what will that do to other engines?

So we use the underlying API's? which one? GDI+? windows only? ok we'll add Quartz and X11 rendering - now we need an abstraction so our examples will compile across the board - oh whoops we've written a 2D graphics library.

And if we use OpenGL as an underlying API as you are suggesting aren't we also creating a 3D graphics library/engine?

Any way unless we are talking about graphics specific tutorials having discussion about which engine or graphic API to use is just pointless. Why? Because if we start limiting which engine or graphic API should tutorials use for their representation all we are doing is driving people away from writing any tutorials in the first place. Why? Because most of them won't be prepared to learn about specific engine or graphical API prior writing the tutorial. But they would be much more motivated to write a tutorial if they could use the engine or graphical API that they are used to work with.
Now you are surely thinking: "But that would be favoring one engine over other". Yes that is true. But you could always have other members porting the tutorial examples to work with other engines or graphical API's.
You see there is no rule saying that tutorials should be made by single person. They could always be made by groups of people or community as a whole. In fact having them made by group of people would surely lead to together quality of those tutorials.

but you can't escape 3D hardware - it will find you.

Really? How about all those old games (many still popular even today) that even predate 3D hardware. Games which had to run on computers that had far less processing power than even those non-smart phones that are out there.

And finally one thing you've not realised is that nearly every game you just listed - renders using 3D hardware

Not nearly every game but every game. But that is not due to game requiring 3D hardware but the sheer fact that every modern graphics card process all of the graphics in 3D. Even 2D graphics are processed as 3D with fixed Z orientation.

and that their scale and even aspects of their game-play are only possible due to 3D hardware.

I disagree with that. Why? Because none of the games that are on that list does suffer performance issues due to graphics cards not keeping up but instead due the CPU's not keeping up.