From: Francis Hwang <sera@...>
Date: 2004-11-22T05:52:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby and the XBox

I just bought "Freedom Force", a silly-but-fun superheroes pseudo-RPG.  
A lot of the files are in Python. Also, I have read online that Quake  
is written in two layers: the bare-to-the-metal stuff, which is C++,  
and the game logic, which is in a higher level language that I believe  
was custom-developed for the engine. This is standard  
alternate-hard-and-soft-layers stuff, I suppose.

If you wanted to push Ruby into the world of gaming, I'd guess that the  
first place to do so would be on the desktop, probably on a Windows  
box. On a desktop machine, the overhead of the Ruby standard install  
wouldn't be so heavy.

BTW, at RubyConf Shashank showed me the very basics of a game  
construction set that is aimed at writing board-type games ... It'd be  
a good place to start thinking about the high-level domain specific  
language that might be suited to games. If Shashank releases it any  
time soon (hint, hint).

On Nov 21, 2004, at 2:23 PM, Phlip wrote:

> Rubistas:
>
> I'm studying the game industry now. The Lua language has a strong lead  
> for
> the scripting layer for games. Here's a great post from the Lua mailing
> list:
>
>> The latest title from the German Company "BlueByte" called "Settlers  
>> V"
>> is about to be released. It consists of:
>
>>    - 500.000 LoC written in C++
>>    - 150.000 LoC written in LUA
>
>> LUA is used for all the mission scripting and they are very happy with
>> it since they started using it in Settlers IV. Settler V is one of the
>> major PC gaming titles to hit the stores for this Christmas.
>
>> Bernd
>
> It appears that BlueByte has discovered how efficiently they can author
> gameplay features, and the top level of their command-and-control  
> code, in a
> soft language.
>
> But why do so many game shops use Lua?
>
>  - an early lead in game development
>  - pure C implementation
>  - works inside a game box
>  - "easy" to bond with C
>  - super-efficient VM opcodes
>  - dynamic typing, with block closures
>  - minimal standard library, with discardable components
>
> I suspect I can humbly submit the indefensible opinion to this  
> newsgroup
> that Ruby has esthetic and technical advantages over Lua, but this  
> doesn't
> necessarily mean that Ruby can efficiently and responsively fit inside  
> an
> XBox and run games.
>
> Right?
>
> --  
>   Phlip
>    
> http://industrialxp.org/community/bin/view/Main/ 
> TestFirstUserInterfaces
>
>
>
>

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/