Hi Thomas,
I chose not to go through the Windows Scripting Host for two main reasons.
First, because I don't know very much about it. Smile. This, of course, can
easily be taken care of; I could sit down and do some research into it, but
from what I know of it already I decided to go with a dedicated language
instead. My main issue that I can see, which brings me to my second point,
is just the fact that there are so many scripting languages that it supports
which makes it very hard to adapt the engine to function the best that it
possibly can. For instance, you might want to use callback functions for
some purpose but before you can do so, you need to be sure that all the
scripting languages that you intend to support through the host have this
capability. Also, it makes it much harder to document the engine as you will
most likely need to provide usable examples for every function/method in
multiple languages. I also ask myself, how easy is this to enter into as a
complete beginner? Would I, as the engine's creator, decide to favor one
language supported by the host that I then provide a tutorial for? Or do I
tell people to go read tutorials online? Or, do I in fact provide tutorials
for a whole bunch of these languages as part of the package?
The root I decided to take was to go with a dedicated scripting language,
not one that I wrote myself but one which is extremely customizable and
flexible and that allows me to know exactly what is happening at all times.
The Bgt package includes a comprehensive tutorial that teaches you how to
operate the language from the ground up, as well as a few well commented
example games to show you the engine in action. This way, I can guide the
user from writing their very first hello world all the way to writing yet
another space invadors clone provided that they don't come up with a better
idea. SMile.
To summarize this long-winded rant. With the ability to focus on one
language alone, I feel that I am able to really stretch the engine to its
limits by exploiting every single feature that the scripting interpreter in
question provides. Also, it will be a whole lot easier to go cross platform
in the future if that should ever be my wish, as the interpreter runs on
everything from the IPhone to Linux to Windows to the XBox.
Kind regards,
Philip Bennefall
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Ward" <thomasward1...@gmail.com>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 5:17 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Genesis Engine was Retro Gaming
Hi Philip,
Ah, just the person I need to talk to about this subject. <grin>
I'd like to know how you are handling the scripting aspect of the BGT
toolkit. I know you said it has a C++ style scripting language, but is
this something you created on your own or did you go through something
like the Windows scripting host?
I've come up with several ideas for scripting modules for the engine,
and one way I have thought of is using the Windows scripting host.
That way I could add support for VB Script so anyone with a basic
knowledge in Visual Basic could script this thing, and it would not be
as difficult as say C++ to program. Plus the fact the engine itself
would handle all the core stuff like handling Windows events, keyboard
input, joystick input, sound support, Sapi support, whatever. All the
scripter would have to do is call the SpeakMessage function to tell
Sapi what to say or use the SoundOpen and SoundPlay functions to play
sounds, etc.
As for creating high level objects that's a good point. although, I
think I could create some generic classes to choose from such as
warrior, adventurer, wizard, etc that would cover just about anything
the developer could want. With a little imagination a person might
even use some classes for duel purposes. For example, a Star Wars
junky could in theory use a wizard class for a Jedi character since
some powers and abilities could be used for both.
On 3/11/10, Philip Bennefall <phi...@blastbay.com> wrote:
Hi Thomas,
The way I am doing it in the Bgt engine is to provide the core
functionality
in the actual package, and then let people of course including myself
write
modules for it. This way, you can go as high or as low level as you wish
when making games. The engine is about to go into public beta in a month
or
two, and I am very interested to see how it's received mainly because
while
it is about 10 times easier than regular C++, it's still a fully fledged
scripting language. My engine does not currently provide high level
objects
for environment and character management etc, as I feel that that is a
little too game specific for the basic engine. This, however, will very
likely be provided as includable modules.
Kind regards,
Philip Bennefall
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