undefined | Better HN

0 pointsseanisom2y ago0 comments

> Currently it is the low level, cross platform layer that is the most complex and the biggest hurdle towards making a game engine viable

I couldn't agree more. My goal is not to simply build "a better game engine", but to make this kind of low-level tech accessible at a higher level and with much better dev tools to a broader class of developers and applications

> Don't underestimate what an individual or small teams can produce if they are operating on a solid platform

This gets into my motivations for building a company - larger companies have the resources to build moats, but often can't quickly realign themselves to go after novel technical opportunities. It's not either / or - both models exist for very valid reasons.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

joeyjojo2y ago· 2 in thread

I am glad people are working on it!!

Have you seen Kha by any chance? It has similar goals. I find it quite awesome, but it won't gain mass adoption for a bunch of reasons. https://github.com/Kode/Kha

Someone built an immediate mode renderer on top https://github.com/armory3d/zui, which is utilised by ArmorPaint https://armorpaint.org. I also use Zui for my own bespoke 2D game engine.

I find this tech and tooling really quite amazing (just look at how little source code Zui has) given just how small the ecosystem around it is. I think Kha really illustrates what can be achievable if the lower levels have robust but simple APIs, just exposing the bare minimum as a standard for others to build upon. It really suggest taking a look at the graphics2 (2d canvas like) api.

For the kind of project I work on (mostly 2d games), I think it would really awesome if your framework also supported low level audio, and a variety of inputs such as keyboard, mice, and gamepads. If it also had decent text rendering support it would basically be my dream library/framework.

seanisomOP2y ago

Interesting! Had never heard of it before, will check it out. The point of Haxe seems to be as a meta-compiler to generate code for a bunch of different languages/compilers? The same spirit of the Wasm dev experience but without the runtime.

Text / fonts is very much on the roadmap! For input and audio I would have to think through the scope.

joeyjojo2y ago

> The point of Haxe seems to be as a meta-compiler to generate code for a bunch of different languages/compilers?

That's basically correct, although there is also a cross platform runtime called Hashlink but is unsupported by Kha.

https://hashlink.haxe.org/

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse