Re: Games in Perl

At the moment it is difficult enough to do any form of graphics in perl, like displaying menus or buttons (no more difficult than in C, but that doesn't make it easy). Part of this problem is the not-crossplatform nature of graphics. As of a month ago, I was unable to find a interface to any 2D or 3D graphics engine for perl.

The best hope you have for graphics engines is to write a wrapper or interface to an existing engine like Nebula or Crystal Space.

However, Perl excels at being a server for distributed games, and there are a number of MOOs, MUDs, MUCKs and MUSHs not to mention many many CGI games that demonstrate this.

Nebula in particular looks very good for hitching up to perl. Unfortunately the last release was a year ago :( It's not terribly well documented, and half of that is in German.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

Comment on Re: Games in Perl

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(ichimunki) Re x 2: Games in Perl by ichimunki (Priest) on Jan 10, 2002 at 05:01 UTC
I mostly agree, but what's wrong with Perl/Tk, what with its GUI widgets and Canvas for drawing stuff on? Of course, while you might have fun in Tk with vector drawings and static bitmaps (remember how we all loved mostly low-rez Wizardry on our Apple IIs?) you probably won't find an interface to OpenGL in Perl. Oh wait. You will. grin (and no, I've never used it, so I can't actually say that it's worth a look). And if those engines exist with C interfaces and you gots skillz, maybe you'll be the hero by writing the XS to make them accessible to Perl. But frankly, I doubt a scripting language is a good place to write "action" oriented games with polygonz running all amok. But Perl makes a great place to implement an interface to GNU chess or a networkable or mildly AI'ed strategy or card game. Besides I seem to recall a recent article I read where the most popular computer games were Minesweeper and Solitaire, so maybe the interface isn't that big of a deal.	[reply]
Re: (ichimunki) Re x 2: Games in Perl by jepri (Parson) on Jan 10, 2002 at 13:49 UTC
Tk was kinda what I was referring to above. It's OK for basic stuff, but even GTK+ ain't got great gaming libraries. I pumped Nebula a little bit because it is a combination of fast C and easy to use Tk - could just as easily be perl. The Tk does the high level scene arrangment, and the C makes it go fast. Quite cool. ____________________ Jeremy I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.	[reply]
Re: Re: Games in Perl by count0 (Friar) on Jan 10, 2002 at 19:51 UTC
But you're forgetting gtk-perl!!! ;) It currently has support for all gtk+ 1.2 widgets, much of GDK, libgnomeui, and a few other things. It's worth checking out as a GUI for non-3D games.	[reply]