Scripting languages and Game Dev/Programming

Okay, so I've been getting into 2D game devel开发者_JAVA技巧oping/programming , and many games I've seen use some sort of scripting language too. So I'm wondering - What's the purpose of using scripts in games? I know there's not simple one reason answer, and I've been trying to consider all the possibilities. Here's what I 'think' I know so far:

1) Scripts allow for changing the game without having to re-compile.

2) Scripts are easier for non-programmers to use.

3) Scripts allow me to separate the engine from the game itself allowing me to make other games with the same components quicker?

That's about all I'm aware of. My next question is, if I'm going to be Dev/programming a game alone - do I really need to use scripts? Or could I prototype the game using something like python or ruby, to allow for rapid testing, then rewrite the code in C++ saving time and compiler bugs, etc?

Another thing I'm wondering, Am I better off using Ruby or Python since I'm most experienced with those? Or should I use Lua, Perl or something else if it better fits what I aim to achieve? Speaking on that matter, what really should I use scripts for? should I use them to position and model game menu UI's, write/read save-files, load map levels, hold arrays or structures of game terminology such as "New Game" or "Quit," all of the above, none of the above?

If I make use of scripts, won't that allow game mechanics to be edited by the end user? Or is there a way to package the scripts into one compressed file that the engine can read?

Most basically, I'm wondering:

What should I use scripting in my game for? And why?

Do I need use scripting languages if I'm working alone or with programmers as opposed to Devs?

What scripting language 'should' I use if I were to be making platformers, RPGs, or what-have-you?

---

your top 3 reasons are all 100% correct and are the main reasons for using scripting languages along with your game engine.

Personally I've only really had experience with Lua through Luabind. It's a little tricky to setup but it was worth it. What you can do with scripting languages is expose the data structures and/or functionality that you want the 'user' in this case yourself, to be able to use. Generally speaking the only game mechanics etc that can be editted would be the ones you allowed them to.

What should I use scripting in my game for? And why? Asset loading, exposing features/types, ie, for our game engine (written in c++), we had a base level, and then many different types of level inherriting from it, such as wave level, death match, etc. The user simply states in the script what type of level they need, and then chucks in the assets here too. In my demo we had;

Level="wavelevel"

--Level Initial number of enemies

EnemyNumbers="3"

--Level Total number of waves

WaveNumbers="4"

--Wave coefficient

WaveCoeff="1.1"

--Size of terrain

TerrainSize="256"

--Terrain file

TerrainFile="resource/Models/mountainous.raw"

Don't worry too much about the numbers and all of that.

As you can see that does some asset loading as well as determining the level type

We also gave a lot of control for the AI to scripts, in fact, the data structures were almost completely exposed to Lua.

Do I need use scripting languages if I'm working alone or with programmers as opposed to Devs?

Yes no maybe? We all prefer 'real' coding of course. If you can make your game engine abstract enough to build completely different games just with Lua, then it means you've done a great job and have designed it very well.

The other thing you have to think about, especially if you're game engine is quite huge, and lets face it, there isn't really going to be a small one, each time you compile, it can take minutes! It's the linker that's taking time here.

What scripting language 'should' I use if I were to be making platformers, RPGs, or what-have-you?

I've only ever used Lua, so that's the only advice I can give here.

Hope this is helpful info for you.

---

Honestly, as this sounds like your first attempt at a game ever, you shouldn't even be worrying about this sort of thing. Instead, I'd be more worried about keeping the scope of your project down to a level where you have a snow ball's chance of actually completing something. If you haven't done something at the level of Tic-Tac-Toe or Pong yet, do that first. What you learn there will be more valuable than worrying about a scripting language.

Oh and if you are doing an RPG as your first attempt at a game. Don't. They are by far the hardest type of game to do even for professional developers with many, many times the resources available to them. Keep it simple and and use this as a learning experience.

Back to your questions: If you are the only one who will ever see your game, your choice on using a scripting language or not. If it will save you time overall or you want to learn how to do integration of scripting with code, go for it, but beware it will be a bit of a time sink.

Yes/no/depends on your second. If the scope of your game is small, scripting isn't as important. If you doing this alone, scripting isn't as important.

Your choice on what you know or what your engine will support (or what engine tools you cna buy to support). Lua is popular, but even hand rolled scripts will work as well. It's more about decoupling data from code and design type work from engineer type work.

Your initial points above apply. Scripts keep non coders out of code and allow anyone on a team to easily change data related stuff that should be in code anyways. Scripts also act as a very high level language allowing lots of game level changes in controlled ways that would/will look ugly if placed in code. I've personally worked on games that were done both ways. Scripted games were a bit easier to maintain at the end of the game cycle - IF IF IF the script support code was mature and had been run through some debug cycles. New script support code is harder to debug than coding things straight because there are more possible points of failure. Games that were coded without scripts tended to get done a touch faster, but required a lot more programmer/engineer time which means the overall scope of things had to be limited to stay on budget.

I will say that well designed scripting and overall gaming system will always beat straight coding. Look at Unity for an example of how scripting and code and everything else can be coupled into a slick interface that allows very quick game development.

---

What should I use scripting in my game for? And why?

The reasons you cited are good ones. One thing that you might need to understand is that most professionnal games are still built with C++ and it's far from being flexible to change if the code base is big. So if you use C++ you'll need scripting languages to make quick changes where it's imporant to be allowed to do so accordingly to the reasons you listed.

If you don't use C++, maybe you use a language that can absorb changes quickly, making the main purpose of scripting not so obvious. I wouldn't use scripting language in a Flash or Python game for example.

Do I need use scripting languages if I'm working alone or with programmers as opposed to Devs?

As my previous answer : it depends on the timing of changes. Think that the core rules of games rarely change but everything relative to level design will, and should be testable ASAP. If you can do it in the game's programming language, why bother? If you can't, then any way to speed-up change integration will pay.

What scripting language 'should' I use if I were to be making platformers, RPGs, or what-have-you?

Frankly, there is no one solution to any problem. I personally use Falcon and ChaiScript, Lua is well known but any scripting language that can be used with your game programming will do. That's a question already asked around and if you have doubt, just choose Lua as it's the most common in gaming.

---

I'll give you a quick and short answer. Scripts are mostly for changing things while the game is still running which you can edit things faster. This is much better then recompile, reloading the assets, going to the specific point in game, activate certain conditionals (items, talking to people in specific order, etc) and etc.

Things done in script are character speech, NPC interaction with triggers (for example walking somewhere stopping to talk to another NPC, then run somewhere, scripting is used for timing), triggers or events in general and enemy stats (health, speed, accuracy, sometimes logic for said character).

---

The reasons you list are all valid reasons for using scripting languages in games. I'd also add another reason though: different languages are better suited to different kinds of programming tasks and a high level scripting language allows you to write parts of your game in a language that might be a better fit than C++.

The main reasons C++ is widely used in games are performance, easy access to low level native APIs or hardware (on consoles) and inertia - most games are written in C++ so most third party libraries and middleware for games are written in C++ and most easily interfaced with from C++. For many tasks however higher level languages like Python, C# or Ruby have programmer productivity benefits over C++ that can outweigh the advantages of C++ for code that is not performance critical or does not have to interface with native APIs.

A well designed C++ game engine with a high level scripting language can give you the best of both worlds - the performance and low level access of C++ where it's most needed and the productivity benefits of a high level language where they are most needed.

---

As a matter of fact, almost all MMORPG game servers are programmed in script.

All the C++ engin will embed a script language for logic handling, lua is a suitable script language for it.

In bigworld, python is the default embed language.

And node.js is also a good candidate for game server programming. Because its network io ability is superior. There is an open source framework in node.js: https://github.com/NetEase/pomelo/

---

I've found it unhelpful to use scripts, both when I was employed in a large game studio and in my work as an indie developer. On the other hand I have friends who've used professional-grade, modern engines with scripting technology successfully. As you're doing indie game development on your own (or in a small team), I think you should avoid it. The main reasons are:

• It adds overhead pretty much everywhere: one more language to master (per developer in the team), performance is slower than native, and the API the weakest link which means you often need to rebuild the binary anyway.
• The only real gain with a higher-level language is less development hours up front (if you're using a mature engine), but in my experience that time is eaten up by time-consuming bug-smashing in the end.
• Many game scripting languages uses dynamic typing (Lua, Stackless Python, Pawn), which I find error-prone compared to statically typed languages. If you too feel it's only good for simple things, you might as well do it natively instead.

As a side-note I do find game scripting languages exceptionally useful, but only for quick-hack/prototype apps, not for huge components within games. See my answer here.

---

I'm not convinced scripting interfaces for games you write yourself are so useful. I did some work on Freeciv once, and immense effort went into enabling "modding" using the scripting interface. A feature that seemed little used. I think there is a danger of the inner platform effect. You don't need a scripting language to customize your game: you already have a perfectly good programming language (C++, in your case) for doing that. It's a WTF.

---

What should I use scripting in my game for? And why?

As everyone (including you) has said, scripts make your game easier to edit. On a larger team scripting also has a very good productivity effect: the tech-savy folks can continue to polish the engine, while the creative people can work on the actual game, and the two teams don't have to get in each other's way.

Do I need use scripting languages if I'm working alone or with programmers as opposed to Devs?

You don't need it and depending on what you're final goal is, it might actually be a waste of time to implement scripting. I also develop a 2D scriptable game atm; I'm alone but I'm making it scriptable also as a personal challenge and also because I want the game to be easily modifiable.

What scripting language 'should' I use if I were to be making platformers, RPGs, or what-have-you?

The top two most popular options are Lua and Python. Most people recommend Lua because it's slightly faster. I went with Python because it has (native) support for classes — which works well with my existing C++ architecture — and also because I find it to be a much more enjoyable language to work with.

---

Okay, I know this is a bit dead, but I have to say this. There is literally no such thing as programming without scripts. It honestly doesn't matter if you write them in yourself or not, fact is, somebody wrote those scripts. Like ruby, in order to use it, you need a program like say notepad+ in order to set it up, or any computer based RPG Maker from enterbrain uses a form of ruby to operate. like it or not, when using computers to design a game, learn to script. Now as for the language, look some up and try different ones out. Don't cheap out with using a pre compiled engine, just work from scratch. trust me, you will be better off. I am still trying to decide which I like better, Lua(C++) or Ruby. I may just use pure C++