The Cactus Game Engine

Duga

01:49

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] Ping: Encourage flow.

2

Ethan Bierlein

Alrighty, let's do this.

New repo, new chances.

Even if I'm the only one doing this.

Ethan Bierlein

02:11

Oh, and I'm starting work on Cactus again.

In a new repo though, for a "fresh start" of sorts.

github.com/ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn

Phrancis

What's Cactus for again?

Mat's Mug

text-based game engine

Ethan Bierlein

Think Zork + What Mat said

Phrancis

Who's Zork?

2

Ethan Bierlein

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork .

@Phrancis I think you mean "What's Zork?". ;-)

Phrancis

02:15

That's really cool

Ethan Bierlein

Thanks :-)

You're welcome to contribute once the project gets going again

The room is here fyi: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/24299/discussion-about-cactus

Phrancis

If there's anything you'd like to use that we have on Cardshifter, let us know

Ethan Bierlein

Okay, thanks!

Phrancis

Also, if I can give any advice on what we learned only recently that we wish we had a year ago: browsers are great for UIs (mostly)

Ethan Bierlein

Well, Cactus games won't have much of a UI, but if the engine really takes off, it might have a UI.

Phrancis

02:18

Would it just be played in the console?

Ethan Bierlein

yeah

Or maybe a bitmap screen with characters.

Or even some TKinter magic.

I'm still not sure yet.

For now, I'm sticking with pure console

Phrancis

JavaScript might be your friend, with the right library(ies)

But in any case... so far I like Python, and I enjoy working on games, so maybe I can pitch something into Cactus sometime

Ethan Bierlein

Cool. It'd be fun to have a project to work on with others.

Phrancis

Hey!

Ethan Bierlein

Hello!

Maybe we can move that conversation from The 2nd Monitor to here?

Phrancis

02:23

Sure, hold on

← 26 messages moved from The 2nd Monitor

Boom

Ethan Bierlein

Thanks!

Now I must figure out why my __init__ file isn't working properly.

Phrancis

So is Cactus right now basically just you?

Ethan Bierlein

yeah

You'll probably see me talk to myself a lot in here when no-one else is working on it.

Phrancis

I get that, I do that in SQL Helpline some too (to bump the room, and also leave interesting stuff there)

Ethan Bierlein

lol, if you look up in the chat history a little bit, you'll see a bunch of dots, which are me trying to keep the room alive.

Phrancis

02:26

So this is Python; is a Cactus game developer expected to know Python, or are you making a DSL for it?

Ethan Bierlein

Expected to know a little Python.

Most of the design process with the engine will involve instantiating a lot of classes, and then calling some run method.

Phrancis

Could you give me an example of pseudo-code of what making a game using Cactus might look like?

Ethan Bierlein

Actually, there might be an example from the previous engine, let me see if I can dig it up.

This might take a little while

Phrancis

No worries, I'm more curious about the idea itself behind Cactus

The main reason I was asking, though, is that DSLs can be really powerful, but I don't know if Python is conducive to making them

Hey @Mat'sMug

Ethan Bierlein

I'm sure one can do DSLs in Python, but it certainly won't be as easy as something like Groovy, or so I've heard.

Mat's Mug

02:30

@EthanBierlein I do that all the time in VBA Rubberducking ;-)

Duga

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom pushed commit f42f2aa6 to master: Ah screw it, there needs to be something here, even if it's broken.

Phrancis

Is Python as an environment cemented in at this point?

Ethan Bierlein

Yeah

lol

Phrancis

OK. Well the good thing is Python is simple enough to where you may not need a DSL

Mat's Mug

your dev branch is [master]? '~'

Phrancis

02:33

And by simple, I mean "good"

Ethan Bierlein

I don't do dev branches. Yet.

Mat's Mug

you should :)

Ethan Bierlein

Now I have to figure out why the cactus folder isn't showing up on GH.

Mat's Mug

is there anything in it?

Ethan Bierlein

Yup

Two files

Each with a docstring.

And some code.

Mat's Mug

02:34

tracked?

Ethan Bierlein

Wait

Phrancis

@Mat'sMug I push to master all the time on stuff I don't work on with a team

Ethan Bierlein

It didn't sync the solution file.

Mat's Mug

^

Duga

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom pushed commit 8bf10e78 to master: Strange, but okay.

Ethan Bierlein

02:35

nope

still not there

Phrancis

in Cardshifter TCG, 5 hours ago, by Duga

[Phrancis/GroovyDatabase] Phrancis pushed commit 1801f93e to master: Create CardshifterDB class and associated test class, reorganized classes into src/main and src/test

Ethan Bierlein

right

facepalm moment

all the files were untracked

Mat's Mug

1 min ago, by Mat's Mug

tracked?

#ToldYa

:)

Phrancis

INSERT INTO Palm VALUES (Face)

Duga

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom pushed commit 303e3dea to master: sigh. Let's try this again.

Ethan Bierlein

02:37

Aha, there we go.

Mat's Mug

@Phrancis INSERT INTO Face SELECT Palm FROM dbo.ShamefulMoments

2

Phrancis

LOL

@EthanBierlein may I suggest you rename the room?

Ethan Bierlein

To?

Mat's Mug

The Itchy Spot

Phrancis

LOLOL

No

Ethan Bierlein

02:38

Oh wow, I realized why I was getting NameErrors too. I wasn't prefixing the names with cactus.

Phrancis

"Cactus game engine" might be good

Ethan Bierlein

room topic changed to The Cactus Game Engine: General discussion about Cactus: (github.com/ShearOfDoom/TextEngine); Specs: (docs.google.com/document/d/…); Website: (shearofdoom.github.io/Cactus); Subreddit: (reddit.com/r/CactusEngine). [+community-project] [+fun] [+game-engines] [-crazy]

Phrancis

There we go

Ethan Bierlein

room topic changed to The Cactus Game Engine: General discussion about Cactus: (github.com/ShearOfDoom/TextEngine); Specs: (docs.google.com/document/d/…); Website: (shearofdoom.github.io/Cactus); Subreddit: (reddit.com/r/CactusEngine). [+community-project] [+fun] [+game-engines] [+unicorns] [-crazy]

Even better

Perfect! NameErrors are resolved, and I can now actually start working!

Phrancis

02:52

Yes very nice :)

Ethan Bierlein

Of course, I've just realized that it's almost 10PM, so there may not be much development until tomorrow afternoon.

Phrancis

Man how I truly, deeply wished your project was Groovy

Ethan Bierlein

shh

It's Python

It's still "Groovy"

;-)

Phrancis

But, Python is almost as good

Ethan Bierlein

It just lacks stuff for DSLs

Phrancis

02:54

I think there's a bit more to Groovy than that, but nevertheless, like I said Python is good in my book :D

Duga

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom pushed commit 68f2e4cf to master: Created basic project skeleton.

Ethan Bierlein

Well, I'm off to bed. Night!

Phrancis

03:12

Later

Ethan Bierlein

21:40

Development will be starting in maybe an hour or so, FYI

Ethan Bierlein

22:21

Development has started

Duga

22:35

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom pushed commit becbf3ae to master: Added a basic skeleton for the Location class.

Ethan Bierlein

Hello Duga!

Duga

22:49

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom pushed commit b14f1d55 to master: Fixed two minor bugs, and removed the useless "info" folder.

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom starred us

Ethan Bierlein

shh You're not supposed to say that

Duga

23:13

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom pushed commit 11cd892b to master: Removed useless "main.py" file.

Phrancis

23:53

So what's the news in Cactus today?

Ethan Bierlein

Not much, just adding some skeleton classes

With basic implementations

Duga

[ShearOfDoom/CactusReborn] ShearOfDoom pushed commit 96dcfd08 to master: Added a basic skeleton for the GameFlowchart class.

Phrancis

Dude you write Python good

Ethan Bierlein

Thanks bro ;-)

Phrancis

All that code documentation, you make me fuzzy inside ;)

Transcript for

The Cactus Game Engine