[raincole]

I wonder if there is a SDL3 wrapper that comes with a scripting language[0], hot reload and build scripts for every major platform.

Love2D seems close to that, but afaik it doesn't support SDL3 features like the new GPU API.

[0]: It's not like I'm allergic to C++, but I firmly believe when developing something that is mostly interactive, such as complex GUI or games, a language that is garbage collected and can be hot reloaded would be much more apt.

[pusewicz]

Try https://dragonruby.org/. It's great! Still on SDL2, but will migrate to SDL3 eventually.

Code reload (because it uses MRuby) is just :chef-kiss:

[python-b5]

DragonRuby seems interesting, but being a paid product immediately rules it out for me. I've been working on my own similar, smaller framework, which is more work, but I believe it's valuable not to depend on a for-profit company for your work, if at all possible.

Also, the attitude much of the wiki / promotional pages are written in for that framework runs me the wrong way for some reason. "Unity and GameMaker rot your brain"... are you kidding me? No they don't. You're still writing real code and solving real problems. They just have more systems in place you have to work within. I don't like the self-righteous attitude. It's fair to not want to go open source if that's your preference, but don't act like people who don't want to use closed-source software where possible are being unreasonable. I also don't see how what is effectively a Ruby wrapper for SDL3 is such an immensely complicated piece of engineering that it needs to cost as much as they're charging for it.

[pusewicz]

It’s not just a wrapper. There’s more to it than you might think. It’s easy to say „just” without spending time understanding what a tool does.

[raincole]

It looks like Love2D, except you pay $50 to use Ruby instead of Lua (admittedly I think Ruby is a better language.)

I haven't used DragonRuby though, so if my above snarky comment is off please point me out.

[pusewicz]

Very often you can snatch free copies. Join the Discord. Just ask :)

[90s_dev]

As someone who dreams of making a living selling software that I've poured years and years into, that comment makes me very sad.

[pusewicz]

But why?

[90s_dev]

Why do I want to make money from my hard work? Or why am I sad when someone offers a way to bypass paying money for hard work to get something for free?

[krapp]

You can build a project linking SDL3 with Lua and have access to all of the features of SDL3, with the obvious caveat that you'll have to code the rest of the owl yourself, but it isn't difficult. I have a basic CMake script that I use for projects and it works fine. (also, obviously you can just run the Lua code locally and skip the build process altogether when developing.) I use LuaJIT though, and the FFI generator here[0].

[0]https://github.com/sonoro1234/LuaJIT-SDL3

[90s_dev]

That's what I'm working on, basically love2d but SDL3 and TS/JS (via QuickJS). And no box2d builtin, but easily importable via CDN.

[CJefferson]

Obviously you can do what you like, but I'd advise making sure box2d (or similar) is super easy. Bonus points if there is also a built in function for drawing box2d objects.

I've often taught beginning game dev in a day, and with box2d in love2d you can very quickly make a wide selection of cool games, and while it's not perfect it makes it easy to get started making platforms, doing collisions, all sorts of things.

[90s_dev]

Fair enough, maybe I'll include it after all. Unless I get hung up on the question of which physics engine to include. Endless possibilities make decisions difficult.

[CJefferson]

A good way to think about it is in my opinion, you making a choice saves all your future users having to make that choice — imagine the decision making time they will all save.

[raincole]

That's my idea stack as well (I tried to build something like SDL2 + V8 at some point but ended up giving up...) If you have a repo/website set up please leave a link for me to follow :)

[90s_dev]

Yeah sure https://github.com/sdegutis/minigamemaker placeholder.

[90s_dev]

... at least if I can get the simplest Visual Studio + CMake + vcpkg hello world working.

Which I can't.

This always happens every few years. It takes me about a week to get a C++ program compiling and running, and by the end of it, I've lost all motivation, forget how any of it works, and delete it all and move back to TypeScript/web stuff. At least that I know despite all its warts.

[edit] figured it out

Hello me from the future, googling this in a few years. It's actually really simple: just follow the same steps on that page you were on[1] except you HAVE TO run the `vcpkg new --application` and `vcpkg add port fmt` commands in the dev cmd prompt, you can't just add the file manually for some reason, even though that's all it seems like it's doing.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcpkg/get_started/get-star...

[90s_dev]

I can't do it.

I can't work in Visual Studio. It's so unintuitive.

I have to do this in VS Code.