I recently bought a license for the Torque engine just so that I don't have to worry about the "plumbing" anymore and could start making games, and I was surprised about the elaborate scripting language. I was even more surprised when I read numerous posts in the community stating that game logic was usually implemented in script. I asked a colleague of mine today who worked in the game industry for a number of years if it was normal that game logic was often implemented in script (apart from the Torque engine), and he stated that it was becoming more and more common that games were created entirely in script languages because it's easier to work with. The reason I'm surprised comes ofcourse from my complete lack of experience of the "real games industry" and the trend of the threads I read on gamedev. Most of the things I read here are about C++/Java/other compiled languages. Thereby, my gut-feeling says that script is not being "easier to work with" because it is probably lacking decent (debugging/development)tooling and community support. Also, I'm sort of lost where one can draw the line between engine and script. What do I put in my engine? What do I put in script? Is there a rule of thumb? So, what do you think of this? Can you confirm the increasing popularity of scripting languages? Are you as surprised as I am? Do you think scripting is becoming more and more important? If so, also in the indie game development scene who might not be able to afford elaborate engines with scripting?

I hope scripting is becoming more important.

Even my own game uses a simple lua interface for lots of game logic. Its really great to be able to work on my game without having to run it through a compiler. My game logic is simple enough ( its an asteroids clone ) that I haven't run into anything that would require serious debugging tools yet. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to integrate lua and my own code ( which I would hesitate to call an "engine", its a bit too simple for that ).

I don't play lots of games, but some of the ones I've bought recently ( Civ 4 and prey ) have scripting language support, or so I've heard.

So yeah, I think its becoming about scripting. But its a really good trend [smile]

Scripting is the lifeblood of modern game development. It drives things, and is far, far more important in most cases than most of the underlying C++ code that forms the "engine". To that end, scripting languages have become increasingly refined, tested, supported, and optimized. Lua and Python are popular choices, with commercial games using them extensively and fairly sophisticated development environments appearing. They're also brutally efficient; even N64 and PSX games had scripting systems, despite the decidedly low end hardware.

Current trends indicate that scripting languages will continue to become more and more important. The need to rapidly prototype and develop games makes it necessary.

Quote:Original post by Sneftel

Quote:Original post by Structural
Thereby, my gut-feeling says that script is not being "easier to work with" because it is probably lacking decent (debugging/development)tooling and community support.

Why?

Because the user base of such a language is much smaller than that of say, C#. And the availability and quality of tooling and support is, in my opinion, directly related to the number of people using the language.
I am aware that comparing C#, a fulfledged can-do-anything language, with a scripting language with much less features. So when you take that into account the smaller community might not be such an issue. But I still have a very strong feeling that the availability and quality of tooling is less of what you can expect of other languages.
But as I said, this is a gut-feeling and I could be completely wrong.

Quote:Now, when you say "scripting", that's sort of a misleading word to use. A "script" is a description of what characters in a play or movie say. It's fully linear, without control structures or logic. Most of the so-called "scripting languages" you're looking at here are better defined as "high-level programming languages". And the march from C/C++ to high-level programming languages is as natural as the march from assembler to C/C++ was.

Ah, sorry for the wrong use of words. :)
But I agree that high-level languages are making things much easier. I am currently working in a research facility where we create demo's and implement research concepts and the use of modern languages makes implementing a demo much easier (C#, as opposed to C++).
But still, my doubt for scripting languages in games mainly comes from the tooling perspective.

Script engines in games have been around for a long time. They have become more popular for a few reasons:

• The types of games that use scripts have become more popular.
• The complexity of NPC behavior has grown.
• Processing power has increased.

Some advantages of scripts over compiled code:

• Scripts are easier to modify and the turn-around time is faster. In some cases, they can even be modified while the game is running.
• The languages are generally simpler and higher-level, making script-writing accessible to non-programmers.
• Less people modifying the code makes management of the code easier.
• Level designers are much cheaper than programmers.

Some of the drawbacks are:

• Execution is slower.
• Circular dependencies can be a problem.
• Tools are lacking.
• Non-programmers writing scripts can be a problem because it does require some level of programming ability.