3D ZZT tribute project
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 9:13 pm
Hi. Late last year I started work on a home brew game, writing a 3D graphics and logic engine using Haskell and OpenGL. I decided it would be a cool idea to loosely theme the game play around some of the key elements of ZZT, namely hard puzzles, combat, gems, ammo, torches etc. There could also be a white, cuboid smiley face running around. This line of thought led me to a working title of Game :: Dangerous (a tribute to ZZT).
This is a non - commercial project for which I will release the source code. So far I have implemented basic graphics (objects with textures), physics (running, jumping, gravity and friction) and programmable game logic. The latter consists of a low level interpreted language used to update game state on a per frame basis, which I call Game Programmable Logic Controller (GPLC). I have built player activated devices like lifts, doors and keys with this. It should be possible to build complex puzzles like those found in ZZT. I also have a makeshift tool chain for building game environments. The next major steps planned are the addition of lighting effects, non - player characters and sound.
If you think all this sounds like sacrilege, well...what can I say? Otherwise, I would be interested to hear from anyone who'd like to contribute to the project (or just play the game). Areas where help would be particularly useful are:
1. Working on an end user oriented map editor, like in ZZT. This could include adapting ZZT-OOP to the new engine's abilities and writing a compiler to transform this into GPLC.
2. Building and testing maps to be released with the game.
I'm an enthusiast developer taking on these challenges for the first time, so needless to say the level of sophistication I'm aiming for is pretty low compared to modern studio produced games. I should stress that anyone interested wouldn't have to be proficient in Haskell, as I intend to produce generic specification documents for the engine and a map editor could be written in a different language anyway.
Hope to hear your thoughts.
Steven
This is a non - commercial project for which I will release the source code. So far I have implemented basic graphics (objects with textures), physics (running, jumping, gravity and friction) and programmable game logic. The latter consists of a low level interpreted language used to update game state on a per frame basis, which I call Game Programmable Logic Controller (GPLC). I have built player activated devices like lifts, doors and keys with this. It should be possible to build complex puzzles like those found in ZZT. I also have a makeshift tool chain for building game environments. The next major steps planned are the addition of lighting effects, non - player characters and sound.
If you think all this sounds like sacrilege, well...what can I say? Otherwise, I would be interested to hear from anyone who'd like to contribute to the project (or just play the game). Areas where help would be particularly useful are:
1. Working on an end user oriented map editor, like in ZZT. This could include adapting ZZT-OOP to the new engine's abilities and writing a compiler to transform this into GPLC.
2. Building and testing maps to be released with the game.
I'm an enthusiast developer taking on these challenges for the first time, so needless to say the level of sophistication I'm aiming for is pretty low compared to modern studio produced games. I should stress that anyone interested wouldn't have to be proficient in Haskell, as I intend to produce generic specification documents for the engine and a map editor could be written in a different language anyway.
Hope to hear your thoughts.
Steven