Scripting languages and Game Dev/Programming

Question

Okay, so I've been getting into 2D game developing/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?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.