CLI GAME ENGINE

NOTE: Project for personal educational purposes.

• CLI application
• Ncurses library (wide character support)
• ECS: Entity, Component, Systems
• Makefile ¹
• Complete documenatation (with uml diagrams for a fast overview)
• The Game engine is not a library ²
• Simple battleship game made with the engine
• Custom logger and assetrions
• TODO: custom allocator
• Main loop single threaded and frame limited

Images

Requirements

• Linux
• Make
• Minimal terminal size: $\approx>$ 130 x 50 blocks

In most distro Ncurses is installed by default, otherwise you need to install the library. Check also if Ncursesw for wide character support is present.

NOTE: Note on log file:

• it is raccomanded to open the log file with therminal program like less, cat, etc...
• in .bashrc, or .zshrc, or whatever you have, add export CLICOLOR=TRUE if colors are not displayed.

Compiling

• To build locally the project, in base project folder:

make build

• Run:

./build/main 

• Clean:

make clean

Compiling Flags

The main compiling flags used are:

• Ncurses: -lncurses
  • For wide character support: -lncursesw
• In some cases the ncurses library is split in this other library: -ltinfo (use this flag if the compiler give an error on undefined reference to stdscr)
  • For wide character support: -ltinfow
• Debugging: -g, -Wall

ECS

Conventions:

• before component class name C.., es: CSprite, CBox, ...
• before component instatiation of class c..., es: cSprite, ...
• this two roule are the same with systems with s

General:

• Components: store only pure data, no logic
• Systems are function or classes
• Systems operate on entities that have some precise component

Systems order in game loop:

1. Input
2. Movement
3. Physics
4. AI
5. Renderer

Writing Convenctions:

• sructs name: small letters with maiusc letter to separate
• enum name, enum value: maiusc name with _ as separator
• variable and function name use maiusc character as separator: es: gameEngine, modGravityExp, veryLongVariable ...
• private data member start with m_ and s_ for static

TODO

No particular order:

• Multi scene managment
• Action managment
• Game loop
• Add custm logger
• Add custom assertions
• Add custom memory allocator
• Assets managment
• Riorganizzare l'ordine nelle cartelle del progetto
• Ricontrollare le incluzioni negli header file
• Cambiare il vettore di shared pointer di entity in altro (vettore di puntatori normali?)
• Implementare la rimozione delle entità nell'entity manager
• Add wide character compatibility for ncurses
• Implementare la prima scena di un menu
• implementare la scena di gioco
• Implementare la logica di gioco
• Implementare la scena pausa
• spostare tutte le definizioni degli enum nei corrispettivi header file ???
• rinominare la classe scenaBase in scene
• Add licence to the repository

Future Optimizations

(For another graphic game engine)

• custom memory allocator, array?, vector, math, phisics library
• all the systems
• implements grapics api
• separare il core engine dai sistemi e dal source code del gioco

TO ADD in future

(For another graphic game engine)

• Collisiion detection with a grid of detection (for close distance collision) like in the particle simulations programs
• for each entity, texture, world map, landscape, animations, lightining, sounds, particle system, AI systems, ..., objects create a fictitious preview (fast to render) to fast test this object while they are being constructed (coded)
• Separete the game engime static code from the compilation code of the game
• math and physiscs library
• documentations (online, pdf, linux manpage, windows??, AI chatbot?)
• Vulkan API, wayland? X11?
• tools nvim (vscode?) plugin

Footnotes

1. In future CMake??. ↩

2. For simplicity's sake, but it's easy to implement. ↩