Zach Beane ([info]xach) wrote,
@ 2009-05-13 14:09:00
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Entry tags:lisp

Lisp as a game server - Neuroarena

Rainer Joswig posted to reddit about a Flash game called Neuroarena. The forum discussion has some cool screenshots, and later in the discussion the developer Karol outlines the use of SBCL to support the game:

Battle server is written completely in Common Lisp (no C library used). We use SBCL (www.sbcl.org) which proved to be an absolutely fantastic development *and* production tool (we had just one minor hassle with garbage collector conservatism). It is used for all the actual game computation:

  1. keeping correct state of world (collision detection, ...)
  2. pathfinding
  3. AI

For the AI, we have created our own visual language/compiler for describing AI based on graph representation, and that language is compiled using CL to quite performant native code. We are using library I wrote some time ago for matching graph patterns describing the the AI behaviour (http://common-lisp.net/project/patg)

Neuroarena screenshot thumbnail

Very cool.


(7 comments) - (Post a new comment)


(Anonymous)
2009-05-13 09:08 pm UTC (link)
Yes, very. However, having a Flash-based frontend qualifies as really uncool. Especially since it doesn't work with the free implementations.

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[info]xach
2009-05-13 10:16 pm UTC (link)
I don't think that has anything to do with the coolness of it.

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Clojure
(Anonymous)
2009-05-14 01:04 am UTC (link)
Replace the flash front-end with a Clojure applet/webstart front end.

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Re: Clojure
[info]sebthecat
2009-05-14 02:13 am UTC (link)
Does anybody still try to use Java applets? I thought they died a horrible death years ago because users didn't like them?

I agree with [info]xach: it detracts nothing from the coolness, any more than the use of Erlang does.

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Re: Clojure
[info]myblog.rsynnott.com
2009-05-14 03:50 pm UTC (link)
It uses erlang, too? Damn, I thought I was going to be first with that particular combination supporting a game. (I have written a COMET proxy in Erlang, and intend to use CL for app-logic backend for realtime games)

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Re: Clojure
[info]sebthecat
2009-05-14 11:14 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, it's a real bitzer. Makes sense to me, though:
- Erlang to handle the initial front-end server stuff and to start up back-end battle servers on demand
- CL for the back-end battle servers themselves
- Flash for the browser-hosted UI

So, um, I think you've been pipped at that particular post. But you can still compete for being better and/or more popular :)

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Re: Clojure
[info]myblog.rsynnott.com
2009-05-14 11:45 pm UTC (link)
Oh, I wasn't going to use Flash; I don't care for Flash. Also, dissimilar game. Just vaguely surprised at the similarity. :)

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