Forth is not a serious application language. (Likely you
probably never heard of it.) But to those aware: I know, I know it's kind of a dead horse, just read this and tell me your opinions.
At the beginning of 2012 I finished a basic OpenGL game library for SwiftForth. I did not release it. Some people who remember me as mcsleepy, rogerlevy, casiopt1 etc, probably remember my previous incredibly ambitious projects. Well, this one isn't. It's very simple, very little in the way of specific-to-games functions, just provides mainly simple sprites, text, input, audio, access to opengl. And for the most part it's done, I just decided to put it away for a while because ironically I was just tired of it. And I guess I had finally come down from my trip over the mountain and saw what I could see, and felt closure.
Flash forward to now, I was just offered the chance by a Forth veteran to polish my library, document it fully, and create a demo. This is something I can't/won't normally have done in my free time because of my overriding passion for music-making. He also said I should probably see if I can get the vendor of another (way better) system, VFX Forth to pay me to port it to that system. More money, more time. More of what I don't really want to do right now, if given the choice, but hang on...
I actually already made a working demo, though I'd consider it not complete or ready. No sound.
Download (Windows, 1.6MB)Controls: Just arrow keys. Special moves: left-left; right-right; down-down-up; hold up when in the air to hover
I would like the demo to be more polished than this, even if just one level. I'd have 3-4 weeks to do it, on top of documenting the crap out of everything, fixing bugs, and adding a few client-requested features. All for a relatively shitty rate for coding. I don't mind doing it, but I know that it would steal away all of my time from music, as I have a prior part-time freelance commitment.
So I'm asking for your opinions. Would anyone want this? If I do it, will people be watching? By the end of it, the end-product includes a microsite I'd have to build to showcase the features. And make a case for trying game-dev in a programming language nobody uses. I am
well aware of the number of failed attempts to do this. Actually, I have no interest in trying to convert people. I just wanted to make games and thought this was a fun and interesting way to do it. Turns out it's actually kind of freaking hard, but only because it's so different and unsupported. If more people were doing it there would be more writing about it and betters tools. I am not in the evangelism business. Best I can do is show that it works, what you can make in it.
I also need the money. It would be more fun than doing web development. The only thing I am worried about is after it's done. What then? Actually this is probably the thing I could probably use the most help on, is having an idea of what I can expect, or what direction I could take it in once it was released if I did decide to take this guy's money. I need insight.
Happy to answer any questions you might all have (about the library itself, or Forth)
And here be some Forth-related links for info:
Wikipedia pageSwiftForthVFX ForthColorForthGreen Array Chips - Neat low-power Forth-based multicore arrays
Developer
