At Nim conf 2020 I did a quick talk about Enu, a 3d live programming environment that I've been working on. It's still a few weeks from an initial release, but I recorded another video and I thought I'd share it:
The code is at https://github.com/dsrw/enu.
Thanks!
Nice. For me this is the first video about Nim programming where watching a video has indeed some advantages over reading a tutorial :-)
I have already watched some minutes, which is my personal record for videos about computer programming. You told that you made it with Nim, which would be great indeed. But I got the feeling that it is based on Godot engine. Well maybe fine too, but you really should tell it at the beginning of the video. If not then it is like the many people who say they have created a famous Nim lib when they indeed have only run c2nim to generate a low level wrapper.
The initial release will mostly be for education. People (mainly kids) could use it to learn the basics of coding, and maybe put together a few interesting worlds. I run a coding club with a group of 10 year olds, so we'll be using it there. Sort of a 3D Scratch alternative.
Eventually, I'd like it to be a fully baked game dev tool, with a strong focus on interactivity, developer productivity and fun. This is still very far off, but I think it could be a good tool for hobbyists, people in a hurry (Ludum Dare and such) and for prototyping.
After the first release (in a week or two, I hope), I'm going to drive development by building small games and demos, and adding features to Enu to support whatever game I'm working on.
I just released a new demo video for Enu and posted it to Hacker News. I'd very much appreciate some love.
Enu 0.1 will release on Nov 6th with Mac/Windows binaries, and will be validated to build and run on the latest Ubuntu LTS. Thanks!
Enu 0.1 has finally been released. Only 3 months late!
https://github.com/dsrw/enu/releases/tag/v0.1.0 has x64 binaries for Mac, Windows and Linux. The Linux build has only been tested on a single Ubuntu 20.4 system, and I expect there will be issues. Report them here or on github and I'll sort them out as quick as I can.
The readme at https://github.com/dsrw/enu should mostly cover how to use it, but please ask if anything isn't clear. The previous demo video is also mostly valid, although there have been many small changes since it was recorded. I'll put another together soon.
Version 0.1 is still pretty rough, but I'm hoping to pick up a few users and maybe get some feedback, so I'll try to be as responsive as possible addressing questions and issues. If there are no showstoppers I'll post to hacker news in a day or two.
Thanks!
Just wanted to say a huge thank you for Enu!
I've finally set down and tried it out, together with my son. It's so much fun! It has even replaced race games for us.
He's four and can't read, write, or program but he's building them buildings manually like a pro. And I'm programming huge towers for him.
How can I contribute?
Thank you! That's really nice to hear. 1.0 is still far off, but getting to the point were other people can use enu has been really rewarding.
How can I contribute?
I'm planning to do a v0.1.2 release soonish (in the next week or two) that focuses on bug fixes and quality of life improvements. If there are any small changes that would make things easier for you or your son, I'd really like to hear about them. @juancarlospaco has made a few great suggestions already.
Any kind of documentation improvement or tutorial would also be very welcome, whether via a pull request or a blog post/youtube video. Code contributions are also welcome, but 0.2 will be a pretty major refactor, so I'd suggest waiting until then before diving into the code.
Thanks for trying out enu!
After almost 13 months and 263 commits, a new version of Enu has finally been released.
Enu 0.1.97 is the first preview of Enu 0.2, which should be out in the next 3 - 6 weeks. Significant new features since 0.1.2:
- A prototype based object system for instancing new units.
- Action Loops, simple state machines for managing unit behavior.
- API simplifications and improvements.
- A new somewhat forward compatible level format. Levels created in 0.1.97 will open in future versions, but may require edits to account for API and feature changes.
- Extensive internal changes. There's still some cruft, but I'm generally quite happy with the architecture.
- Expanded docs.
- Many old bugs fixed. Many new bugs created.
- Player can now stand on moving platforms, and will automatically climb 1 block elevations.
- Enu is a little bit smarter about merging builds together. This still needs work.
- Brown blocks! Added specifically for building potatoes.
- Native arm support under macos.
- Lots of other things that I'm not thinking of.
Still required for 0.2: https://github.com/dsrw/enu/tree/ce7d57109c8a24dd942ab9e74a29bed79ef9d475#todo-for-02
None of the builds are signed. The mac build will be signed from 0.2, and the windows build from 0.3.
A shout out to @moigagoo for encouragement and support, and for sticking by the project after a full year without a release. Thank you!
Full Changelog: https://github.com/dsrw/enu/compare/v0.1.2...v0.1.97
Enu 0.1.99 has been released! This is the final release before 0.2! Maybe!
I've also released a new demo video that uses Enu to create Inky: Isolation, a simple survival game that stars Inky, the blue ghost from Pac-Man. https://youtu.be/9e9sLsmsu_o
0.1.99 is a big release, with a bunch of features that I wasn't planning to implement until after 0.2 that generally make it a better teaching tool. These include:
- Signs. Text that can be shown in world, or displayed in the UI. These are written in a subset of markdown and support headers, lists, bold/italic text, links and inline code blocks. Notably absent are tables and multiple header sizes, but these will be added when I need them. Additionally, links can include nim:// urls, which take code that gets evaluated in the context of the script that created the sign. This + strformat makes it possible to create rudimentary dynamic UIs that can be used for things like menus.
- Tutorials. It's now possible to set lock = true and visible = false in a script which will make the object non selectable/editable/visible by default (this can be overridden by enabling god_mode in the enu config file). Combined with signs above, it's now possible to create tutorials in Enu that can respond to player actions, hide/show objects, and offer information to the player, and by setting lock = true we can prevent the player from breaking anything by mistake. When enu is loaded for the first time a tutorial will be shown that explains the basics of the UI, and has the player code a robot to navigate a very simple maze. For 0.2 I plan to add tutorials around variables, loop, and conditionals, and post 0.2 there will be a tutorial that guides the player through the creation of the Inky: Isolation game. If you already have an Enu world on the go the tutorial won't be loaded, but you can see it by removing the world field from config.json, or setting its value to tutorial-1.
- Lots of new commands and object properties. The docs have fallen out of date unfortunately, but I'll make sure they're current for 0.2.
Still to do for 0.2:
- Lots of bug fixes.
- Update the docs.
- Better testing of the Linux and Windows builds.
- Automated builds.
- An easy way to load worlds outside of the Enu data directory, to allow projects to be downloaded from Github.
- An arrow that shows where the current draw position is, and which way forward will go.
- Make the draw position the center rotation point for an object, allowing the rotation point to be changed. Right now it will always rotate around the first block you drop.
And post 0.2:
- Move script execution off the main thread.
- An inventory.
- More object types.
- Pathfinding/navigation.
- Custom block colors and textures.
And post-post 0.2:
- Multiplayer
Please report any bugs. I'm going to try to get some kind of forum up soon, but for now reply to this thread or email [email protected] if you have questions. Thanks!