[HN Gopher] Show HN: Akedo - Retro gaming and coding platform
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       Show HN: Akedo - Retro gaming and coding platform
        
       Author : yrandom
       Score  : 114 points
       Date   : 2022-06-21 13:47 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (akedo.app)
 (TXT) w3m dump (akedo.app)
        
       | empressplay wrote:
       | Great stuff! Consider having a game jam on itch.io to attract
       | some users
       | 
       | I can't help but plug my own 3D version: https://turtlespaces.org
        
         | yrandom wrote:
         | Thanks, that's a great idea!
        
       | cubano wrote:
       | _In this highly realistic tennis game..._
       | 
       | Its always a plus, in my book at least, when the dev has a solid
       | sense of humor...thanks for the work and I hope it helps a
       | youngster get into game programming.
        
         | yrandom wrote:
         | Thanks, I spared no expense!
        
         | bitwize wrote:
         | It's a very deep sense of humor, too, as actual 8-bit sports
         | games were unironically marketed as "highly realistic" or
         | similar. In fairness, those copywriters were probably referring
         | to the simulation code, and not necessarily the graphics, being
         | realistic for the standards ofnthe day.
        
       | freedomben wrote:
       | This looks like a really neat educational platform! A few
       | questions I couldn't find answers to (although didn't do a ton of
       | digging beyond exploring each page/section):
       | 
       | 1. Is the language for this open source? If not, is that planned?
       | 
       | 2. Is the language compiled or interpreted, and what targets? Is
       | the execution environment a VM that runs in the browser similar
       | to Scratch?
       | 
       | 3. Is this a charity or for-profit? If the former, how will it be
       | sustainable (i.e. donations, premium memberships, etc.)? If the
       | latter, what are the plans for monetization?
        
         | yrandom wrote:
         | > 1. Is the language for this open source? If not, is that
         | planned?
         | 
         | It's a language I designed specifically for this platform and
         | is not currently open source. If it proves popular I'm
         | certainly open to it.
         | 
         | > 2. Is the language compiled or interpreted, and what targets?
         | Is it the execution environment a VM that runs in the browser
         | similar to Scratch?
         | 
         | It's interpreted. To improve the performance at some stage I'd
         | like to compile it directly to JavaScript rather than run it
         | through my intermediate layer.
         | 
         | > 3. Is this a charity or for-profit? If the former, how will
         | it be sustainable (i.e. donations, premium memberships, etc.)?
         | If the latter, what are the plans for monetization?
         | 
         | It's for-profit. I'm planning a freemium model so there would
         | be additional features (when I build them!) and access to more
         | advanced tutorials.
        
           | freedomben wrote:
           | Great thank you! Looks like a super awesome project and one
           | that can do a lot of good, so I wish you luck!
        
       | hansword wrote:
       | This reminds me of the phantasy consoles scene:
       | 
       | * https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php (paid, $15)
       | 
       | * https://tic80.com/ (Lua, JS, Ruby, Wren, ...., open source,
       | free)
       | 
       | * https://pixelvision8.github.io/Website/ (Lua, C#, open source,
       | free)
       | 
       | I have good memories of playing around with Tic80, now hat v1.0
       | is out, perhaps I try it again.
        
         | freeCandy wrote:
         | Lots of activity in this space recently, there are more at
         | https://github.com/paladin-t/fantasy
        
       | arecurrence wrote:
       | This is a platform where a DALL-E like bitmap generator would be
       | really useful. Boom... instant assets.
        
         | taftster wrote:
         | This is such a fun idea, actually. Sprites in general (not just
         | 2D 8-bit style) could be really useful for DALL-E to generate.
         | There are a good amount of tilesets and sprite packs for sale
         | online created by pixel artists. But having sprites and tiles
         | generated by DALL-E could really invigorate the indie game
         | community.
        
         | whateveracct wrote:
         | Maybe for placeholders...but honestly it takes very little time
         | to be able to whip up rough pixelart sprites and animations
         | yourself. And they'll probably be better in many ways.
         | 
         | But a game's quality is honestly mostly art & music & other
         | non-automatable creativity rather than the software. I highly
         | recommend treating art and music education as core to indie
         | gamedev education.
        
       | sharmin123 wrote:
        
       | qsort wrote:
       | What language does it use? I can't match it with anything I know,
       | is it something custom?
        
         | kevsim wrote:
         | According to the help page:
         | 
         | > Akedo uses a beginner friendly language that is similar to
         | many professional languages but is aimed at producing readable
         | and understandable code.
        
         | yrandom wrote:
         | It's a language I designed myself heavily influenced by Python,
         | Lua, and BASIC. I wanted something that was as simple as
         | possible to get started with and could grow with the user.
        
           | danielvaughn wrote:
           | One thing I'd add to the API docs is a way to create bitmap
           | and/or tilemaps. I was able to add some assets to my library
           | but got stuck on figuring out how to render them using the
           | API.
        
       | yig wrote:
       | This reminds me of microStudio <https://microstudio.dev/>. I used
       | it for a game design class this past semester. All the editors
       | made it easy for my students to jump in and create. It has really
       | great debugging tools now, too.
        
         | hansword wrote:
         | Looks super-cool, would love to try it. However...
         | 
         | > All from your web browser. Your project is stored in the
         | cloud, accessible from anywhere.
         | 
         | I don't want that. I want my code on my machine, not someone
         | else's. And I most certainly don't want to create an account.
         | :-(
        
           | bartkappenburg wrote:
           | Would you like to work completely offline? Download the
           | microStudio standalone app for Windows, Mac, Linux and
           | Raspberry Pi:
           | 
           | https://microstudio.itch.io/microstudio
        
             | hansword wrote:
             | Ohhhhhh, thanks, much appreciated.
        
       | colinjoy wrote:
       | How'd you come up with the name? Does it stand for something?
        
         | yrandom wrote:
         | It's actually the Japanese translation of arcade (as in
         | shopping arcade). I wanted something short with available
         | domain names.
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-21 23:01 UTC)