Over the past couple of years the SDL Perl bindings have gone through a complete rewrite, making them modular, stable, faster, multiplatform, 1:1 compatible with libsdl and fixing several memory leaks while at it. The community is more alive than ever and now the SDL Perl project is ready to move the Perl motto into gamedev: "Simple games, easy. Complex games, possible." In this talk I'll discuss some of the sugar layers being developed on top of SDL Perl, including game loops, widgets, physics engines and full-fledged frameworks for easy game development.

1. Game
Development
With Perl and SDL
- press start -

2. Perl
SDL

3. Perl
SDL

4. Perl
SDL

5. Simple DirectMedia Layer

6. low level access

7. Video

8. Audio

9. Input Devices

10. cross-platform

11. Multimedia App
libSDL
DirectX GDI framebuffer Xlib Quartz
...
MS Windows Linux OS X

12. LGPL v2

13. Round 1 . . .
F IGH T !

14. 1:1 API

15. use strict;
use warnings;
use SDL;
use SDL::Video;
use SDL::Surface;
use SDL::Rect;
SDL::init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO);
my ($screen_w, $screen_h) = (800, 600);
my $screen = SDL::Video::set_video_mode(
$screen_w,
$screen_h,
32,
SDL_ANYFORMAT
);
my $blue = SDL::Video::map_RGB($screen->format(), 0, 0, 255);
SDL::Video::fill_rect(
$screen,
SDL::Rect->new(15, 15, 100, 100),
$blue
);
SDL::Video::update_rect($screen, 0, 0, $screen_w, $screen_h);
sleep 5; # so we have time to see!

16. Too low level

17. Not Perlish at all!

18. SDLx::* Sugar

19. use strict;
use warnings;
use SDLx::App;
my $app = SDLx::App->new(
width => 800,
height => 600,
);
$app->draw_rect(
[15, 15, 100, 100], # rect
[0,0,255,255], # blue
);
$app->update;
sleep 5; # so we have time to see!

20. The Game Loop

21. while ( $running ) {
get_events();
update_game();
render_scene();
}

22. while( $running ) {
$loops = 0;
while(
get_tick_count() > $next_game_tick
&& $loops < $MAX_FRAMESKIP
) {
get_events();
update_game();
$next_game_tick += $SKIP_TICKS;
$loops++;
}
$interpolation = ( get_tick_count()
+ $SKIP_TICKS - $next_game_tick
)
/ $SKIP_TICKS;
render_scene( $interpolation );
}

24. SDLx::App->run;

25. use SDLx::App;
my $app = SDLx::App->new;
$app->add_move_handler( &update );
$app->add_event_handler( &player_1 );
$app->add_event_handler( &player_2 );
$app->add_show_handler( &scene );
$app->run;

26. Avenger

27. Avenger

28. sugary syntax

29. use Avenger title => 'My Game';
update { ... };
show { ... };
event 'key_down' => sub { ... };
event 'mouse_left' => sub { ... };
start;

30. Box2D
integration

31. use Avenger title => 'My Game';
world->gravity( 0, -100 );
my $player = world->create_dynamic( x => 30, y => 100 );
my $floor = world->create_static(
y => 50,
w => app->w -100 ,
h => 10,
);
update { world->update };
show {
app->clear( [0, 0, 0, 255] );
app->draw_rect( $floor->rect, [0, 255, 0, 255] );
app->draw_rect( $player->rect, [255, 50, 0, 255] );
app->update;
};
start;

32. Simple games, easy.
Complex games, possible!

33. use Avenger;
use MyGame;
start 'MainScreen';

34. package MyGame::MainScreen;
use Avenger;
load { ... };
unload { ... };
update { ... };
event { ... };
show { ... };
1;

35. Other SDLx Goodies

36. my $menu = SDLx::Widget::Menu->new;
$menu->items(
'New Game' => sub { ... },
'Load Game' => sub { ... },
'Options' => sub { ... },
'Quit' => sub { ... },
);
show { $menu->render( app ) };

37. my $text = SDLx::Text->new(
font => '/path/to/my/font.ttf',
color => 'white',
h_align => 'center',
shadow => 1,
bold => 1,
);
$text->write_to(
app,
'All your base are belong to us.'
);

38. my $music = SDLx::Music->new;
$music->data(
intro => {
loops => 3,
fade_in => 0.5,
volume => 72,
},
gameover => {
finished => sub { print 'Done!' },
},
);
$music->play( 'intro' );

39. my $sprite = SDLx::Sprite::Animated->new;
$sprite->load( 'hero.png' )->start;
show { $sprite->draw( app ) };

40. HUGE TODO LIST!

41. github.com/PerlGameDev
#sdl (irc.perl.org)
sdl-devel-subscribe@perl.org
@SDLPerl

42. Thank You
For Playing !
garu@cpan.org
@garu_rj