🧊 avoxelgame: A 3D Voxel Engine in APL

This project is an experimental 3D voxel game engine developed by namgyaaal, utilizing the unique capabilities of Dyalog APL and SDL3.

"This started off as a bet with myself that APL notation would provide an easier way to make a voxel game."

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🎮 Game Controls

Navigating the voxel world is handled via the following inputs:

• Movement: W-A-S-D
• Verticality: Space to jump
• Perspective: Use the Mouse to rotate the camera
• System:
  • Q: Exit the application
  • I: Toggle the display of rendering statistics
  • L: Lock/Unlock the cursor
• Special Modes:
  • F: Enable fast noclip mode
• Building: Keys 1 through 5 to switch between different block types for placement.

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🛠️ Technical Requirements

To get the engine running, you will need the following environment:

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🚀 Installation & Setup

🐧 MacOS & Linux

Follow these steps to initialize the project:

• Clone the repository.
• Install the required dependencies.
• Build and install the LSE (Language Support Extension).

make
make install

Note: This process places libLSE.dylib (macOS) or libLSE.so (Linux) into the ./libs/ folder alongside SDL3 files.

To launch the game, execute: ./main.apls

[!IMPORTANT] If you encounter issues with the shebang in main.apls, verify the location of dyalogscript using which dyalogscript and update the path accordingly.

🪟 Windows

Windows setup is slightly more complex. It is recommended to use cmake-gui to link the SDL3 development libraries found in the official libsdl3 releases.

Alternatively, you can use the pre-compiled .dll files provided in the releases and place them in the ./libs directory.

To play via a Dyalog session:

]cd ROOT DIRECTORY
] link .
Play

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🎨 Shader Management

The engine uses GLSL shaders located in ./shaders/glsl. While pre-compiled shaders are included, you can customize them by editing the GLSL source and running the compilation script:

./compile_shaders.sh

Dependencies for shader compilation:

1. DirectX Shader Compiler
2. glslc
3. spirv-cross

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📊 Project Analysis

Build Pipeline

Language Composition

The codebase is predominantly APL, with supporting C and GLSL code. The distribution is roughly:

$\text{APL} \approx 83.3\% \quad \text{C} \approx 11.4\% \quad \text{GLSL} \approx 2.4\% \quad \text{Other} \approx 2.9\%$

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⚠️ Current Status & Credits

• Known Issues: Smooth performance on Windows $\rightarrow$ There are currently significant performance regressions on Windows that are being addressed.
• Assets: A huge thank you to Madeline Vergani (@RubenVerg) for providing the textures.
• License: This project is released under the MIT License.