🧊 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."

🎮 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.

🛠️ Technical Requirements

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

Requirement	Specification
Language	Dyalog APL 20.0
Compiler	A standard C Compiler
Build Tool	CMake
Graphics API	Vulkan, Metal, or DirectX 12
Libraries	`sdl3`, `sdl3_ttf`, and `sdl3_image`

🚀 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

🎨 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:

DirectX Shader Compiler
glslc
spirv-cross

📊 Project Analysis

Build Pipeline

Language Composition

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

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

⚠️ 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.