In a lead up to the annual [[https://itch.io/jam/autumn-lisp-game-jam-2018][Autumn Lisp Game Jam]] I thought I'd look into Phil Hegelberg's approach to last Aprils Jam, using [[https://love2d.org/][love2d]] in concert with [[https://fennel-lang.org/][fennel]]. Phil outlines his approach on his [[https://love2d.org/][blog]].
The first step is to see how fennel works as a standalone execution environment, then slowly integrate some of the love2d API.
This repo contains the minimal viable setup to get started with Phil Hegelberg's game design process, plus some additional libraries.
Phil Hegelberg's [[https://gitlab.com/technomancy/exo-encounter-667/][exo-encounter-667]] is structured using a modal callback system. Each game state has a mode and each mode has a series of specific callbacks.
If you design your game as a series of states in a very simple state machine, for example *start-screen*, *play* and *end*, with unidirectional progression, you can easily separate the logic for each state into state/mode specific callbacks. As an example, in order to have state dependant rendering that differs between start-screen,play and end you could provide a *draw* callback for each of those states. Similarly if we need state dependent logic and keyboard input we could provide *update* and *keyboard* callbacks. As you iterate you can add and remove callbacks and states/modes as needed with very little friction.
The =make= process as-is will only compile the contents of the root folder and the =lib/= folder+subfolders, so make sure to put your game files in either of those.
Specifically, every =.fnl= file needed at runtime needs to be situated in the root folder, and every file which is not a =.lua= or =.fnl= file needs to be put inside =lib/=.
Use =make linux=, =make windows=, or =make mac= to create executables for each platform, or =make release= to do all three. Make sure to read the makefile for more commands (and remember to edit your game data in it!)
