1. CS Department Lunch Game Scripting Languages Jessica D. Bayliss, Ph.D. Rochester Institute of Technology Computer Science Dept.

2. RIT Computer Science Dept. Game Programming oEarly on (Atari 2600): oHand coded assembly oPCs: oHigher level coding oA file system meant that content could be loaded oThe advent of the game engine concept oRecently this has led to greatly increased game costs

3. RIT Computer Science Dept. The Content Problem oIt's expensive - over 60% of a game budget. oNeed for games to be replayable oNew levels oNew characters oNew games

4. RIT Computer Science Dept. Mods oA "modification" of an existing game oMay just look different oMay be another game oMay add interface features not available in the original game (i.e. close captioning) oUser driven: oone solution to the content problem oSome of our students are involved in mod creation outside of class.

5. RIT Computer Science Dept. How Different? UT BeforeUT After (Thievery)

6. RIT Computer Science Dept. Game Scripting oUsed for: oCharacter AI and creation oSpecial interface commands and changes oObject properties

7. RIT Computer Science Dept. Languages oGame specialty languages oSecond Life scripting language (Second Life) oUnrealScript (Unreal Tournament) oNWN script (Neverwinter Nights) oCustomizing other languages oLua (World of Warcraft) oPython (Civ IV) oC/C++ (Half Life II)

8. RIT Computer Science Dept. Second Life

9. RIT Computer Science Dept. Second Life oIt isn't really a game oThere is no end goal except what users create oScripts are written in a C-like language oAlmost all items, games, etc. inside the world are user created oSecond Life is the first massively multiplayer platform to give users copyright privileges to what they create

10. RIT Computer Science Dept. Examples o[Paul Wheeler's scripting work]

11. RIT Computer Science Dept.

12. Unreal Tournament oAnother game with a custom scripting language oUnrealScript oJava-like, complete with garbage collection oContains specialty constructs for state transitions in the game engine

13. RIT Computer Science Dept. Gamebots oA client/server mod that enables bot clients written in any language to connect to Unreal Tournament servers oWorks on UT, UT2003, and UT2004 oMessaging protocol is simple text messages: o"GAM {PlayerScores {CTF-Command.FriendlyRemoteFemale1Bot7 0.000000} {CTF-Command.FriendlyRemoteMale1Bot7 0.000000} {CTF- Command.FriendlyMale1Bot0 0.000000} {CTF-Command.FriendlyMale2 0.000000}} {TeamScores {0 0.000000} {1 0.000000}}"

14. RIT Computer Science Dept. Conclusions oModern games quite often contain scripting oMany opportunities for learning different scripting languages from within games oSome of these have made their way into courses (Gamebots)

15. CS Department Lunch Questions?