Odin engine

While more and more of my professional work is becoming at least AI-assisted, I had a hankering for learning something I’d never be tempted to try to find monetisation from. Something that was just for learning’s sake.

I decided to learn how to build a gaming engine, starting just with the goal of simulating some fish in a tank for my kid. I’d seen a video or two about Odin around the same time, so thought I’d dabble in that at the same time.

Where it’s at

Diffuse lighting and shadowing live in one shader file. The target is an isometric 3D style for world-building, city or farming games. I managed to get some fish ‘swimming’ around a tank, so that was the first goal sorted.

Next

I fail without an end goal, and currently I have no real game mechanic I’m aiming at to help make build decisions. For now the side-project count is high, so I’ll wait until creativity hits. I’m likely to try to build some ECS pieces in at some point, and then probably try to re-build some existing simple games to guide the process.

Notes on Odin

I enjoy a lot of the syntax of Odin, but I’m also so ingrained in the OO world that I find the fully procedural approach quite a headscratcher. I don’t inherently believe one approach is better than another, but it’s a fair way out of my comfort zone. Love the performance, though.