So, I mentioned GZDoom in passing in some of the previous devlogs, and I also talked about why I went with three gameplay segments. Something that I meant to talk about that somehow completely slipped my mind is why there wasn't a GZDoom based segment.

The answer is simple and unexciting: because I didn't think I could make it work in the time I had.

I think I could have done the gameplay itself, though it would have been a stretch. I definitely could have at one point- Tactical Weapons And Tactics took almost the whole week but I had some parts playable in a few days- but I haven't touched GZDoom in years so I'm definitely out of practice. Of course, it would have meant doing this instead of one of the other segments, probably the CommonCore segment as we'd end up with two shooter segments if we kept both. While GZDoom is nicer to work with in some ways, CommonCore is where I'm headed and given the choice I'd prefer to use the latter.

So that's a strike or two against a GZDoom segment. But in truth, it was never really in the running. And that's because I didn't think I could get the integration to work.

GZDoom has a scripting language- actually, several now, but all are somewhat limited. ACS comes from Hexen and is archaic by today's standards, while ZScript is much more modern and powerful. Neither, however, will let me do things like write files and start processes. This is a deliberate design choice; these scripting languages are limited somewhat to prevent (or at least reduce the possibility of) computer-destroying, malicious mods.

It is, of course, an open source engine, and if I don't like it, I'm free to fork it and make my own version that can do such things. Thing is, I'm not a great C++ developer, I'm not familiar with the codebase, and last time I tried to build GZDoom it took me a week just to get a build environment working. I'm confident that I could make the necessary changes, given enough time to do it, but there was no way I'd be able to and still be able to build a game for the jam. I had a vague idea on how to hack around it without delving into engine code, but I was much, much less confident that it would work.

It's hardly an exciting post or an exciting explanation but I think that answers it if anyone was curious.