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I will begin this blog post by telling you that the title is incredibly misleading. Scripting languages are a vital part of game development, and not without good reason. In this blog post, I am going to list the 5 reasons that, in my humble opinion, are causing game developers to take a serious look at scripting languages.

5. Pick a Language, Any Language

Unlike our old friend C++, scripting languages offer a variety of choice. Despite your programming background, it is easy to find a language that will suite your style of coding. Quite a number of emerging game engines ship with the ability to use a handful of scripting languages, and when utilized correctly, can rival both the power and complexity of most lower level languages. The level of flexibility that scripting languages offer can not only save time, but provide the opportunity to train others quickly.  This is a must have in game development – which brings me to my next point…

4. Zero to Scripting in 3.5 Seconds

For any of you that have tried to learn a lower level programming language, you know that it is not exactly the easiest thing to pickup. Back in the good ’ole days, you used what you had to in order to get the speed and results that you needed. You bought the books, devoted the time and you learned something new about your language every day. Sadly (read: Joyously), that day is gone. Scripting languages allow you to “hook” directly in to lower level code and get the results that you want. So now, not only can you achieve the same result with a scripting language, but you don’t have to quit your full time job and set aside 3 years in Tibet to learn it. Scripting languages are easy to pick up, even for those that aren’t “programmer types.” Shorter learning curves allow for less time memorizing keywords, and more time writing games!

3. Anyone Here Hire a Professional JOAT trainer?

Game Developers (especially Indies), wear many hats during the development phase. I like to call this the Jack-of-all-Trades mentality. The problem with this work model, however, is that the JOAT (not goat…), never has the time to truly master one aspect of development. You might write code today, brush up on Photoshop skills tomorrow, and dedicate an entire weekend to composing sound effects. This leaves very little room for error. While scripting can’t help you make your thunderstorm sound less like tinfoil and more like… well… thunder, it can save you valuable time. Scripting allows programmers to get real results in less time. I would much rather spend my time writing a game, and less time writing code that enables me to write my game.

2. The First Rule of Prototype Club: Always Talk About Prototyping!

Prototyping is a very important process of game development. One of the common mistakes that is made by newcomers is thinking that everyone will want to play your game because you think that it is fun. This is where scripting comes in. Scripting, as we have already discussed, allows your to learn quickly and write code faster. Because of this, it is easier to make substantive changes to gameplay and logic without wasting too much time. Let me give you an example. Imagine spending two weeks writing the camera controls for your game in a low level programming language, just to find out that they are the most unintuitive controls since theVirtual Boy. You have two options, keep the controls, or lose two weeks of time. Now, what if those controls took you a day to write using a scripting language, and will take even less time to make the required adjustments. Which option would you choose? If it is the former, than you are a better man than I, good sir, please point me to YOUR blog. Prototyping with a scripting language allows you to work through design iterations more quickly, allowing you to make a game that is not only more fun, but might actually see a few copies.

1. Save. Compile. Go Shopping. Come Home. Get a Beer. Watch The Thorn Birds. Play!

The standard compile-link-run-test method of game development just doesn’t make sense anymore. The bigger your project grows, the more time it takes to test changes. Development of any kind is riddled with small code changes that need to be tested immediately, and it gets even worse with game development. Your sound file didn’t play when you fired that rocket launcher – sure that’s an easy fix. So why should you have to wait twenty minutes to make sure that it is actually fixed? Most game engines that utilize scripting languages either have an interpreter built right into the core, or use an extremely optimized complier to make sure the job gets done quick. This allows you to spend less time waiting around, and more time creating the next great game.

The End is Near!

My programming background is not too terrible complex. I started with HTML/CSS, navigated my way towards PHP, and dropped anchor at JavaScript for a little while. Wanting a little more challenge, I attempted C++ Game Development for a while, failed miserably, and gave up for a year or so. Towards the beginning of last year, I discovered Unity, built a hackintosh, and starting learning again. That was the single smartest move I ever made in my programming career.

Unity was quite a different approach to Game Development, and allowed me to prototype my ideas quickly, so I could spend less time writing code and more time playing my games. After playing around with Unity for a couple of months, I switched over to Unity iPhone and starting writing iPhone Games. After about six months and six released games, this too became rather boring to me. In fact, I don't actually plan to release a game of my own ever again. I guess the disappointment of my ideas not being very fun to anyone else got to me a bit. After releasing about 3 games and not seeing a dime for the work put into it, I decided to shift the focus of what I want to do.

And now, we arrive at the reason for the post. I looked back over the past 6 years of my life and put it into a pretty easy perspective.

Writing my own websites and web applications, and doing my own marketing.

Writing my own games, and publishing them myself.

Writing my own applications, and setting a website up to sell them to the masses.

All of the above: Boring and not rewarding.

Sure, there are people like Kevin Rose who is known for the popularity of Digg, Mika Mobile for their iPhone Smash Hit - Zombieville, USA, and small companies like Panic, who - in my opinion - released one of the best HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP IDEs on the market. What most people don't understand, however, is that the odds of your super awesome website/game/application/whatever actually making money is somewhere near the odds of you winning the lottery, being struck by lightning, or losing an arm in a shark attack.

So why do I still write code? Simple. Because I love to write code. To me, however, the act of writing the code itself is not enough to keep me going. There has to be reward in everything that you do, or you will simply get bored with it. This is human nature, and it always wins.

Your choice here is simple. If the acting of seeing your application running and knowing that you wrote the code that made it possible is enough for you, then by all means, continue to self-publish. Although there will be disappointment, burn out, and all of the other bad things that come with any job, eventually you will write something that sticks. And when you do, it will probably all seem worth it.