Question

I don’t know if it is allowed to ask this question here, but I’m going to try any way.

I’m looking for a simple programming language for the average user to understand and write, for in a game I’m making. I’m building my framework in C++.

I was considering Lua, but I think it is probably too hard for the average user.

Only basic actions as walk forward, shoot, grab this, put this here, etc. are needed. It is a tile based game.

Answer 1

If you consider Lua too hard, then you’re probably not looking for a generic programming language (another suggestion would be Python). Instead consider creating a domain-specific language. I’ll be making some assumptions here about your game, but you could, for example, implement a rule-based scripting language where each script represents an enemy’s behaviour:

can_see(player) and distance_to(player) > 100:
    run_towards(player)

can_see(player) and distance_to(player) < 100:
    shoot_at(player)

default:
    wander()

At each reasoning step the first matching rule could be executed. In that case some form of hysteresis will be needed to prevent your NPCs from appearing decisionless.

This basically reduces your programming language to a single if-else-if with a limited amount of keywords and operators to be used. You could even create a custom editor with IntelliSense specifically for your language. If your users are up for it you could have nested rules:

can_see(player):
    distance_to(player) > 100:
        run_towards(player)
    default:
        shoot_at(player)

At some point you could start allowing variables and user-defined functions, but then a general purpose language might have been a better choice from the start! So you see, the main question is finding a balance between genericity and user-friendliness.