Can anyone recommend an ascii engine?

[TJS]

Sorry probably the wrong place to ask, but I was wondering if there's an ascii library or engine that someone could recommend for my upcoming project.

Main things that I'm looking for in order:

Ease of use
A scripting language (too lazy for C++)
Works nicely on windows
Portability
Speed
Fancy effects/colours etc.

Any help would be great!

[debo]

If you're doing roguelike things, I've had luck with libcotd and its various ports (e.g. rot.js) in C++, Python, and JavaScript. It has a bunch of extra stuff you won't need if you're just blitting random glyphs to a canvas, but it should still do that admirably well.

e.g. see http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?...thon%2Blibtcod

Or you can just use raw curses, which is not great but also not that bad.

[konijn_]

ROT.js indeed!

[Raajaton]

There's also T-Engine4. I've seen some pretty cool projects that came from that.

http://te4.org/te4

[Zireael]

Seconding the T-Engine mention.

[fph]

Does T-Engine 4 do ASCII art as well? All the screenshots I can find are with tiles.

[Raajaton]

Yes it does - tiles are optional.

[TJS]

Whoops completely forgot that I asked this question, thanks for the replies.

Anyone know whether libcotd or rot.js allow anims and tiles to be added later on?

The game is going to not be a traditional roguelike and more of a strategy so perhaps T-Engine 4 might be a bit too specialised.

[debo]

rot.js just got tile support a little while ago, based on the PRs I've seen merged lately. Animations -- I'm not sure, I'm guessing that's something you'd have to homebake.

[TJS]

rot.js just got tile support a little while ago, based on the PRs I've seen merged lately. Animations -- I'm not sure, I'm guessing that's something you'd have to homebake.

Thanks for the information.

Another silly question, can you compile javascript to run an optimised exe or does it have to run through a browser?