F# & SDL.NET

Disclaimer:
I'm no F# expert. I've used F# at work before but only in a single project for lexing and parsing a simple domain specific language (and the bulk of that work was carried out by a colleague). So some of this code may stink, feel free to let me know about it :¬)

I got up this morning and thought: I fancy mucking around with some F#, I know I'll make a little game.
After some Googling I was left a little disappointed when I found no good, simple, tutorials. It's been about a year since I've done any F# so I'm as good as a newbie again and needed some hand-holding. Alas that wasn't going to happen.

So my first mission was to get hold of a simple input and graphics API ... Having used SDL some time ago with C++ I went hunting for a .NET wrapper and handily enough found this: link SDL.Net

Set up:
All you need to do (at least on a Windows box with Visual Studio) is download SDL.NET, run the exe, and add a reference via solution explorer.

Code:
Now, as you can see, this code is not a "game". It simply blits a background to the screen, overlays a sprite and moves him around in response to the left and right arrow keys... VERY not-a-game indeed. But it will hopefully give anyone reading this the simple first steps towards using SDL.NET with F#.
The code also uses mutable state so is not as purely functional as I would have liked.

	#light
	open SdlDotNet.Core;
	open SdlDotNet.Graphics;
	open SdlDotNet.Graphics.Sprites;
	open SdlDotNet.Input;
	open System.Drawing;
	open System;
	type StuperGario = class
	val mutable location : Point
	new () = {location = new Point(10,185)}
	end
	let screen = Video.SetVideoMode(512, 256) (* Drawing Surface *)
	let man = new StuperGario()
	let bg = new Surface(@"..\Imgs\bg.png") (* Background image *)
	let manSprite = new Sprite(new Surface(@"..\Imgs\gario.png"),man.location)
	let Update (args : TickEventArgs) =
	screen.Blit(bg) |> ignore (* Draw Background *)
	screen.Blit(manSprite,man.location) |> ignore (* Draw man *)
	screen.Update() (* Render Screen *)
	if Keyboard.IsKeyPressed(Key.LeftArrow) then man.location.X <- man.location.X + -3
	if Keyboard.IsKeyPressed(Key.RightArrow) then man.location.X <- man.location.X + 3
	let HandleInputDown(args : KeyboardEventArgs) =
	match args.Key with
	| Key.Escape ->Events.QuitApplication() (* Escape -> Quit *)
	| _ -> ignore|>ignore
	Video.WindowCaption <- "FSharp Game" (* Set the SDL Window Title *)
	Events.KeyboardDown.Add(HandleInputDown)
	Events.Tick.Add(Update) (* Update screen and player position *)
	Events.Run()

view raw sdl_demo.fs hosted with ❤ by GitHub