Y PONG
Author: Jacob Essex

• Background
• Installation
• Running
• Papers, Credits and Resources used

--Background/Comments (Ramblings of a lunatic)

Why Pong? I know the programing competition said images (and usually based around fractals). I would claim that it is in the same area... ish. I wanted to explore writing games in a functional language and if possible try to avoid writing the game in a functional language in an imperative way.

Pong also gave me the opportunity to use some of the features of Yampa over other FRP frameworks such as Reactive where (I believe) it is easy to run into space leaks when removing objects.

I found it conceptually a bit tricky to get my head around (Although having arrows thrown into the mix didn't help) and I am fairly sure I haven't got my head around it yet (A longer time period might help, this was written in two evenings).

The length of the program, which I am sure is far longer than it could be is probably in part due to not having utilised Yampa anywhere near fully.

It isn't finished by any means, but the main thing that I haven't added is the score.

As a program to start experimenting with FRP, I think it has been a success, as a program to enter to a competition I probably should have stuck to technologies and concepts I know.

--Installation

This has only been built using the latest version of GHC (6.12.3). It hasn't been tested on anything else. It also requires the Arrows extension which should be automatically enabled when loading main.hs. If not just add the -XArrows flag when starting ghc/ghci

This requires the following packages, all available on Hackage or using cabal install sdl, yampa, monad-loops

Note that some of these require the C libraries, which should be common enough to be available via your package manager

Build main.hs, if running through ghci run the function main

--Running

By default, the paddles are controlled using S/D and J/K To quit, press Esc

--Papers, Credits and Resources used

I used the associative list code (IdentityList.hs) from the space invaders game. The code is licenced under the BSD licence so there is no issues with its use or redistribution

Papers:

• The Yampa Arcade
• Functional Programming and 3D games
• Arrows, Robots and Functional Programming
• Arrows, Robots and Functional Programming Continued

Credits:

• The creator of Zenburn, for saving my eyes and the colour scheme of the game
• The samples and diagrams at lambdor.net
• The following open source FRP games implemented using Yampa. -Frag -Haskelloids -Cuboid -Space invaders Most, if not all, of these are available via Hackage