Game Development in Desmos

Desmos is so much more than a graphing calculator. Believe it or not, you can create games with it! Desmos is quite literally a programming language – I’m pretty sure it’s Turing-complete.

In these scriptures, I’ll walk you through the essentials for developing games in Desmos. We’ll start by consolidating the fundamental features of Desmos that enable us to use it like a programming language, like conditionals and mutable state. We’ll then look at how we can combine, build and abstract upon those features to craft a game. Along the way, I’ll also cover some fun tricks that may come in useful, as well as limitations I’ve encountered and ways I have (or haven’t) found to circumvent them.

Hyped? Head to the Polymap to begin.

Reading Order

Some chapters have a suggested order while others don’t. The pages do roughly build upon each other and the concepts covered up to that point, so if you plan on doing a complete pass, then I would recommend following my designated order. If you’re just popping by, the pages should still hold up fine as standalone scriptures.

More specific guidance is given by the Polymap.

Dynamic Scriptures

These scriptures will take a more interactive and step-wise approach than the others on Integrity.

Pages are broken into bite-sized chunks for you to step through and digest at your own pace, and there’s a Desmos window on the right which will dynamically update as you move through. The best way to learn is to tinker and practise yourself, so I encourage you to use the Desmos window to try things out for yourself. I’ll sprinkle in little exercises throughout where I think building your own intuition may be especially helpful.

FAQ

What experience will I need?

Familiarity with Desmos^↗ and a programming language is recommended.¹

If you’ve developed software projects before, especially games or similar programs with a lot of control flow and state management, chances are you’ll find it significantly easier to figure out how to do it in Desmos, even if you’re unfamiliar with the mechanics of the calculator. Those can be figured out quickly, the important juice is the logic, thinking and problem-solving that you develop from software development.

How long is the full ‘course’?

Well, it’s nowhere near finished as of yet.