- [Last Call for Rust GameDev Survey](#last-call-for-rust-gamedev-survey)

Our annual [Rust Game Development Ecosystem Survey][survey] will be closed

on Sunday at the end of this week, 6. December 2020.

It'll only take 10 minutes, and your responses help us

better understand the state of our ecosystem and where we

should try to focus our collective efforts.

[survey]: https://surveymonkey.com/r/F2JYRFF


[A/B Street][abstreet] is a traffic simulation game exploring how small changes

to roads affect cyclists, transit users, pedestrians, and drivers. Any city

with OpenStreetMap coverage can be used!

Some of this month's updates:

- started a new tool to explore 15-minute neighborhoods;

- simpler process for [importing new cities][abstreet-new-cities];

- large internal refactoring for the GUI and initializing the simulation;

[abstreet]: https://abstreet.org

[abstreet-new-cities]: https://dabreegster.github.io/abstreet/howto/new_city.html


_FBSim running with default agents._

[FBSim] by [Ian Tayler] is a football/soccer game where you program the

players using Rust and try to beat a team controlled by another AI.

You can follow the [tutorial] for implementing your own simple AI for FBSim,

or you can look at the code directly, which can be found on the

[github repo]. FBSim is at an early stage of development so issues and

comments are welcome!

_Discussions:

[/r/rust_gamedev](https://reddit.com/r/rust_gamedev/comments/jz4x1f/fbsim/)_

[FBSim]: https://github.com/IanTayler/fbsim

[github repo]: https://github.com/IanTayler/fbsim

[Ian Tayler]: https://iantayler.com

[tutorial]: https://iantayler.com/2020/11/22/fbsim-football-playing-ai-agents-in-rust/

[@Ratys] wrote an article about system schedulers in [ECS]. It contains

an overview of the scheduling problem itself, covers the constraints a solution

to it should consider, and dissects schedulers of [Bevy] engine and [`yaks`] as

examples.

[ECS scheduler thoughts, part 1]: https://ratysz.github.io/article/scheduling-1/

[@Ratys]: https://twitter.com/ratysz

[ECS]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity_component_system

[Bevy]: https://bevyengine.org/

[`yaks`]: https://crates.io/crates/yaks


_Chess gameplay_

[@guimcaballero] published a tutorial on using Bevy 0.3 to make a Chess clone in

3d. Most of the concepts are explained along the way, from how to load meshes to

how to select pieces and board squares, using [bevy_mod_picking].

[Chess game in Rust using Bevy]: https://caballerocoll.com/blog/bevy-chess-tutorial/

[@guimcaballero]: https://twitter.com/guimcaballero

[bevy_mod_picking]: https://github.com/aevyrie/bevy_mod_picking/

Development of new tutorial content has slowed down due to wgpu still being in

development. [@sotrh] has committed to continue maintaining the project through

the comming version changes, and plans to add more new content when the API

solidifies. He with the help of other contributors such as GitHub user

[@kanerogers] worked through a series of issues to polish the repository before

the content freeze.

In addition to that he added a [compute pipeline showcase][learn-wgpu-compute]

and an [imgui showcase][learn-wgpu-imgui].

In other news @sotrh has started a [Patreon][@sotrh] to help fund research

and development on the Learn Wgpu site as well as other wgpu related projects.

You can learn more [on the Learn Wgpu news page][learn-wgpu-news].

[learn-wgpu]: https://sotrh.github.io/learn-wgpu

[learn-wgpu-compute]: https://sotrh.github.io/learn-wgpu/showcase/compute

[learn-wgpu-imgui]: https://sotrh.github.io/learn-wgpu/showcase/imgui-demo

[learn-wgpu-news]: https://sotrh.github.io/learn-wgpu/news

[@sotrh]: https://patreon.com/sotrh

[@kanerogers]: https://github.com/kanerogers

This month, [profiling] was released on crates.io. This crate provides a very

thin abstraction over instrumented profiling crates like `puffin`, `optick`,

`tracy`, and `superluminal-perf`.

Mark up your code like this:

#[profiling::function]

fn some_function() {

burn_time(5);

for i in 0..5 {

profiling::scope!("Looped Operation");

burn_time(1);

}

}

And get visualizations like this (`optick` and `puffin` shown):

[](optick.jpeg)

[profiling]: https://crates.io/crates/profiling

[rkyv] is a zero-copy deserialization framework for Rust. It's similar to

FlatBuffers and Cap'n Proto and can be used for data storage and messaging.

It has a handful of features that make it stand out:

- No schema restrictions

- HashMap support out of the box

- Trait object support through the [`rkyv_dyn`] crate

- Validation through the [`bytecheck`] crate, suitable for untrusted and

potentially malicious data

- Safe mutable archives with pinning

Reddit user [vlmutolo] also made a [toy benchmark] comparing rkyv against serde

and bincode and found that rkyv had promising initial numbers:

A write-up on the [architecture and internals of rkyv] is also available.

_Discussions:

[/r/rust (v0.1)](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/jss6h4/rkyv_a_zerocopy_deserialization_framework_for_rust/),

[/r/rust (v0.2)](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/jx32e8/rkyv_02_and_bytecheck_validation_mutable_archives/)_

[rkyv]: https://github.com/djkoloski/rkyv

[`rkyv_dyn`]: https://docs.rs/rkyv_dyn

[`bytecheck`]: https://github.com/djkoloski/bytecheck

[vlmutolo]: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/jx32e8/rkyv_02_and_bytecheck_validation_mutable_archives/gcyfoqc

[toy benchmark]: https://git.sr.ht/~vlmutolo/rkyv-bench/tree/master/src/main.rs

[architecture and internals of rkyv]: https://davidkoloski.me/blog/rkyv-architecture/

[Kira] by [@tesselode] is an audio library designed to help create expressive

audio for games. It aims to fill the holes in many game engines' built-in audio

APIs with features for creating seamless music loops and scripting audio events.

v0.2.0 is coming out soon with an Arrangements feature for creating complex pieces

out of individual sounds, tween easing, panning support, and workflow improvements.

[Kira]: https://github.com/tesselode/kira

[@tesselode]: https://twitter.com/tesselode

_Discussions:

[/r/rust](https://reddit.com/r/rust/comments/jxd9zz/announcing_kira_dynamic_audio_library_for_games/),

[twitter](https://twitter.com/tesselode/status/1329559760111357954)_


The gfx-rs team has published a post ["The Big Picture"][gfx-post] providing

the overview of all projects in the works, and how they are connected to each other.

[wgpu] has moved from [gfx-extras] to the new [gpu-alloc] and [gpu-descriptor]

libraries by [@zakarumych]. These are backend-agnostic, which allows `wgpu`

to now depend on `gfx-hal` directly without intermediates. Patching [gfx-rs]

will now be easier, without the need to release every little change.

Finally, all the latest [wgpu] code has landed into Gecko, and new

features and fixes are implemented in Firefox. That allows it to run

most of the updated [WebGPU samples][wgpu-samples].

[gfx-rs]: https://github.com/gfx-rs/gfx

[wgpu]: https://github.com/gfx-rs/wgpu

[gfx-post]: https://gfx-rs.github.io/2020/11/16/big-picture.html

[gfx-extras]: https://github.com/gfx-rs/gfx-extras

[@zakarumych]: https://github.com/zakarumych

[gpu-alloc]: https://github.com/zakarumych/gpu-alloc

[gpu-descriptor]: https://github.com/zakarumych/gpu-descriptor

[wgpu-samples]: https://austineng.github.io/webgpu-samples


_Markdown parsing demo_

[KAS] by [@dhardy] is a general purpose UI toolkit; its

initial aim is "old school" desktop apps with good keyboard and touchscreen

support. Unlike many modern immediate-mode UIs, KAS's widgets retain state,

allowing minimal per-frame updates. KAS supports embedded WebGPU graphics now,

and plans to support embedded usage and additional rendering systems.

[KAS-text] v0.2 saw a significant revision to its API, including support for

rich text (bold, italic, underline, size and some layout improvements).

[KAS] v0.6 pulls in those changes and adds a few fixes and QoL improvements.

[KAS]: https://github.com/kas-gui/kas

[KAS-text]: https://github.com/kas-gui/kas-text

[@dhardy]: https://github.com/dhardy

[Tetra] is a simple 2D game framework, inspired by XNA and Raylib. This month,

versions 0.5.3 and 0.5.4 were released, with some frequently requested features:

- A `Mesh` API, allowing users to create arbitary 2D geometry

- Experimental support for high-DPI rendering

There has also been numerous bug fixes and documentation improvements. For full

details and a list of breaking changes, see the [changelog][tetra-changelog].

[tetra]: https://github.com/17cupsofcoffee/tetra

[tetra-changelog]: https://github.com/17cupsofcoffee/tetra/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md

[ogmo3] is a Rust crate for parsing projects and levels created with

[Ogmo Editor 3]. This month, version 0.1 was released, adding serialization

support, and helper methods for unpacking layer data. The [sample code][ogmo3-sample]

has also been updated to show the new helpers in action.

[ogmo3]: https://github.com/17cupsofcoffee/ogmo3

[Ogmo Editor 3]: https://ogmo-editor-3.github.io/

[ogmo3-sample]: https://github.com/17cupsofcoffee/ogmo3/blob/main/examples/sample.rs


[F1 Telemetry TUI] by [@aldidana] is a terminal telemetry tool for F1 video games.

_Discussions:

[Twitter](https://twitter.com/aldidana/status/1323185465319596032)_

[F1 Telemetry TUI]: https://github.com/aldidana/f1-telemetry-tui

[@aldidana]: https://github.com/aldidana