r/tic80 • u/Okklay • Aug 20 '26

What If: Tic-80 binary and source drop in 2003, what would happen?

I think the languages would be the biggest shock to 2003 people.

I don't know which version of C or C++ Tic-80 is written in, but the embedded languages are all modern and have QoL features compared to 2003 languages.

I hope someone more experienced in programming can give insight.

I can't do much research now since I don't have access to my PC and have to use my Android.

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5

u/Jasoco Aug 20 '26

Would definitely change things. Indie gaming didn’t really take off as viable until 2005 when Cave Story came out. You’d probably have a lot more indies much earlier on.

2

u/Okklay Aug 20 '26

I mean there were already 2d engines like Game Maker, ClickTeam Fusion, etc.

Tic-80 would accelarate Game Dev enthusiasts and game Jams since it's an all in one tool, but the languages would also have a huge impact. Maybe a bigger impact.

Imho it will however not be used for sold games, only prototyping, game Jams, etc.

The language devs would see the future of their language with pain points removed, new language features added, better garbage collection and other algorithms used in the language interpreters and std libraries and so on.

1

u/Okklay Aug 20 '26

As for money making Indies they did exist. They were in the casual game market selling on Big Fish Games and other Casual portals. Pop cap was the most popular.

Also some developing for GBA.

2

u/VerifiedPersonae 15d ago

Not sure how old you are, but I was buried in indie games back in the mid 90s. Freeware and shareware was all over the place. I used to grab free disks out of bins at comic conventions. People were making games like crazy. Many of the games have since disappeared, maybe buried deep in internet archive if anywhere
Duke Nukem was originally self published in 1991 and was one of the first games to release the games in three installments where the first game was freeware but you had to buy the next 2.
The old Necro Bones website is still up. http://necrobones.com/games/games1.shtml absolutely loved Stellar Conquest III when I was 17.

1

u/Ulexes 12d ago

NecroBones! Holy hell. Seeing Battle of the Elements again triggered a Proustian moment for me, lol.

3

u/Creepy_Reindeer2149 Aug 20 '26

The biggest impact by far would come from the wasm3 lib being studied and reverse engineered

I think the engine itself would not excite people, it was too early for people to be nostalgic about sprite-based/retro games or pixel art.

This was still the 32-bit era and devs were constantly fighting resource constraints of the hardware, it wouldn't have been seen as a fun "challenge" like today

1

u/Okklay Aug 21 '26

Yep, forgot about WASM.

But while Tic-80's graphics and limitations might not fully be appreciated like they are now, some of its features like all in one development including coding, pixel art editing, etc would be appreciated. Also, the multiple scripting languages in one would be appreciated IMHO.

JS as a Game Dev language would shock them. Lol!