Functional Programming brings a promise of highly-declarative code, efficient, parallelisable execution, modularity and reusability. In spite of these advantages, the use of pure Functional Languages in commercial games is still rare. This is partially due to the lack of backends for multimedia, production tools, and demonstrations that functional abstractions work for other than non-trivial examples. In this paper we present GALE, a Graphic Adventure Library and Engine implemented in Haskell. Our engine implements the basic common features available in similar commercial engines for graphic adventures. We show a high-level abstract definition of game descriptions that allows us not only to run them, but also to analyse them in compile time. We also demonstrate how this description allows us to provide novel features not available in traditional engines. Our system works on iOS, Android and desktop, and is accompanied by a development environment to compose the games with no prior programming skills.

I like Game Programming, Multimedia and Functional Languages. I am 4th-year PhD student @ Nottingham.

My supervisors are Henrik Nilsson and Graham Hutton.

I am also the lead software developer at Keera Studios(tm), a game programming company that uses Functional Languages to deliver games for Android, iOS and desktop, and apps for mobile platforms.