What script engine does AGS use?

[Llelan D.]

What script engine does AGS use?
Is the script engine public or proprietary?
Is the script ECMA compliant?
If ECMA compliant, can AGS be configured to use a different script engine?

I ask because, with many applications that have a script engine, the application script documentation may be less complete than the docs that come with the script engine itself. The script engine docs could be used to answer more detailed and specific script questions.

Also, whenever possible I like to configure apps to only use JavaScript. I've memorized way too many script languages already.

[Pumaman]

AGS uses a proprietary custom scripting engine, with syntax based on and very similar to the standard Java/C#/C++ style languages that are common today.

[RickJ]

I would also add that the AGS script language documentation very useful, complete and kept up to date on a continual basis.   It is also well supported by a syntax high lighting, auto-completion, scintilla based editor and a very active community.      

[Llelan D.]

It does look better documented than most. Like I said, I only asked because I didn't see the answer to that question documented, and experience has taught me to find these things out up front. Thanks for the answer.

However, this does mean that this application does add yet another proprietary script to the world. Is there a reason that a publicly specified script (like an ECMA derivative) is not being used, or is this just historical?

[Trent R]

Basic answer: AGS is almost ten years old, and the scripting language has developed over that long period of time. I assume there was a point when there wasn't a scripting language at all (AC probably?)


~Trent
PS-I've only used AGS for a few years...

[Llelan D.]

Tha's what I figured. Thanks for the info folks.

[Pumaman]

Partly it's the age of AGS, but also it's partly to do with the fact that AGS automatically deals with save game handling. At the time when I investigated using an existing scripting engine, none of them easily supported saving and restoring the script state at run-time, and would have required game authors to write custom save/load code. So to avoid that, I wrote a custom scripting engine to deal with it automatically.

[Trent R]

Aha. Now see, that's a better answer.
But Llelan, you'll find AGS scripting ridiculously easy to pick up.


~Trent