How to do game with optional keyboard input while main simulation is running?

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#1

Let say I want to make a trivial breakout game with only ball and paddle (on terminal, preferably), and I have ball dropping simulation step

step :: Maybe Input -> WorldState -> WorldState

where Input is paddle direction (if provide on some turn), If there is Noting input then the ball will just continue falling according to physics.

How do I make such game work in a terminal? Is it possible to do so?
Do I need to use some event check loop?

#2

You could use something like brick as a framework and use it to build your game. That’s probably what I’d recommend.

But another approach worth talking about is reading the user input from a different thread and pass it through using stm and TQueue.

Here’s a working example:

#!/usr/bin/env stack
-- stack --resolver lts-13.29 script
module Main where

import Control.Concurrent (forkIO, threadDelay)
import Control.Concurrent.STM (atomically, TQueue, newTQueueIO, writeTQueue, tryReadTQueue)
import Control.Monad (forever)
import System.IO (hSetBuffering, hSetEcho, stdin, BufferMode(NoBuffering), getChar, hReady)
import System.Process (system)

main :: IO ()
main = do
  keysVar <- newTQueueIO -- create a new TQueue that will be passed to both threads
  hSetBuffering stdin NoBuffering -- disable input buffering
  hSetEcho stdin False
  system "tput smcup" -- OS command to open an alternate screen

  forkIO $ getKeys keysVar
  loop keysVar 0

  system "tput rmcup" -- OS command to close the alternate screen
  pure ()

type WorldState = Int

data Input
  = LeftArrow
  | RightArrow
  | Quit

-- This runs in a separate thread and will push keys to the input queue
getKeys :: TQueue Input -> IO ()
getKeys keysVar = forever $ do
  keys <- getKey
  case keys of
    "\ESC[C" -> atomically $ writeTQueue keysVar RightArrow
    "\ESC[D" -> atomically $ writeTQueue keysVar LeftArrow
    "q" -> atomically $ writeTQueue keysVar Quit
    _ -> pure ()

-- Taken from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23068218/haskell-read-raw-keyboard-input/38553473#38553473
getKey :: IO [Char]
getKey = reverse <$> getKey' ""
  where
    getKey' chars = do
      char <- getChar
      more <- hReady stdin
      (if more then getKey' else return) (char:chars)

loop :: TQueue Input -> WorldState -> IO ()
loop keysVar state = do
  maybeKey <- atomically $ tryReadTQueue keysVar
  let maybeState' = step maybeKey state
  case maybeState' of
    Nothing -> pure ()
    Just state' -> do
      system "clear"
      print state'
      threadDelay (25 * 1000)
      loop keysVar state'

step :: Maybe Input -> WorldState -> Maybe WorldState
step input state = case input of
  Nothing -> pure $ state + 1
  Just LeftArrow -> pure $ state `div` 2
  Just RightArrow -> pure $ state * 2
  Just Quit -> Nothing

you can chmod +x example.hs and then ./example.hs if you have stack installed. Note that it will download ghc and the relevant packages in the lts-13.29 resolver if they’re not already installed.

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