ARArch-TK·Dec 21, 2024
Cool Easter egg: https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster/blob/master/awkaste...
In A Raycaster in BashTheMozg
awk-raycaster
Awk2016–2024
TheMozg / awk-raycaster
awk-raycaster
Pseudo-3D shooter written completely in gawk using raycasting technique
18Distinct people
18Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
2.5KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Pseudo-3D shooter written completely in gawk using raycasting technique
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year18 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2016-01-13 19:41:40 UTC to 2024-12-21 18:11:10 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
What Hacker News says
18 sourcesOf course, we need to give an honorable mention to the `awk` raycaster from 9 years ago.
https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster/tree/master
In A Raycaster in BashAwk is a bona fide programming language. It makes line-oriented processing extra easy, but so do Perl and Ruby.
While awk is mostly used for text processing (and general data transforms, e.g. in the Linux kernel build system), it allows for writing arbitrary programs, e.g. first-person shooters: https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
In What Happened to Perl 7? (2022)You underestimate it!
https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
In Frawk: An efficient Awk-like programming language. (2021)Pseudo-3D shooter written completely in gawk using raycasting technique: https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
See also this list of projects: https://github.com/freznicek/awesome-awk?tab=readme-ov-file#...
In Ask HN: What is the most amazing Awk program you've usedMight be relevant:
sed-chess:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37896854
awk-raycaster:
https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
In Aho – a Git implementation in Awk> It has only enough functionality to provide text matching and substitution.
Gawk at least can do a lot more than that. Reading and writing files, network communications, and run arbitrary shell commands, for example. It's certainly not as powerful as perl but it's also not limited to just text matching and substitution.
Edit: figured I would provide some examples. Here's an http server and a first person shooter in gawk. Maybe not so practical but they show some of gawk's capabilities.
https://github.com/kevin-albert/awkserver
https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
In CLI text processing with GNU awkAuthor missed an opportunity to reference this 3D doom-like in awk: https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
In Fascination of AwkA first person shooter in 571 lines of GNU Awk (2016)
514 points · Open discussionAwkaster: A text-mode raycasting 3D shooter written in Awk
3 points · Open discussionPseudo-3D shooter written completely in gawk using raycasting technique (2017)
1 points · Open discussionPseudo-3D Shooter in Gawk Using Raycasting
1 points · Open discussionIf anything, awk should get some praise for it's flexibility to go from one liners to Doom-style 3d games[1]!
[1] https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
In Command-line Tools can be 235x Faster than a Hadoop Cluster (2014)I'm reminded of two other surprising uses of Awk -- "Awk for AI"[0] and "awk-raycaster"[1]
I really like Awk as a language because it integrates so well with shell pipelines and it is incredibly small, while remaining high-level enough to be practical, which I think this project demonstrates quite well.
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20140926113347/http://www.wra1th...
[1]: https://github.com/TheMozg/awk-raycaster
In Awk driven IoTShowing the 15 most recent of 18 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.