Langar.io

Langar.io is a two-dimensional, stack-based esoteric programming language made by User:InputUsername in 2015. It is inspired by and loosely based on the (in)famous web game Agar.io. In Agar.io, the player controls a blob of mass and must gain mass by eating other blobs.

The name "Langar.io" is an uncreative combination of "language" and "Agar.io".

Language overview

A Langar.io program consists of cells, placed on a grid. Cells are read from the program file, left to right, top to bottom.

Cells can contain numbers, actions or nothing (empty). The player (instruction pointer) moves across the grid, one cell at a time, consuming the contents of the cell and executing instructions according to the contents.

Most instructions operate on the stack, which is an unbounded stack of unsigned 8-bit integers (values 0-255).

An example program might look something like this:

(  ) (  ) (10) (5 )
(3 ) (S ) (1 ) (10)
(1 ) (15) (  ) (W )
(S ) (  ) (5 ) (3 )

This program contains mostly rubbish, and it probably doesn't even work, but it does present all language features:

• number cells, parentheses containing any combination of digits 0-9 and spaces: (10), ( 0 ), ( 1 ), (6 6 6)
• action cells, parentheses containing an action and any amount of spaces: (S) or (W)
• empty cells, indicated with parentheses containing optional spaces: ( )

A program file may contain any amount of whitespace, as long as rows of the grid are separated by newlines. Spaces are recommended to organise the code.

Any rows that contain fewer cells than the largest amount of cells on some row are padded with empty cells.

Illegal cells, for example, cells containing anything other than digits, S or W, or spaces, will be ignored. Anything not enclosed in parentheses will also be ignored.

For example:

()(35 3 )(d)(  )(3 )(S)(W)(5 5)
(   ) ()(.)kl;jkd(3434)(2)
( ) (23) (S)(W)(S    )(40 5   9)

This program, when parsed, will produce the following grid:

(    ) (353 ) (    ) (3   ) (S   ) (W   ) (55  )
(    ) (    ) (3434) (2   ) (    ) (    ) (    )
(    ) (23  ) (S   ) (W   ) (S   ) (4059) (    )

Program execution

The player starts in the top-left cell. At the start of the program, the player has 10 mass. Every step, the player consumes the cell it's on.

If the cell is a number cell, and the player's mass is larger than or equal to the cell's value, the cell is consumed, otherwise, the program ends. Empty cells and action cells are always consumed.

After a cell is consumed, it is permanently removed from the grid and an empty cell takes its place.

Number cells

Consuming a number cell causes the player's mass to increase with the number indicated by the cell. Additionally, it performs a function.

Documentation on these functions has not been written yet.

Action cells

Action cells, when consumed, perform one of two possible actions:

• An 'S' action cell "splits" the player, dropping half of its mass in the cell it is currently at, making that cell a number cell. The player will keep the other half of the mass. In case the player's mass is odd, the mass will be split in two and the player will keep the larger part.
• A 'W' action cell drops some of the player's mass in the current cell. The amount of mass that will be dropped is indicated by the current value that resides on the top of the stack. In case the stack is empty, the program ends. If the mass to be dropped is larger than the player's mass, nothing happens.

Empty cells

When an empty cell is consumed, nothing happens. The empty cell is replaced with another empty cell, so essentially empty cells are NOPs.

Movement

After consuming a cell, the player is ready to move on to the next cell. To do this, it checks in every direction for a blob of mass, except for the direction it came from in the previous step. As it's a rather confusing concept and hard to explain in words, here is a diagram depicting the player's movement:

( ) ( ) (3) ( ) ( ) ( )
( ) ( ) (|) ( ) ( ) ( )
( ) (P) (X) (-) (5) (3)
( ) ( ) (|) ( ) ( ) ( )
( ) ( ) (W) ( ) ( ) (0)
( ) ( ) (|) ( ) (2) ( )
(S) ( ) (1) ( ) ( ) ( )

X represents the player's current location and P stands for the location in the previous step.

As you can see in the diagram, the player checks its movement pattern along the lines (| and -). If the check hits a number cell, it stops checking in that direction. The check passes through empty cells (obviously) and action cells. Once every direction has been checked, the direction pointing to the highest number cell is selected for movement. The player then proceeds to move one cell in this direction. In the example above, the player would move one cell to the right. Moving costs one mass.

If the player, at any point, hits 0 (or less) mass, the program ends.

Example programs

Example programs have not been written as of yet, except for the few nonsensical examples that can be found earlier on this page.

The most important part of any and every esolang: is it Turing Complete?

Probably maybe I guess.

External resources

• Langar.io on GitHub, where the specification and an in-development interpreter can be found.
• Agar.io, the official website for, eh, Agar.io.