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New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

docs.gameclosure.com

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Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#31

Post by andypants »

lnanek2 wrote: post #26
dysoco wrote: post #23

What is the state of OpenSource HTML5 game engine/frameworks? What's the most mature and useful one?

There are several good ones shortly described here: http://wiki.ludei.com/cocoonjs:engines The issue is that mobile is eating up all the web traffic, and HTML5 in mobile browsers has terrible performance. So you need technology like CocoonJS to reimplement a subset of the browser needed for gaming with decent performance.

Cocoonjs, ejecta and now gameclosure all implement html5 canvas with opengl. With them, I've found rendering performance to be almost as good as native games. The update loop becomes the bottleneck.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#32

Post by bionsuba »

hayksaakian wrote: post #13

I kind of like it, but it'd be nice if someone set up a comparison table of all these new html5 game engines. There are so many nowadays, am I supposed to learn each one to figure out what suits me?

Ask and you shall receive

https://github.com/bebraw/jswiki/wiki/Game-Engines

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#33

Post by simonsarris »

I'm really glad that more game tools are starting to crop up, and its nice to see something from Game Closure who seem to fall off my radar for months at a time.

Looking around at this though, some of these licensing terms are very awkward. ImpactJS costs money but the licensing seems much less strict.

What's more awkward though is the focus on mobile-specific platforms, including an awful lot of native stuff, while lauding HTML5 :/

I don't plan on competing with Game Closure but I hope to contribute a lot canvas game-related tools of my own once I get free time again. UI-inspector style tools like the one they've created would be really helpful, especially for making point-and-click adventure games.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#34

Post by RaphiePS »

I always like to know how free services like this plan to make money.

Their careers page (http://www.gameclosure.com/careers.html) says they're hiring and have "top-tier funding," so obviously they're going to need to monetize somehow. Yet I couldn't find a single mention of a paid service or premium offering.

Perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but it's unsettling nonetheless.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#36

Post by heyadayo »

Michael Carter here from Game Closure, I'd like to clear up some of the licensing questions.

For background, before GC I founded a non-profit that helped open source projects deal with licensing issues, CLAs, and IP around software in general. I've been involved in 3-4 large OSS projects, and I've spoken at OSCON and Pycon multiple times. I very strongly believe in the GPL, though we also wanted to let businesses use GC DevKit for commercial use under the most friendly possible terms.

Our goal is to promote GC DevKit and ensure that 3rd party bugfixes on the commercial and GPL licenses both end up in the same code base.

(1) You can use this under the GPL, no strings attached. (2) We wanted to further allow you to create commercial products, so we ADDITIONALLY offer an incredibly developer-friendly license (GCFL)

* You can release paid games on iOS or android (Note below, we should add web at some point)

* You don't pay us money, it's FREE.

* If you improve the engine, you must contribute it back to our main GPL version.

* You need to show our splash screen and let us mention your game to promote our platform.

Also, yes, we probably should allow web games under the GCFL (But you can still do it with the GPL.) We just haven't made Desktop Web a priority so we disallowed it in the license. This could easily change if enough people are interested.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#37

Post by shardling »

pacomerh wrote: post #27

Others I can think of, Construct2, ImpactJS, Crafy, Collie. Some of them are made for different things. For example Construct2 provides a visual interface, easier to build at the cost of having more limitations. ImpactJS has a level editor, based on blocks, physics are not hard to implement, and they document building for mobile app stores. Crafy is very light, an abstraction for the canvas, similar to Collie. Game c…

I think you probably mean Crafty, not Crafy.

I found I enjoyed working with it the most -- it handled exactly the parts I didn't want to think about (drawing sprites, collision detection) and left the interesting stuff with me.

That said, in the end I did end up looking into their drawing/collision code to tweak the performance some! :D

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#38

Post by hayksaakian »

bionsuba wrote: post #32
hayksaakian wrote: post #13

I kind of like it, but it'd be nice if someone set up a comparison table of all these new html5 game engines. There are so many nowadays, am I supposed to learn each one to figure out what suits me?

Ask and you shall receive https://github.com/bebraw/jswiki/wiki/Game-Engines

... too many options.

I wish it was easier to see what's abandonware vs what's being maintined.

Perhaps show github stars and last commit date?

I'd look at ruby toolbox for a good model to follow.

(mentioned in case you work/contribute to the project)

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#39

Post by doomlaser »

heyadayo wrote: post #36

Michael Carter here from Game Closure, I'd like to clear up some of the licensing questions. For background, before GC I founded a non-profit that helped open source projects deal with licensing issues, CLAs, and IP around software in general. I've been involved in 3-4 large OSS projects, and I've spoken at OSCON and Pycon multiple times. I very strongly believe in the GPL, though we also wanted to let businesses use…

The GPL is a hard sell to anyone. But with your commercial license, where do you draw the line between building functionality for your game on top of an engine versus extending the engine? It seems fuzzy. Besides, not having an option to build a game without either making it open source or publicly evangelizing your product will make adoption a non-starter for many serious developers.

Licensing aside, it seems strange to build a platform on HTML5/Javascript without support for the desktop/web. To me, that would be the whole point of building a game in HTML5 in the first place.

Other than all those caveats, it's nice to see more alternatives to ImpactJS beginning to emerge.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#40

Post by uglytom »

bionsuba wrote: post #32
hayksaakian wrote: post #13

I kind of like it, but it'd be nice if someone set up a comparison table of all these new html5 game engines. There are so many nowadays, am I supposed to learn each one to figure out what suits me?

Ask and you shall receive https://github.com/bebraw/jswiki/wiki/Game-Engines

Definitely a nice and comprehensive table that shows what's out there. Thanks!
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