New open source HTML5 mobile game platform • Hacker News Board

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#51

Post by hdra » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 12:51 PM UTC

well, I was super excited when I see the video, until I see this in the getting started document:

  We’re only supporting OSX at this time, but we have some success running on Linux and Windows.

haven't tried it yet though, so how much is "some success"? and what are the things that makes it OSX only, instead of UNIX compatible?

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#52

Post by bionsuba » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 1:14 PM UTC

hayksaakian wrote: post #38

bionsuba wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

It is a wiki so I will consider contributing because I have some free time coming up.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#53

Post by iends » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 2:00 PM UTC

steffenfrost wrote: post #3

How so @iends? You can do both, why would you have to release on the app store?

Sorry, I didn't see this.

What I mean is, the whole point of choosing HTML5/JS is that you can write once, run everywhere. The non-GPL license forbids you from writing your game and releasing it for the browser.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#54

Post by ensmotko » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 2:36 PM UTC

hdra wrote: post #51

well, I was super excited when I see the video, until I see this in the getting started document: We’re only supporting OSX at this time, but we have some success running on Linux and Windows. haven't tried it yet though, so how much is "some success"? and what are the things that makes it OSX only, instead of UNIX compatible?

I've tried running it on Ubuntu 12.10. The install script seems to work without a problem, but when I try to run their command line tool (basil) it dies without an error message...

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#55

Post by beefsack » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 3:37 PM UTC

Seeing how heavily this depends on node.js, I'd love to see it distributed through NPM. NPM already provides a centralised and clean package management system which can handle updates and installing executables and it makes it possible to make the engine a dependency of your game code.

It's the sort of thing that put me off meteor before, it doesn't seem like a great decision to reinvent the wheel. I noticed that during the install step it clones a number of other repositories as submodules, perhaps these would do well as individual NPM packages and the central package depends on each one?

Edit: having a play now and it's very cool :) Unlike another who reported silent failure when running basil on Ubuntu 12.04, it's working well for me on Xubuntu 12.04. I had a permissions issue as stated in the install guide, would it be possible to have this install to the home directory instead and add it to the local user PATH? This sort of thing seems like it would make more sense to install just for the local user.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#56

Post by dubcanada » Mon, Feb 18, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

ensmotko wrote: post #54

hdra wrote: post #51

well, I was super excited when I see the video, until I see this in the getting started document: We’re only supporting OSX at this time, but we have some success running on Linux and Windows. haven't tried it yet though, so how much is "some success"? and what are the things that makes it OSX only, instead of UNIX compatible?

I've tried running it on Ubuntu 12.10. The install script seems to work without a problem, but when I try to run their command line tool (basil) it dies without an error message...

It's just a NodeJS tool so go take a look at https://github.com/gameclosure/devkit/blob/master/bin/basil and see what's up.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#57

Post by coldtea » Tue, Feb 19, 2013, 10:39 PM UTC

andypants wrote: post #49

heyadayo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your concern about supporting the web; I think it's because a lot of people really want us to be a web game engine, but we aren't. We're a mobile game engine. We simply chose "HTML5" as an API layer because of the excellent tooling around the ecosystem. It just so happens we support the web as a side-product, and that's pretty cool I think, but not really the point of the GC DevKit. Great feedback on the fuzzin…

But games are all different. An improvement to the engine for one kind of game may not be an improvement for another kind of game. Most games would probably only use a small part of the engine. Will the engine become a monolith with support for pretty much everything, and all games using the engine will only need 10% of it? Or something else? I think you need to state very clearly what the goal of the engine is (best…

>But games are all different. An improvement to the engine for one kind of game may not be an improvement for another kind of game. Most games would probably only use a small part of the engine.

I don't really see them as all different. Especially at the engine level. Especially considering most 2D engines (Cocos, Game Closure, etc) are mostly the same and use similar concepts.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#58

Post by coldtea » Tue, Feb 19, 2013, 10:46 PM UTC

JDDunn9 wrote: post #11

iends wrote: post #2

I'm not really a game developer but it seems weird to me that if you go with the GCFL you cannot release the game on the internet, but only in the appstores.

Totally agree. The only reason you would develop a game in HTML5 is for the build once, launch everywhere attempt. Otherwise you might as well use Corona.

Really? How about some other reasons:

- nice tooling (Chrome developer tools, JS stuff) - tons of developers know JS - V8 is mighty fast

It's not about distributing to the subpar (money wise) web app stores.

Cocos2D also has JS bindings going (for native use, not just for web), and QT also has JS bindings going (again, for native).

And it's not using "HTML5". You are using their engine with native bindings on the mobile devices. The performance and integration is only mimicked by HTML5/WebGL etc on the browser.

Re: New open source HTML5 mobile game platform

#59

Post by coldtea » Tue, Feb 19, 2013, 10:48 PM UTC

bryceneal wrote: post #44

So I need to show your logo before my game starts in order to use this library ? Sorry, but that is a deal breaker. Everyone should check out LimeJS. It is essentially functionally equivalent to what is being offered here, but without the shady license.

>So I need to show your logo before my game starts in order to use this library ? Sorry, but that is a deal breaker.

Then break the deal. Would you rather they just let you use their work as you see fit?