Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

venturebeat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 31 posts

Re: Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

#11

Post by rrreese »

ne0phyte wrote: post #10

All the HTML5/WebGL stuff may be nice for casual gamers, but as a gamer I really don't want all that stuff. Same visual quality/performance as a native game is probably not possible and every game in js will perform worse AND create more load (and waste energy). Why is everyone trying to move games and big applications to the web?

Like you I'm a gamer, and like you this doesn't appeal.

However I can see exactly why people are doing this. There have been a big explosion of indie games recently and that can be put down to iOS and Steam. Both make it super easy to get games.

Anything that reduces friction is going to be very appealing to game makers. And installing Steam is friction. If playing your game simply involves visiting a link - thats pretty easy. As HTML5 matures, as more people use modern browsers, and as Flash becomes less reliably installed on browsers, expect to see a lot of casual games moving to HTML5.

Re: Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

#12

Post by rcconf »

It looks like they used TypeScript for a good portion of the client code! That's really interesting. I wonder what the positives and drawbacks for that decision were. If a developer from turbulenz is viewing these comments, I'd be really interested to know why you picked TypeScript.

(it looks like the emacs plugin finally works for TypeScript as well, how convenient!)

Re: Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

#13

Post by davidgaleano »

rcconf wrote: post #12

It looks like they used TypeScript for a good portion of the client code! That's really interesting. I wonder what the positives and drawbacks for that decision were. If a developer from turbulenz is viewing these comments, I'd be really interested to know why you picked TypeScript. (it looks like the emacs plugin finally works for TypeScript as well, how convenient!)

One of our colleagues wrote this article about our decision and the process we followed to migrate our existing JavaScript code to TypeScript:

http://news.turbulenz.com/post/47457658846/mostly-painlessly...

Re: Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

#14

Post by cadetzero »

ne0phyte wrote: post #10

All the HTML5/WebGL stuff may be nice for casual gamers, but as a gamer I really don't want all that stuff. Same visual quality/performance as a native game is probably not possible and every game in js will perform worse AND create more load (and waste energy). Why is everyone trying to move games and big applications to the web?

Because if you're creating a 2d game, it can be rendered reasonably fast in your browser.

Full 3d is a different problem.

However, a game like Monaco, with super simple controls but really interesting game play, could absolutely be built in the browser. This gives an easier distribution medium, more control over who is using the game, and if you're already a webdev it fits in nicely with your pre-existing skill set.

The bar is significantly lowered for a lot of weekend warrior game makers if you're going the 2d route.

Re: Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

#15

Post by [deleted] »

ne0phyte wrote: post #10

All the HTML5/WebGL stuff may be nice for casual gamers, but as a gamer I really don't want all that stuff. Same visual quality/performance as a native game is probably not possible and every game in js will perform worse AND create more load (and waste energy). Why is everyone trying to move games and big applications to the web?

[deleted]

Re: Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

#16

Post by eterpstra »

This is really cool! There are some really amazing features packed in there. After browsing the website a bit, I didn't see a whole lot regarding mobile deployment. Is there a builder/packager included that targets native iOS and/or Android, similar to GameClosure, CocoonJS, directCanvas, or Ejecta?

Re: Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

#18

Post by WA »

jamesaustin wrote: post #8
WA wrote: post #2

Hmm, while the games made with it look quite good, I'm not sure whether to call it a "true" HTML5 game engine or not. You have to download a plugin for your browser to play these games.

This is a classic problem of trying to be helpful and it's confusing people until they understand the details. The engine uses HTML5 and WebGL. When the required APIs aren't present it falls back onto a plugin. This is supposed to be helpful for developers because it means the games will work on pretty much all browsers include IE. But it confuses people because some people think a plugin is required. So what's bette…

Yes you're right. Thing is, I used Safari 6 to check it out which has WebGL disabled by default. The site offered a download immediately instead of hinting that I might have to enable WebGL.

The fallback is quite a good idea, but it should've detected that I do have a modern browser which simply might be misconfigured for the game experience.

Re: Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

#20

Post by luckysh0t »

rrreese wrote: post #11
ne0phyte wrote: post #10

All the HTML5/WebGL stuff may be nice for casual gamers, but as a gamer I really don't want all that stuff. Same visual quality/performance as a native game is probably not possible and every game in js will perform worse AND create more load (and waste energy). Why is everyone trying to move games and big applications to the web?

Like you I'm a gamer, and like you this doesn't appeal. However I can see exactly why people are doing this. There have been a big explosion of indie games recently and that can be put down to iOS and Steam. Both make it super easy to get games. Anything that reduces friction is going to be very appealing to game makers. And installing Steam is friction. If playing your game simply involves visiting a link - thats pr…

Steam makes it super easy to get games but installing it is friction?

I am a gamer with an interest in the indie sector but don't have steam because my first experience with that extra platform abstraction - Origin - has put me off. Neither do I want a game as a web page. I want a gaming experience and that for me is still a standalone executable. I even dislike not having a physical copy of digital distributions.

Post reply on HN