5 ms·

Mobile browsers do support wasm, but the game doesn't offer controls for mobile users who aren't using a keyboard. Taking 100.6 KB (16.46 KB compressed) of jav

Mobile browsers do support wasm, but the game doesn't offer controls for mobile users who aren't using a keyboard. Taking 100.6 KB (16.46 KB compressed) of javascript and 37.41 MB (8.15 MB compressed) for snake is quite a lot compared to what it would take for normal javascript.

lwansbrough 3y ago
For sure, but snake also doesn't need a game engine. I don't think the exercise was code golf.
jarjoura 3y ago
WASM is kind of coming full circle back around to when browsers used to support running Java Applets, or flash, or even ActiveX, however, this time, WASM is safe and is built into the browser. Figma has been the one platform to take full advantage of it in really jaw-dropping ways that proved you could write real creative professional productive software only in the frame of a Chrome window. It's just that WASM is not really practical for use for most things you want in a web browser, though the tooling to spit out WASM modules seem to keep getting better.
- mminer237 3y ago
  I mostly agree, but for most of its life, the Flash runtime was ~1MB and shared among every site. Every site needing to download a separate 38MB runtime is an insane amount of overhead.
  - vacuity 3y ago
    Could the WASM runtime eventually be shared like that? Also, is there a reason why the overhead is so large compared to Flash?
- vacuity 3y ago
  What are more uses that WASM (or any theoretical technology, really) could have for a web browser? Do you mean scripting to customize the browser itself?
lkt 3y ago
Bevy has a lot of features enabled by default that add to the size. You can get bevy-snake down to 12 MB (3.2 MB gzipped, 1.9 MB brotli'd) if you only enable rendering and sprites, and strip the function names section. It's still a little bigger than I would like, but it's not terrible.
- ofrzeta 3y ago
  It's a really barebones snake game that should take less than 12 kb. Anyway I get that it's more of a proof of concept for Bevy.

lwansbrough 3y ago

For sure, but snake also doesn't need a game engine. I don't think the exercise was code golf.

jarjoura 3y ago

WASM is kind of coming full circle back around to when browsers used to support running Java Applets, or flash, or even ActiveX, however, this time, WASM is safe and is built into the browser. Figma has been the one platform to take full advantage of it in really jaw-dropping ways that proved you could write real creative professional productive software only in the frame of a Chrome window. It's just that WASM is not really practical for use for most things you want in a web browser, though the tooling to spit out WASM modules seem to keep getting better.

mminer237 3y ago
I mostly agree, but for most of its life, the Flash runtime was ~1MB and shared among every site. Every site needing to download a separate 38MB runtime is an insane amount of overhead.
- vacuity 3y ago
  Could the WASM runtime eventually be shared like that? Also, is there a reason why the overhead is so large compared to Flash?
vacuity 3y ago
What are more uses that WASM (or any theoretical technology, really) could have for a web browser? Do you mean scripting to customize the browser itself?

lkt 3y ago

Bevy has a lot of features enabled by default that add to the size. You can get bevy-snake down to 12 MB (3.2 MB gzipped, 1.9 MB brotli'd) if you only enable rendering and sprites, and strip the function names section. It's still a little bigger than I would like, but it's not terrible.

ofrzeta 3y ago
It's a really barebones snake game that should take less than 12 kb. Anyway I get that it's more of a proof of concept for Bevy.