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Command & Conquer in HTML5 with multiplayer
- yummies 14y agoI've always wondered when we'd get a browser based RTS that doesn't require some silly plugin. (maybe one exists?) This is a nice start, but will probably get shot down as soon as it becomes noticed by the powers that be at EA (or whoever owns the copyright)
- dested 14y agoThere is absolutely no reason there shouldnt be. All the technologies needed to successfully create a fully featured multiplayer RTS are there.
- yummies 14y agoThat's my thinking. Not to belittle the accomplishment here, but I would bet the hardest part is the art and design - something easy to 'borrow' from an existing game. I hope he is using the C&C art as a placeholder until he can master the engineering aspect of this, and then invest in original art/design once he's got the foundation down. I'd like to support a game like this.
- ryandvm 14y agoAgreed. I've been wishing for an Age of Empires clone in HTML5 for years.
- ecubed 14y agoAge of Empires II in the browser would tank my GPA
- jczhang 14y agoTheres discussion about this for Starcraft, but some people apparently think its pretty close to impossible :(
- yummies 14y agoDo you know why? Is there just too many sprites for a modern browser to handle?
- jczhang 14y agoI think a big part of the reason is the effort needed to reverse-engineer the code and also try to not get sued by Blizz. You can follow the discussion on teamliquid in the BW forums.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- DCoder 14y agoAnd the effort not to give up when your reverse-engineering efforts reveal remarkable stupidities in the original code. We all know crunch happens, but that doesn't make dealing with the resulting spaghetti any easier. (I spent several years reverse-engineering Command & Conquer RA2, I should know - that game has hacks and flukes everywhere.)
- MasterScrat 14y agoNot an RTS, but I've been musing with a similar idea for some time with a certain RPG... http://lumakey.net/labs/battleground/demo1/ http://lumakey.net/labs/battleground/demo1/
- hmbg 14y agoEx-neighbors of mine are trying to accomplish this, I think they're working with one of the big game publishers. They have a demo of left4dead on their site: http://gooengine.com/ http://gooengine.com/
- mindjiver 14y agoGood thing this was posted in the evening CET, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten anything done today at work. :)
- dested 14y agoWas this done with emscripten or ported by hand?
- iso-8859-1 14y agoRavi Shankar (a multi-talent it seems :P) ported it by hand, I think. Check out the source: http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and-conquer/release/cnc-0.6.4.js http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and-... Doesn't contain anything I connect with Emscripten (stack and heap references). Actually, not even the object fields names have been obfuscated! It is quite readable. But I'd feel bad minifying a port of a game I don't own, too. Maybe that's why.
- adityars 14y agoCompletely ported by hand... The only external library I use is jQuery :)
- MrJagil 14y agoAstonishing. Was just playing Dungeon Keeper- that might as well be next. If only it would be taken seriously. I.e. actual accounts that would get punished for leaving etc.
- Tyrant505 14y agoCan someone make an Ultima Online Clone already? This is incredible validity, great job!
- justjimmy 14y agoAwww yeah… the SFX, the MUSIC (Mechanical man is my fav) and the projectiles. Still my favorite RTS hands down. Thanks for sharing! EDIT: I actually searched Rdio for C&C music after seeing this post…was not disappointed!
- iconfinder 14y agoAll the music is on Spotify as well. I have created a shared playlist here: http://open.spotify.com/user/iconfinder/playlist/20cY7KpZVskjHu6X3MsvhT http://open.spotify.com/user/iconfinder/playlist/20cY7KpZVsk...
- littlespark 14y agoThank you for this. I've spent so many hours of my life listening to these songs, it's good to hear them again.
- egeozcan 14y agoI can't get this out of my head - http://open.spotify.com/track/6Yyt7aFBMAxp0Eqzb1XGtl http://open.spotify.com/track/6Yyt7aFBMAxp0Eqzb1XGtl thank you for the list, really appreciated
- meritt 14y agoC&C:RA Hell March. Such an awesome awesome song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6PxkeOIMA8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6PxkeOIMA8
- Pkeod 14y agoI like this video with the song more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=096hnKDw5tc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=096hnKDw5tc
- dtjohnnymonkey 14y agoNice. When I saw the headline this song immediately started playing in my head.
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- Goranek 14y agoGame of my youth. It works nicely !!! Great job!
- adityars 14y agoThank you :D
- thrownaway2424 14y agoWell it has a few bugs it seems (it took me like five minutes to deploy my factory, and then I got disconnected) but wow, what a great service to humanity.
- 10dpd 14y agoJust wait for the flood of In-App Purchases to ruin the gameplay.
- adityars 14y agolol.. Not going to happen... I even removed any ads on the page...
- bicknergseng 14y agoFunny... I was confused when I saw an already visited link when I opened up HN for the first time today. I found this last week after that Dune II post.
- kevingadd 14y agoSoliciting donations for something you made using someone else's IP without permission seems like it is absolutely crossing the line. This is a cool demo and I like the trend of people porting classic games to the browser, but you absolutely shouldn't have a 'give me money for this' button sitting there. It's just asking for trouble.
- yebyen 14y agoBut they're going to need that money to pay the lawyer/settlement...
- adventureloop 14y agoThe precedent is in place. Prior to the release of C&C4 EA release the original games for free online. Many different sites have hosted the files, everyone I have seen has had ads.
- rprasad 14y agoThat's not how copyright works. Copyright is specific to the manifestation. EA gave its blessing for sites to host the game install files as part of its promotion. EA does not appear to have given its permission to host this game. As long as this game is merely a tech demo, it is arguably covered by fair use to some degree (i.e., as educational). However, once you add in attempts to derive revenue the fair use analysis tips toward commercial considerations which are far less forgiving.
- belorn 14y agoDonations does not automatically mean a for-profit venture, nor does it has any affect on the legality of the use of the work in regard to fair use. Fair use in the US, as any legal interpenetration can only be made in a local sense, the fair use in the US has some prior cases where the affect on the market is used to determine if a fair use case is valid or not, but that doesn't require money to change hand.
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- enraged_camel 14y agoGreat job, but no cutscenes?
- adityars 14y agoStill figuring out a way to host videos... Hosting videos on shared hosting is asking for them to be melted ....
- skyfaller 14y agoThis isn't an HTML5 game, but OpenRA is an open source clone of Command & Conquer: Red Alert which also supports the original Command & Conquer and Dune2000. http://open-ra.org http://open-ra.org If you get tired of playing in a browser, check OpenRA out!
- m_myers 14y agoOr, you know, just download the actual game instead of a clone. EA released the first three in the series (Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, and Tiberian Sun) for free several years ago. [will edit in link when I'm not on a corporate network]
- Klinky 14y agoI haven't played OpenRA, but I know that getting the games to launch and multiplayer can be quite spotty with the originals on modern machines.
- skyfaller 14y agoOpenRA launches fine and plays multiplayer fine except for a persistent synchronization bug that will occasionally crash large multiplayer games. The developers are currently vigorously hunting that bug.
- enraged_camel 14y agoActually, the very original C&C had that bug, too. I remember trying to play it with a friend of mine and it would often crash with an "sessions are out of sync" error after 10-15 minutes of playing. Is it sad that I still remember that, or what? :P
- jcurbo 14y agoThere are fan made patches (nyerguds) for C&C95 and RA that help with this, as well as a DirectDraw driver for graphics and CnCNet for multiplayer. (Would provide links but can't at the moment. Google should find them easily)
- tubbo 14y agoHoly. Fucking. Shit. :)
- makmanalp 14y agoDoes anyone else get stuck after level1 because the UI freezes? Firefox aurora.
- adityars 14y agoChrome works better... Several people have reported this bug in Firefox for Windows
- hayksaakian 14y agoIMO the games industry has a dearth of open source activity, and I'm thankful to you for moving it forward.
- adityars 14y agoThanks... Hopefully between this game and my new book, I inspire tons of new developers in 2013 ... :D
- richforrester 14y agoGreat. Just great. So much for productivity today. I like the separate canvas for mouse activities. Makes a lot of sense. It's probably not that much of a novelty, but I'm a designer/lousy programmer, so I'm impressed easily.
- adityars 14y ago:)
- omnisci 14y agoand productivity in offices plummets. :)
- kaffiene 14y agoI hope the state of the art is much better than that.
- dubcanada 14y agoI can't run anyone over :( And my dude walked across water. But it was awesome!
- aymeric 14y agoAnyone interested in learning how to code such games can have a look at my open source Terrarium.js http://terrariumjs.wiselabs.net http://terrariumjs.wiselabs.net (it has a multiplayer component)
- TommyDANGerous 14y agoI want to use HTML5 more often but I refrain because of comparability issues with IE for the users who still use it...
- bmmayer1 14y ago30 minutes of entertaining and nostalgic gameplay = one enthusiastic upvote.
- jamesmcn 14y agoCan't tell which is a bigger time sink - the emerging IP debate here, or the hours I lost playing the original C&C back in the '90s.
- re_todd 14y agoI had to repeat Calculus because of that damn game!
- sgt 14y agoI find it a bit difficult to scroll up/down/left/right, because I constantly overshoot and then it stops scrolling. I then have to move the mouse back and try to find the exact point where it starts scrolling. A bit frustrating after 20 minutes of gameplay. Is there a way in HTML5 to "capture" the mouse within a certain area?
- DCoder 14y agoThere is the Pointer Lock API [1], but it's still WIP. [1] http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/pointerlock/intro/ http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/pointerlock/intro/
- adityars 14y agoYou can use the keyboard arrow keys to scroll...
- sgt 14y agoWow - I didn't even think of trying that, because for some reason I figured that the original game could only scroll using the mouse. So much for presumptions...
- adityars 14y agoSomeone specifically requested the feature on the issue tracker, and since it was a one line tweak, I added it in :)
- goggles99 14y agoWill HTML5/JS games ever approach the performance that we have had for years with Flash/Silverlight? I try all these HTML5 demos and have thus far never failed to be sorely disappointed at the complexity that is required to code them and the poor performance they yield. Shouldn't a new technology only be embraced for a certain use (like creating games) when it is "better" in some way than what we already have? Sorry, I really just don't get it. When will people realize that games will never be viable in HTML5. Embedded audio, videos, vector graphics and minor animations for a web site/app - great. But games??? Please stop. You are not using the best (or even suitable) tool for the job.
- joelthelion 14y agoMaybe browser support isn't good enough yet? I don't think there is anything fundamental that makes HTML5 slower than Flash or Silverlight other than the fact that it's new and standard, which makes it harder to get right (but will make it far more useful in the long run).
- goggles99 14y agoThen Hype HTML5 when it is ready for prime time. I am sick of all the excitement surrounding it. It is not revolutionary, nothing about it is particularly new (can it do something that Flash/Silverlight cannot???) or exiting. Everything that it does can already be done and in a better way. All this and we can't really use it for years to come because it is not mature and not enough users have modern browsers. Enough already. Let me know when the party starts, cause I am sure am sick of hearing hype over HTML5 when there are already better alternatives. When Flash was new and games like this were created (this was like 8-9 years ago LOL) It really was a big deal because nothing like it existed at the time. HTML5 to me is like the GO programming language. YAY, another language that can do what hundreds of other languages can already do. It may be new and "neat", It may even be the best tool for doing certain niche things, but hardly worth seeing in the news every day.
- bobsy 14y agoVery cool but isn't the AI bugged? Run unit into attack range. Pull unit back and attack with other units. Enemy AI will attempt to chase unit which you are pulling back. Should mean with a bit of micro you won't lose any units.