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Writing JS games is fun :) I've got a little html5 game engine I'm working on: https://github.com/joelmartinez/flatredball-js https://github.com/joelmartinez/fl

Writing JS games is fun :) I've got a little html5 game engine I'm working on: https://github.com/joelmartinez/flatredball-js https://github.com/joelmartinez/flatredball-js Here's a live sample (that you can edit in real time) - http://joelmartinez.github.io/flatredball-js/#rain http://joelmartinez.github.io/flatredball-js/#rain It's not as much about reinventing things in JS, it's about exploring what is possible in that environment. I'm not a huge fan of the "compilers" that just take an executable and compile it to JS ... I'm more going for a "native web" experience.

pestaa 13y ago
Let's not pretend a bouncing ball is exciting regardless you see it in the browser or not. (Except if you're seeing your own stupid ball animation, of course.) Writing games in any language is fun, so by all means keep doing what you enjoy. :) But let's not forget all these problems JS implementations see have already been solved extremely well on the desktop.
- jplur 13y ago
  I hear this on HN quite a bit, but it's not that big of an issue. Most game developers don't need the raw speed of a native system. They do need to create something that can be played by everybody, and is easy to develop for. The very fact that we're seeing so much html/js game dev (including games packaged with a browser as native apps)says it all. Game developers don't pick up a language/platform lightly, if they're making games for it, it's a good choice. However, regarding mobile platforms, you can forget all I've said.
  - pestaa 13y ago
    It is not my concern that some indie developers use whatever they are familiar with. We've been playing those funny stick figure flash games on rainy days anyways. They can be fun to play and fun to develop. However, it is the big studios that should not push to this platform. They had compile-time guarantees, insane ecosystem, known performance tradeoffs. And now some of them want a huge pile of (as in million+ LOC) game engine running on top of a broken scripting language. And for what in exchange? So that the installer's gone and assets are delivered on demand? MMOs have been doing this for years on the desktop. In short, if you do it for fun, please use whatever feels good. If you do it for the money, please do your research and don't make my browser freeze -- I'll just go to Kongregate where the former publishes their games.
  - forrestthewoods 13y ago
    "The very fact that we're seeing so much html/js game dev" We are? Games that make money? Most games may not need the raw speed of native, but they do need the raw latency. If a game is being programmed in a garbage collected language you're gonna have a bad time.

pestaa 13y ago

Let's not pretend a bouncing ball is exciting regardless you see it in the browser or not. (Except if you're seeing your own stupid ball animation, of course.) Writing games in any language is fun, so by all means keep doing what you enjoy. :) But let's not forget all these problems JS implementations see have already been solved extremely well on the desktop.

jplur 13y ago
I hear this on HN quite a bit, but it's not that big of an issue. Most game developers don't need the raw speed of a native system. They do need to create something that can be played by everybody, and is easy to develop for. The very fact that we're seeing so much html/js game dev (including games packaged with a browser as native apps)says it all. Game developers don't pick up a language/platform lightly, if they're making games for it, it's a good choice. However, regarding mobile platforms, you can forget all I've said.
- pestaa 13y ago
  It is not my concern that some indie developers use whatever they are familiar with. We've been playing those funny stick figure flash games on rainy days anyways. They can be fun to play and fun to develop. However, it is the big studios that should not push to this platform. They had compile-time guarantees, insane ecosystem, known performance tradeoffs. And now some of them want a huge pile of (as in million+ LOC) game engine running on top of a broken scripting language. And for what in exchange? So that the installer's gone and assets are delivered on demand? MMOs have been doing this for years on the desktop. In short, if you do it for fun, please use whatever feels good. If you do it for the money, please do your research and don't make my browser freeze -- I'll just go to Kongregate where the former publishes their games.
- forrestthewoods 13y ago
  "The very fact that we're seeing so much html/js game dev" We are? Games that make money? Most games may not need the raw speed of native, but they do need the raw latency. If a game is being programmed in a garbage collected language you're gonna have a bad time.