
Impact HTML5 Game Engine released - helium
http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2010/12/brace-for-impact
======
clyfe
The grand list of similar (free) projects:

<http://easeljs.com/>

<https://github.com/biilly/doodle-js>

<https://github.com/fairfieldt/xcjs>

<https://github.com/batiste/sprite.js>

<https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js>

<https://github.com/ysimonson/canvas.js>

<https://github.com/davebalmer/jo>

<https://github.com/lostdecade/diggy>

<http://gamejs.org/>

<http://www.aframejs.com/>

<http://gamequery.onaluf.org/>

<http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/>

~~~
mcav
Does anyone have any experience with one or more of the above, to help narrow
down the field of viable frameworks?

~~~
charlesju
<https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js> has 900+ followers on github, by far the
biggest project from my initial analysis.

~~~
clyfe
I watch (follow) three.js on github for a while and I see frequent activity
(commits, pull requests) on the project. Compared to most of the other (2d,
simple stuff) frameworks this one is a full blown 3D engine albeit it does
only rendering (no collision detection etc).

------
fookyong
Biolab <http://playbiolab.com> runs so smoothly on a mobile web browser it's
worth $99 just to see how it's done.

Purchased a license immediately :)

~~~
geuis
Sorry, it doesn't. The only publicly released game, his Biolab Disaster, loads
an initial screen and just stops. This is on an iPhone 4, having cleared the
safari cache and even restarting the phone. Not exactly impressed.

~~~
joakin
iPhone 4 here, smooth and addictive despite the 20 secs it took to load ( wifi
)

~~~
rufo
It's a bit choppy on my iPhone 4, but it does work just fine for me. Choppy,
but playable.

~~~
Twisol
Considering the last three parent comments are using an iPhone 4, the
diversity of performance reports astounds me.

------
batiste
Quite a nice job, especially with the editor. If you want a bit of a lower
level, open-source framework there is <https://github.com/batiste/sprite.js>

~~~
SingAlong
Wow! that's awesome. I just checked the demo links in the readme. Sprite.js
has collision too (haven't checked how it does collision).

I tried to find out if three.js supports collision and I came across this
issue <https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/issue/49> which says that
three.js will focus on rendering part alone. And mrdoob suggests JiglibJS
(<http://www.jiglibjs.org/>) on the same thread.

The other stuff available right now are:

* gameQuery, a jquery plugin <http://gamequery.onaluf.org/>

* Akihabara, an NES style engine <http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/>

* xc.js, new one under dev <https://github.com/fairfieldt/xcjs>

I however have to mention that ImpactJS looks more complete and solid than the
rest. I have a lot of kids coming home asking for small games, so made a few
play Biolab (i liked it too) and was waiting eagerly for ImpactJS.

P.S: Wasn't it mentioned on the impactjs website that it would be free? Well
not that I care about the $99 fee.

------
nick24862486
I am for one happy they charge money. I am happy paying knowing it provides
incentive for developers to make product even more awesome.

------
delackner
Currently Audio support in html5 in iOS is really bad, and there's no way
around that. Native code is the only realistic option right now for games on
iOS. I don't see Apple going out of their way to "fix" the situation either.

Specifically, telling an Audio element to simply load and then play a sound
fails much of the time, or takes upwards of a full second to start playback of
a very short sample file.

Not to mention that iOS specifically prevents an Audio element from playing
unless it is in a function responding to user touch. This means background
sound effects and such are effectively impossible. I'd love very much if
someone told me (with working sample code) that I was wrong.

------
ranza
I kind of think that $99 is a lot for a js library. But then again its really
well done and a game like biolab (<http://playbiolab.com/>) runs so smooth. It
might be worth it.

~~~
ianp
Game-related libraries and engines can get expensive. They're both 3D, but C4
and Torque for example can both cost >$300USD.

It's pretty expensive, but given how well that demo worked i'd probably buy it
if i did any javascript.

~~~
charlesdm
That price is totally worth it though. I'm finishing up a first version of my
own (native) C++ 2D engine. It runs smooth on iOS and Android, PC and I'm
going to get it running on Bada, WebOS and Mac OS as well. The time it took me
to get this up and running is around 1000ish hours, and I'm pretty experienced
in the area. Going to put in 3D as well soon. :)

~~~
pdelgallego
I am probably in your customer target group.

How it will compare with other engines, for example Unity3d. It will be only
C++, are you adding a script language on top to make development faster?

~~~
charlesdm
I'll be adding lua as a scripting language, but it probably won't be in v1.

That said, I don't really want to take the same direction that unity is
currently taking. Since the engine that I wrote currently pretty much works on
every mobile platform, I'm aiming to sell source code licenses to game
companies.

What kind of solution are you looking for?

------
Calamitous
I'm shocked, _shocked_ to find that gambling is going on in here!

------
extension
$99 to make games with no sound, dodgy input, and a tiny fraction of the
graphics and CPU power of native code.

In case you've forgotten what native games look like:
<http://vimeo.com/16945125>

EDIT: I wouldn't be critical at all if this wasn't being sold. Since it is,
I'm criticizing it as a business proposition, and it's a bad one. When games
like Rage HD are being sold for a few bucks, I don't know how one would even
make the $99 back on this engine.

~~~
PostOnce
Let me know when you get Rage running in a browser.

Also let me know when you get Rage running on all platforms with no
modification to the code.

~~~
steveklabnik
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webgl>

[http://mrdoob.github.com/three.js/examples/geometry_minecraf...](http://mrdoob.github.com/three.js/examples/geometry_minecraft.html)

Not there yet, but it's a start.

~~~
kj12345
I wrote a little WebGL last week, and it seemed like a really solid API. Auto-
compiled shaders right in the page as scripts, conversion between js arrays
and GL buffers is easy, etc. The only major problem in Chrome 9 beta at least
is 100% pegged CPU even on a simple scene...

~~~
cosgroveb
Try starting Chrome with: --enable-accelerated-compositing

------
_pius
A little OT, but where do game designers here tend to buy their artwork? Is
there an equivalent of ThemeForest/GraphicRiver for sprites and other game
assets?

~~~
ido
www.wayofthepixel.net isn't bad for finding artists looking for contract work.

------
Griever
I've been waiting for this for quite some time now. I just picked up a license
solely for the purpose of checking out his code for the map designer.

Can't wait!

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dstein
I'm not sure if it's technically feasible, but there is probably a huge market
for a game engine that can export JS/Canvas code to a native app code.

I think now that Apple lighten up on their developer rules this is now a
possibility.

------
woid
purchased! now I have a toy to play with during christmas :-)

~~~
jcfrei
any experiences? how well is it documented? I plan to buy it as well. 99$ is
very little compared to the development time you might have doing it yourself.

------
yosephgilad
If you are interested in getting paid to work on a small ImpactJS project, get
in touch: yosephgilad AT gmail.

------
savoy11
And there we go - the typical HN oh no, it costs money ($99 for an engine,
mind you, that may save you hundreds of hours development time). How much do
you charge per hour? Can this library save you hundreds of hours? Do the math.

I am not surpirsed at all that the average tech startup is a failure, with
more than half of the people failing to get the "charge money for
product/service" model everyone else in the world is using.

Oh no, it costs money. So what exactly are you trying to start that succeeds
without having a price tag on it? Man, I get tired of this, really. For every
spot-on comment on HN, I read 5 that make me dumber each day.

~~~
chipsy
For the game market right now, no, it's not worth $99, because:

1\. HTML5, and more specifically Canvas, isn't ready to deliver on its gaming
promises yet. Too many slow/incomplete implementations to be fully cross-
browser/cross-platform.

2\. You will get an almost identical engine with a strong community ecosystem
if you use Flixel and a map editor(e.g. Flan, DAME, Wasabi M). And that
resulting game will be tailored for the Flash portal market. Here is a
perfectly great game made for Ludum Dare 19 in 48 hours in Flixel:
[http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-
dare-19/?action=preview...](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-
dare-19/?action=preview&uid=528) And here is a different LD19 entry that was
done with no engine at all, just raw haXe:
[http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-
dare-19/?action=preview...](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-
dare-19/?action=preview&uid=2982)

3\. In a year it is likely to be obsoleted by engines based around other HTML5
technologies(CSS and SVG make for stronger "general 2D scenegraph"
technologies, and WebGL is faster). It's a feature-poor engine - the
highlights are the collision system and map editor - and the existing free
ones are similar.

If you do buy this engine, it's probably because of ignorance, which in itself
is a bad sign. There's reams of game code lying around the internet, and the
most important thing isn't having the code but having an understanding of how
it works. You are better served by buying a book on engine creation, reading
that, and reading open source engine code, than to buy one set of documented
engine code and only read that.

The only time this equation differs is when we're talking about features that
are not dime-a-dozen and are truly a pain to integrate properly. I would be
more impressed if it had one or more of:

* A tightly integrated full-physics engine(in addition to the basic platforming collision)

* Scene serialization/in-game editing

* More of a story for UI code - menus, settings, user profiles, keybind configuration, etc.

* Networking features

* Features for AI design(for example a state machine editor).

~~~
monos
1\. agreed.

2\. flash = javascript + super vector libs + sweet IDE. it has been around for
a decade+ so yes: it is better.

3.a. 3D (webgl) does not make 2D obsolete. I'm not sure you imply that?

3.b. not everyone wants a scene graph for doing games. SVG + CSS is superior
if you want a scene graph but plenty (and i would argue: the best) libraries
for opengl, sdl, you name it are non scene graph driven.

