

Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source - gregpurtell
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/02/turbulenz-html5-game-engine-is-now-open-source/

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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!)

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davidgaleano
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...](http://news.turbulenz.com/post/47457658846/mostly-painlessly-
migrating-a-3d-game-engine-to)

~~~
cpeterso
Do you know why the Polycraft game is so much more pixelated on Firefox than
Chrome?

Update: It looks like Firefox's WebGL anti-aliasing is off by default. You can
toggle this "webgl.msaa-force" pref to control anti-aliasing.

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ne0phyte
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?

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rrreese
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.

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luckysh0t
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.

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nightski
In the end isn't it just about having fun? Whatever format is most efficient
for the developer to deliver fun, let them run with it.

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kranner
Recently there were some interesting articles about JS optimization by the
Turbulenz guys:
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/186171/making_the_move...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/186171/making_the_move_to_html5_part_1.php)

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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?

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dr3daemon
Hi. We are making progress with our native wrapper which you can see here:
<http://news.turbulenz.com/post/46003970366>

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WA
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.

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jamesaustin
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 better -

1\. Not providing the fall back and telling users they need to switch
browsers? Good for helping people to understand it doesn't require a plugin,
but not great for developers who want everyone to be able to play their game,
or

2\. Providing the fallback.

Additionally, it's worth noting that the games and engine don't have to
provide any plugin support. It is actually the game site application code that
is doing the detection and trying to be helpful.

The Turbulenz Engine is an HTML5 / WebGL framework.

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WA
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.

~~~
jamesaustin
Yep, you're right. We could definitely do a better job of detection. But at
the moment we're looking for the 'feature' rather than the browser.

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terribleZurg
Why isn't there an open source standard game engine built in browsers
(compiled to .exe itself)?

