Web-Based Game Libraries

[SoulMazer]

Hi, I made a post about a similar subject quite a while ago, but I'm a little more serious about it now. I've created two games in C++ and one in Python, but I'd like to start making games for the web to let them be more visible and more easily accessible.

I know I could use Java or Flash, but I wanted to know what all of you thought. I'm not too keen on using Flash, so are there any good 2D Java game engines that will work in applets? Are there any alternatives to Java or Flash for web games? I mean, you could do Javascript/HTML5 (canvas), but that would be a little strange to program a full game in Javascript.

What are your suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[Nyight]

I know this is old and I know I'm barely into this myself but you might want to check into jQuery if you're thinking web based and are leaning away from flash/java. It's very efficient and a lot of games are starting to come out with jQuery as the basis for the engine. By default it has ajax commands built into it and it's highly, if not insanely, customizable. Best of all it's JavaScript so it's as real time as you want it to be on the web browser. (Done right, you don't even need anymore than a single page to run the entire game though that can be difficult to do.) http://www.jquery.com/

Java is good for creating 2d and basic 3d games but not many really prefer it anymore. Most use flash because it simplifies the process of putting images on the screen and making them interactive.

http://www.gamedev.net/ is a website I use frequently for game development questions though they tend to stick with the industry standards for game dev (e.g. C++, DirectX, etc...).

Hope this helps.
Dan

[MVied]

It's not exactly a library, but I would have to suggest Unity, just because of how scalable it is. You can use the engine to make any kind of game you want, and it allows you to code in many different programming languages, depending on what you're most comfortable with.

http://unity3d.com/

[SoulMazer]

Thanks for both of your replies. I will definitely have to look into both of them. Unity seems like a pretty good choice except does it remove you from all the programming? It seems like it turns you from a programmer more into a designer?

As for JQuery, it looks neat but I can't find any examples that are beyond the very basics. Does that imply that it's not good for a big game project or what?

Thanks again.

[Nyight]

jQuery is insanely powerful, the reason why not many advanced examples exist is because it's still a reasonably "new" language (it's javascript at it's finest/easiest) really. jQuery makes it really simple to handle compatibility across browser platforms. Though for the time being you'll have to use your imagination on how to combine all the different elements into a game.

[Links]
http://gamequery.onaluf.org/
http://vision-media.ca/resources/mashups/top-10-javascript-jquery-powered-sites
http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2010/04/13/17-jquery-powered-web-games-with-source-code/

[MVied]

Unity is 100% a programming application. They suggest that you do all designing and 3D modeling in other programs, because that's not what Unity is for. The best part about Unity is you get a great platform to build a game on, and the program doesn't cost anything, even if you eventually sell your game (so long as you're not a part of a company that makes more than $100k a year). You can find more information on their license comparison page.

On the subject of JavaScript, I've personally used jQuery and MooTools to build games with. You can pretty much do anything with the proper know-how. I find JavaScript much easier than ActionScript, or any other language really, so I use it quite a lot.

[SoulMazer]

Thanks again for the information guys. I'm definitely going to try out some tutorials for each of them this weekend.

I'm glad some people were able to come up with alternatives to Flash/Java! Problem solved.

[Tomsky]

Checkout Silverlight,

You can write in c#, performance is good, graphics pretty capable and XAML based so easy for styling and you can do a lot of the admin interface declaritively, great support in Silverlight 4 for a variety of networking and as an extra boon, you can provide the user the option to install locally directly from the web version for off-line play without writing any code.