Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

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Jackolantern
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Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

Post by Jackolantern »

Yep, we have yet another HTML5 game engine, but what puts this on the more interesting side, is that it is another one of the newer engines popping-up that has multiplayer with node and socket.io in-mind from the start. It is called Codeheart.js.

The website is a bit sparse. It has full API documentation, it appears, but not a whole lot for tutorials. It does, however, have a very nice examples section with tons of small applications to study the code ranging from beginner to advanced. For someone wanting to make online games (not MMORPGs, since there are already better engines for that), this could possibly be worth the time to dig into.
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Jackolantern
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Re: Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

Post by Jackolantern »

Yeah, the lack of resources is definitely an issue. No tutorials, no forum, etc. would slow things down.

That is an interesting way to do things, but it does sound like it could cause some problems for some games.
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Jackolantern
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Re: Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

Post by Jackolantern »

Yeah, I have seen some engines like that. In the end, that is how most engines actually store tile maps. The rows and columns are typically built based on a dimension setting somewhere, and the characters from the tilemap string are read in, one character at a time, filling up the rows and columns left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Really, tile map editors aren't that hard to make. Obviously it won't quite be to the level of Tiled, but you can make something around the quality of Impact's tile editor without weeks worth of effort.

While looking back, the organization is a mess (I was still developing structure on the client-side at the time), if you do make a tile editor, maybe you could find something useful in my PBBG Map Editor program I released a few years back. While it uses absolute positioning instead of tiles, a lot of the needed structure is there (client-side editing with a save-to-server feature that transmits the map data in a data type that could be converted to this tile map string type without too much issues, redo button, automatic asset palette, etc.). About the only really required feature I didn't add to it was an Open feature to open maps for further editing. It would also have to be converted from storing the map data in a database to concatenating it into a string to store in a tile map file. As a side note, I am also still fairly proud with my "reticle" system, where you see the bounding box of the piece you are going to add to the map, while the asset itself remains invisible to aid in placement.
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Jackolantern
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Re: Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

Post by Jackolantern »

There are plenty of canvas HTML5 engines out there, like Crafty, Impact and others. But some don't use it because it basically means the games can run on any browser if the graphics are handled through the DOM. And a couple even use both, using canvas when available or falling back to the DOM when its not.

So Codeheart.js uses the DOM instead of canvas (I haven't really dug into it yet)?
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Jackolantern
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Re: Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

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The thing about engines like Eclipse is they are not very flexible. Any engine that simply has you create a tilemap and add characters has to make a ton of assumptions about how your game is going to work. Multiple games made with the engine will appear similar. This contributes to the "just another Eclipse game" view of some in the engine's community. Most game development requires coding features and mechanics from scratch so that the dev can have full control over the final product.

If you have tried coding an HTML5 game from scratch, you will see pretty quickly the benefits of a game engine. Just creating an animation system can take a little while, and then you still have to deal with the one-sound-effect-at-a-time limit, create an entity system, and other things.
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Re: Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

Post by Sim »

Codeheart = dead?
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hallsofvallhalla
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Re: Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

Post by hallsofvallhalla »

seems so
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Jackolantern
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Re: Codeheart.js (multiplayer HTML5 engine)

Post by Jackolantern »

Well, that's sad :(
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