List of JS engines

[vitinho444]

Wow never heard of google thanks
(jk)
thanks anyway

[Jackolantern]

Really, I just suggest to learn standard JS from regular tutorials. If you are making a PBBG, a lot of the same techniques will be used for a game that are used to make regular websites. If you are making more complex games (like HTML5 canvas games) then I suggest to choose an engine, and then use tutorials to learn that engine.

[vitinho444]

Nop, Im just making a text based for now

But soon i will try to make a full GUI that makes it less text and more "image based" =D

[Jackolantern]

For a text-based game, or even a game that uses a GUI, just learn regular JS. Any tutorials online will do. Really, HTML5 canvas is the only one that is different from the rest, and requires a different approach to learning it.

[Hamilton]

Something I have found of with the Isogenric Engine, which I have been considering due to the networking capability. But there is a catch... there is a 2% royalty involved. Which to me is not a deal breaker, but unfortunately the 2% royal extends past the transactions of the software, if I had read it right.
That is, essentially if one's IP generates income, even with out-of-game transactions, such as selling of t-shirts from an external web site, that income will also have the 2% royalty applied. That to me is a deal breaker.

Excerpt:
IE: "Works" is the IP

Royalty fees are charged against revenue generated regardless of the source or destination of a transaction so long as the revenue is related to the Works.

Transactions that are related to the Works will be defined as but not limited to: in-game advertising, on-page advertising, in-game transactions, on-page transactions, currency conversion transactions, purchases of digital and real-world goods and merchandise, marketing goods, mobile device transactions, in-game currency transactions, any transactions that originate, terminate or pass through the Works.

Licensee agrees that all transactions that are in any way related to the Works are subject to royalty fees.

For simple games that are not expect to generate much income, still not a problem, but if ever want to expand on the IP or use other streams of income, such as merchandise or sponsorships...
And there is no cap on the royalty... I'll see if I get response about this from the developer.

[Jackolantern]

I will say a 2% royalty is nothing. Other engines talk in multiples of 10 (20%, 30%, 40%, etc.). Royalties at those levels make an MMO impossible due to those being the average margins on an MMO, and you are basically giving away your entire margin. But 2% is very livable.

But I can understand the annoyance with paying a royalty to the game engine maker for selling t-shirts based on the game. That is kind of BS, but I understand why they did it. There have been so many revenue models explored for online games that if you limited your royalty structure to basically any single or small group of income streams, your users would just go around it to make their money.

[Hamilton]

I do agree 2% is not much... except when the royalty clauses are very broad and encounter all forms of revenue streams. For example if to publish ebooks, which say produced better returns than the game, well there is that cut.

Now thinking about it... this is only in regards to one "Work", which is to say is not the full IP. So I think there is away around this.
For example, one's IP is called Broadsides, a world of piracy (I know, there is no originality there, just a quick reference example). But for the game, it is called Broadsides Online, which is a sub-division of Broadsides. Thus, any material sold as "Broadsides" would not incur the 2% royalty, but anything of "Broadsides Online" would.

Though I have yet to receive a response...

[Jackolantern]

Yeah, that is really going into the legal side of things, since in my personal opinion their definition of "work" is not legally substantial. Sometimes legal documents take paragraphs to explain one word.

In the end my advice is to not look for ways around the 2%. Considering that any indie-released game we put out will likely have a very small userbase at least for quite a while, you would likely incur much more in legal fees defending your loop hole than the 2% ever would have cost you, even including bookkeeping expenses for the royalties.