I'm in the process of developing a tile based engine (think rpg maker 2000) in &#106avascript. So far it has(Tested in both IE8 & FF3.6.3): 1. Can load maps created by Tiled Map Editor (http://www.mapeditor.org/) *non-isometric 2. Render maps to look exactly like they do in editor 3. Entities can be added to map once engine has loaded. 4. Entities can have a sprite loaded into them (engine respects a modified version of what RPG maker uses) 5. Entities can move around map and there is an animation system allowing for sprite based animations (No need for flash or gifs!) 6. Respects custom tile parameter isSolid and prevents entities from moving on to tiles that have parameter. 7. Basic automatic pathing for sequences/bots -- can walk npc around map on pre set course 8. Tilesize for maps are 32x32 by default but can be changed to be any squared size. 9. player input is bound to keyboard arrows and allows player to move around player's entity in the world. There are still a lot of things that need to be done before it's a full fledged game engine. (so far it's not bad for 2 days worth of work) Once I get it to a place I'm happy with it I plan on releasing it to the community, will probably duel license it with one being free and open for non commercial use. From what I've seen most of these engines never make it much passed the prototype phase. Not sure why... I'm just pretty much posting this right now to spark interest and see what people have to say. gTile is the only other engine I've really seen and it looks like he stopped development on it a while back... (rambles on, and on, and on)

Quote:Original post by riddlemd
...so far it's not bad for 2 days worth of work...
...I'm just pretty much posting this right now to spark interest and see what people have to say...

You're happy with your work and proud of it. That's okay.

But answer this question yourself: Why should someone invest time into learning another "engine", if he can do it himself in just two days?

Quote:Original post by riddlemd
...From what I've seen most of these engines never make it much passed the prototype phase. Not sure why...

A lot of people overestimate the marked need for another engine. Remember that sentence: "Make games, not engines!"?

There are engines in &#106avascript, but there isn't that big market for them like you think.
Just to name a few: RenderEngine, gameQuery, &#106avascript Gamelib</a>, <a href="http://game.tyler-dewitt.com/">gTile</a>, <a href="http://www.lukewallin.co.uk/?go=engine">&#106avascript 2D Game Engine</a>, <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/clanfx/">ClanFX &#106avascript Game Engine</a>, ... and a lot more at <a href="http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=&#106avascript+game+engine&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=">Google</a>.<br>A lot of these "engines" are not properly programmed in good &#106avascript &#115;tyle (think of "namespace/global scope" pollution, unintended closure creation inducing memory leaks, poor performance by bad programming techniques), cross browser applicable, easy to use or easily customizable.<br><br>&#106avascript is a language where you can get results really fast if you know what to do. And other things just aren't in the scope of what is achievable with &#106avascript. So the range between "i can do it myself" and "i'm in need of an engine" is really small in comparison to other languages/platforms/use cases. You need features in your engine that really shine to attract anyone! Think of that &#106avascript frameworks like jQuery, prototype, Dojo, scriptaculous, mootools, and a lot more. These just aren't animation frameworks (or game engines in other words) alone. They give the user a lot more to play with.<br><br>In case of games instead of engines i just know of <a href="http://www.effectgames.com/effect/">Effect Games</a>, which seems like a reasoned approach to attract a target audience in (&#106avascript) game making. Something equal to your "rpg maker 2000" example.<br><br>And the final question is: Where is that huge amount of real &#106avascript &#111;nly games, and what is their share of the browser based game market? Guesstimate: Flash 50%, Java-Applets 5%, &#106avascript enhanced HTML-tables 40%, others 5%, pure &#106avascript 0.1% ? Now which &#111;ne in these 0.1% is in need of "just another" game engine?<br><br><br><br>Back to the beginning: "Make games, not engines, especially not in &#106avascript"<br><br>Now for you: "Make your engine, but make a game too! When that game attracts someone, then the questions for the underlying engine will arise. And there you go." ;-)

Oh I have plans to make a game with it, just getting the tech flushed out.

My goal mainly is to have a properly designed Object-Oriented game engine in &#106avascript.

Thanks for the list of engines I'll have to check them out.

Why &#106avascript over other languages? Because if I can get/keep the memmory footprint and cpu usage to reasonable levels the engine will be more portable then a flash based &#111;ne. (iphone support is an example)<br><br>and &#111;n the 2 day thing, It's far from done -- Time required is relative to programmer's knowledge. I'm not the smartest person in the world but I've been doing &#106avascript programming for around 5-6 years and have worked with java & c# for business so the concept of true object-oriented design is not lost &#111;n me.<br><br><br>Anyway, rambling again...

Another big reason which Anntor hinted at with real 100% &#106avascript games. If I want to write an online multiplayer js game, i have to use a completely different language to do it with. That makes js a less important part in the game and alot of games are made that way... If its on the web, why not include the server in the game? Even if its just something simple for keeping score!

How many other languages would it take to keep score in an otherwise js game? at least 2 or even 3 if you count json.

Quote:Original post by unknownhero
Another big reason which Anntor hinted at with real 100% &#106avascript games. If I want to write an online multiplayer js game, i have to use a completely different language to do it with. That makes js a less important part in the game and alot of games are made that way... If its on the web, why not include the server in the game? Even if its just something simple for keeping score!

How many other languages would it take to keep score in an otherwise js game? at least 2 or even 3 if you count json.

I see no real difference between using JS as a client language and PHP or Ruby as the backend then someone that develops in C#/C++ and uses LUA/Python for client interface scripting.