I'm creating a web-based online game and am trying to find the best fit in terms of a framework for the front end of the game. The back end of the game is currently using asp mvc 2. Given that I could take the controller actions and turn them into WCF service actions the choice in the back end should not affect my options of a front end.

One thing that is certain, it does need to play in a browser. I have done some research on an HTML 5-only front end as part of this process and am probably leaning in this direction but I have a few concerns:

1. Assuming this game is completed this time next year, what kinds of difficulties will I have with current HTML 5 adoption levels? Specifically I'm worried about Firefox 3.6 and IE 7/8 still having a large install base. I have looked at Chrome Frame to solve the IE problem but am not sure if there are drawbacks to that I am unaware of either (other than the installation requirement).

2. I'm used to doing C# with a nice IDE complete with realtime information about whether the code compiles and intellisense reminding me of symbol names. Am I going to run into a problem with Javascript where my code becomes big and difficult to manage? The accessibility problem that a Javascript only engine solves for my users is more important than convenience for me but it of course can't be unmanageable either.

3. Are the HTML 5 engines on the market right now mature enough to trust with my time investment? Am I at high risk of adopting a framework that will fall into disrepair in a year from now? Of the engines I have looked at, none seem to have really great community support, am I wrong? Are there others out there that do?

here are those I have found thus far:

• CraftyJS (.html)
• ImpactJS (/)
• PropulsionJS (/)
• The Render Engine (.php)
• RPG JS (/)
• EaselJS (/)

Does anyone know anything of the community with these or have any reason to trust that any of these will be well maintained or available for at least the next several years? Does anyone know of another framework that's out there? ImpatJS has the most impressive demo of them all and it's also the only one that isn't free.

Thanks for any help / advice. I'm just worried I'll choose a front-end that I regret and I don't want to have to start from scratch 4 or 5 months down the road.

This is a 2D browser-game. It's not targeting mobile now, but it will be moving to mobile immediately after first launch. One hope is that it will work on mobile fine if I do HTML 5. I may have to tweak it for display size but if I don't have to port it to mobile that would be a definite plus.

I'm creating a web-based online game and am trying to find the best fit in terms of a framework for the front end of the game. The back end of the game is currently using asp.net mvc 2. Given that I could take the controller actions and turn them into WCF service actions the choice in the back end should not affect my options of a front end.

One thing that is certain, it does need to play in a browser. I have done some research on an HTML 5-only front end as part of this process and am probably leaning in this direction but I have a few concerns:

1. Assuming this game is completed this time next year, what kinds of difficulties will I have with current HTML 5 adoption levels? Specifically I'm worried about Firefox 3.6 and IE 7/8 still having a large install base. I have looked at Chrome Frame to solve the IE problem but am not sure if there are drawbacks to that I am unaware of either (other than the installation requirement).

2. I'm used to doing C# with a nice IDE complete with realtime information about whether the code compiles and intellisense reminding me of symbol names. Am I going to run into a problem with Javascript where my code becomes big and difficult to manage? The accessibility problem that a Javascript only engine solves for my users is more important than convenience for me but it of course can't be unmanageable either.

3. Are the HTML 5 engines on the market right now mature enough to trust with my time investment? Am I at high risk of adopting a framework that will fall into disrepair in a year from now? Of the engines I have looked at, none seem to have really great community support, am I wrong? Are there others out there that do?

here are those I have found thus far:

• CraftyJS (http://craftyjs.com/api/Sprite.html)
• ImpactJS (http://impactjs.com/)
• PropulsionJS (http://www.propulsionjs.com/)
• The Render Engine (http://www.renderengine.com/demos.php)
• RPG JS (http://rpgjs.com/)
• EaselJS (http://easeljs.com/)

Does anyone know anything of the community with these or have any reason to trust that any of these will be well maintained or available for at least the next several years? Does anyone know of another framework that's out there? ImpatJS has the most impressive demo of them all and it's also the only one that isn't free.

Thanks for any help / advice. I'm just worried I'll choose a front-end that I regret and I don't want to have to start from scratch 4 or 5 months down the road.

This is a 2D browser-game. It's not targeting mobile now, but it will be moving to mobile immediately after first launch. One hope is that it will work on mobile fine if I do HTML 5. I may have to tweak it for display size but if I don't have to port it to mobile that would be a definite plus.

• javascript
• html
• game-engine

• 2 It's an awfully broad question... I'm not really sure it can be answered satisfactorily. – Alastair Pitts Commented May 24, 2011 at 1:48
• Why not design your API so that you can switch frameworks and have limited code to change? What type of game is this, 2D, 3D, first-person shooter, tile-based? There are so many different types of games, the more precise you are the better the answers can be. – James Black Commented May 24, 2011 at 1:48
• @James - that sounds good in theory. The issue is typically that in order to get a game to run well you need to make platform specific optimizations that affect the architecture. – rboarman Commented May 24, 2011 at 2:07
• it would help for you to post more about the type of game and the requirements (3d, twitch, mobile etc.) – rboarman Commented May 24, 2011 at 2:08
• @rboarman - In javascript your optimizations can only go so far, so if you start with a good api to allow switching of frameworks, then, you determine which one really meets your needs, then standardize on that one, but, this way you limit the rework to writing a new adapter object, basically. Once you standardize on one, then optimize. – James Black Commented May 25, 2011 at 9:27

7 Answers 7

This is my two cents having just been through the same decision making process for my company.

Our goal was to create as broad a game as possible that means it needs to run on as many browsers as possible. I ruled out html5 right away because the adoption is not there and seems to be at least a couple years until it reaches more than 60% penetration.

This left me with Flash vs. Silverlight. Flash's installed base is huge and there are many game engines available for it. Flash is a safe bet unless you have specific requirements for video or 3d.

I choose Silverlight because I wanted a good installed base (60%) and I wanted to leverage my companies’ in-house .Net expertise. I also wanted to use WCF for the backend and did not want to mix environments.

Keep in mind that SL5 is going to support most of XNA which is a big deal. There are a ton of XNA engines and source code that you can use to start with.

Here's a great site for looking at html5 browser support:

http://caniuse.com/

I can't speak with expertise on the particulars of HTML5 and Canvas, but...

1. As far as support goes, you'll still have probably a large bunch of IE7-8 users. IE is a little different than other browsers because you have to DO something to install updates. (i.e, go to the Install Updates in Control Panel or visit ie.microsoft.com). Other browsers (like firefox) just tell you and make the update easy. So your FF 3.6 users should be gone, but IE will still probably be a problem. Keep in mind, though, that much of the old IE browser share is due to IT depts. keeping their users on older versions - something you won't need to worry about.
2. This could be a problem. However, developing JS in Visual Studio or a similar IDE isn't so bad - there's still IntelliSense and other helpful things, as well as realtime debugging. It's definitely going to be a bit more difficult than C#, especially as many of the new JS api's haven't been implemented into the Autocomplete's of many IDE's.
3. I don't think you need be afraid of this. At this point, HTML5 and Canvas have gotten far enough that they won't be revoked, only improved. There may be a few modifications of the APIS and such, but not enough to keep you from using it.

Is HTML5 going to replace Flash? No, because games and RIA that require more out of javascript cannot be done until enough of the world is using IE 15 (which is about 5 10 years). Safari, Chrome, FF (maybe), will be up to par here soon but their js engines are going to require good hardware and that's not always going to be there.

Silverlight is a good option but it's not as well supported as Flash. This is why flash will still be around. The next version will support video controllers. It' called Project Mole hill and you can check out my SO question here.

If you want to make super simple games without good graphics try out one of those services you suggested. impact.js is $100, the others look free. In the future we will be able to use node.js to handle request with servers, but in the meantime Flash is certaily the way to go!.

I would much much much rather use javascript but after you start coding and realize the limitations compared flash will make your application standout.

Then for mobile devise, iPad, iPhone, Android, etc.. If you really think your audience is there build the game in the their language. It's more epensive and and harder, but Objective C, Java, they are much faster than HTML, JS, CSS etc...

I did some trial runs with YUI3, Burst engine & Raphael for SVG animation - everything seemed to run well; YUI's dragdrop module even detects the same drag operations on Mobile without adding a single line of code.

I can only imagine that if I had the time, a YUI3 instance available on a Node.js server with Raphael SVG animation would be my choice. You could drop the SVG aspect and use more standard graphic techniques, or perhaps serve up alternate quality graphics for those User Agents with fewer testes. Maybe it could be that your alternate quality version is just another implementation of your game engine - and you might choose to develop games using non-SVG anyway.

Just thoughts mostly, that doesn't help with your real-time IDE debugging...

impact.js has a great community and documentation. It is well worth checking out. I believe iosimpact.js is part of the package (although beta???) allowing for the development of native games for the iphone/ipad.

1. Yes, indeed you will lose a large user base. But how relevant that user base will be to you will depend on what your target is. Every-day-RPG players are much more likely to have the latest browser than Sunday-Morning-Sudoku users.

2. Give Eclipse + Web Tools + Aptana a try. It worked really nice for me.

3. No experience there.

There are certainly people out there who think that HTML5 is going to replace flash in online games. Here is an HTML/Javascript based engine that I heard about few days ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RRnyChxijA

I haven't actually used it but it looks really promising and It's designed for similar set of requirements that you've put. It lets you design 2D / 2.5D ( isometric projections ) games. And it does look promising.