Sunday, August 31, 2014

Good HTML5 game engines

Recently HTML5 games became very popular and this is not without a reason. Most of the time HTML5 game can be played both on mobile and desktop. But it is not that easy to make a game that will work the same way on all systems. HTML5 game engines greatly shorten the time for development a game, and you don't have to write different code for different browsers. Here is a list of some of the most popular engines. The arrangement is according to my own preferences.
  1. Phaser - most of my games use Phaser because its simplicity, nice documentation and short learning curve. I recommend this engine to every novice. Use it if you want to start fast.
  2. Quintus - another simple and easy to use engine. Nice documentation and fun to use. The reason I don't use it now is that for some reason its not always working with IE 11. I like this engine very much and I don't know why this is happening.
  3. melonJS - It says lightweight but don't belive it. But its nice engine.
  4. pixi.js - Pixi is very fast on mobile and easy to learn. One of the best choices. Also there are many code samples available so you will find it piece of cake to start.
  5. Construct 2 - its more like html5 game maker. And its not free. Not my choice.
  6. Crafty - It has some good parts and some bad. For now I won't use it
  7. LimeJS - Easy to start and lightweight.
  8. GameMaker - its not free, somewhat expensive. If you are not a programmer, it can be a good choice for you.
There are many more engines, maybe there are some even better. But I had to start from somewhere so my obvious choice was Phaser. Its a bit slow on old desktop systems but players of html5 games are using mostly mobile and I like the way it behaves there. You can check my games - Touch Copter and Sky Blocks on my HTML5 games page, both games are made with Phaser.