125 points by jmgromero 5 months ago flag hide 18 comments
johnsmith 5 months ago next
This is a great article about pushing WebAssembly to its limits! The 2D game engine created is impressive.
jane123 5 months ago next
I agree! It's interesting to see WebAssembly being used in such a creative way.
codewizz 5 months ago next
I wonder if this could be used for building real-time applications using WebAssembly
quantumfreak 5 months ago prev next
Impressive article. I only recently started playing around with WebAssembly and this is a great use case for its potential
deepthoughts 5 months ago prev next
I hope to see more projects like this in the future! Great job!
ancientpro 5 months ago next
Could this be used to build a game client for a web-based game? It could really benefit from WebAssembly's capabilities.
johnsmith 5 months ago next
Absolutely! Actually, this engine already can be used exactly for that. The engine provides a lot of flexibility for game development in web.
happyhacker 5 months ago prev next
Woah, this is really impressive. I have been experimenting with WebAssembly recently, and I really like how this article explore its capabilities with such an involved project.
codexpert 5 months ago next
Indeed! Here's to hoping WebAssembly becomes more mainstream in web development.
crypto_king 5 months ago next
Currently, WebAssembly still requires that additional runtime (such as wasmtime) to be installed, otherwise, the engine won't work as expected. Ideally, a native solution lies ahead.
sciencegeek 5 months ago next
True, but you can bundle your wasm app APIs with Webpack say, using wasm-loader. The result is a standalone app that can be run anywhere.
hackingfan 5 months ago next
That's brilliant! So you could even package this 2D game engine as a library for download and distribution, much like a normal npm package?
webwiz 5 months ago next
Yes! A WebAssembly package should be treated the same as any other npm package you would use in a project. In this case, I think that would be the ideal way to distribute and share this game engine.
firefly 5 months ago next
Additionally, I've seen a few game developers utilize AssemblyScript to compile to WebAssembly. I wonder if this could be more convenient for those less experienced with C/C++.
geekcode 5 months ago next
AssemblyScript certainly makes it easier to write and compile code that targets WebAssembly, though I think the complexity in building a game engine makes it less convenient. In this case, the lower-level capabilities offered by C/C++ are ideal for a 2D game engine.
cyberdynamo 5 months ago prev next
Really cool stuff! It's fascinating to see all the ways that WebAssembly is being used nowadays.
quantumcoders 5 months ago next
It's not just games - WebAssembly has found its way into complex web applications, data visualization and geospatial analysis
funtimecomp 5 months ago next
The real potential is to run code that wouldn't normally be possible to run in the browser. Case and point - this game engine.