[HN Gopher] Show HN: Kaboom.js is a zero-dependency declarative ...
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Show HN: Kaboom.js is a zero-dependency declarative JavaScript game
library
Author : slmjkdbtl
Score : 103 points
Date : 2021-04-07 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kaboomjs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kaboomjs.com)
| sebringj wrote:
| This is the first time I've seen a dev-made musical intro video
| for a game platform and it was great!
| searchableguy wrote:
| Yup, totally awesome.
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| Thank you! Had fun working on that hh
| matsemann wrote:
| The video, song, logo. Everything so fun and cool, made me
| laugh. Really looks like the author went the extra mile.
| [deleted]
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| Looks cool, can this work on mobile? Via react native or
| something?
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| It's not on mobile yet, but I'm thinking using QuickJS +
| platform native APIs to enable them run on native platforms
| (like React Native but only care about getting window with
| graphics / audio context, thinking about using sokol for that).
| But yeah you can always just put a webview and run it.
| tpetry wrote:
| None of the demos seems to work on mobile. Which is kind of
| expected as they depend on a spacebar. But even the buttons
| example does not work as there is no mouse click on mobile?
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| yeah, the click ones should be trivial I'll add support now
| abalaji wrote:
| honestly that could be huge. Imagine a repl.it arcade on iOS,
| kids would go wild to make stuff their friends could play on
| their phones.
|
| At least middle school me would have.
| Mobleysoft wrote:
| Should be possible with Apache Cordova.
| tpetry wrote:
| That looks like really nice concept for very quick game
| prototypes.
|
| Is there something similar?
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| You mean quick game making tools? Yeah there're some good
| alternatives like love2d, pico8, compared to these kaboom
| provide more abstractions and helpers and runs natively on web,
| but it's also less mature than these since it's much younger
| spicybright wrote:
| TIC-80 is also another fantasy console like pico8, same idea.
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| yea! TIC-80 is probably the best open source one it's
| written in taste
| pipnonsense wrote:
| That's interesting. As side-projects I just created two sibling
| games using JavaScript:
|
| https://www.gameofpainting.com
|
| https://www.paintingpuzzles.com
|
| I optimized for the "fasted path to ship", so I used React only,
| as it is what I know. The games reflect the limitations of the
| tools of course. They are just tapping games with simple game
| logic.
|
| It would be nice to have something more powerful but still in a
| language that I know (I have no intention of going full game-
| developer). I'll take a look at it.
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| Hi! My name is tga and I'm the author of kaboom.js. I'm working
| at replit and this is part of the effort of us trying to make
| game dev more accessible to beginners & intermediate programmers.
|
| Kaboom is like a summary of me trying to learn game dev. There're
| a lot of tools and most of them tend to get bloaty as they go on,
| they often require complicated setups and hard to really for
| beginners to really get started, one goal of kaboom is to allow
| beginners to get a game up and running with no effort and start
| enjoying the game dev fun right away.
|
| Using Js is because I want it to run natively on browser, also it
| seems like the "go-to" beginner language right now, but I'm also
| thinking about making Kaboom Native where it uses QuickJS +
| platform native APIs (thinking sokol for that) to run on native
| platforms, so you can write your game in Js once and run on every
| platform natively (so unlike other cross platform engines, it
| doesn't require emscripten / WASM on web)
|
| Inspired by fantasy consoles, there's also a special editor on
| replit that enables you code and manage / create assets in the
| same environment, check it out! https://replit.com/kaboom (still
| in early dev)
|
| Ask me anything!
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| I just wanted to say thank you, it looks superfun!
| shuding wrote:
| Wow great work tga, love it!!
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| hh thank you shu!
| amasad wrote:
| Worth noting that while Kaboom.js is aimed at novices, it
| turned out to be super fun for developers too. Our team is
| having a lot of fun with it -- you can have an idea write a
| game in 30 minutes to an hour in typically less than 100 LoC.
| Some examples from our team and community:
|
| - ReplJewled https://replit.com/@ConnorBrewster/ReplJeweled
|
| - Flappy Mark https://replit.com/@slmjkdbtl/flappymark
|
| - Bamboo Ninja https://replit.com/@RoBlockHead/KaboomJam
|
| - Cookie Vs Oreo https://replit.com/@Coder100/COOKIE-VS-OREOS-
| KABOOMJS-BOOMOM...
| ngokevin wrote:
| Cool! Not currently working on it personally anymore but I co-
| created A-Frame which is also declarative gamedev library
| (using HTML). Seemed successful at getting non-gamedevs and
| webdevs to build 3D/VR for the first time, and was popular with
| educators and kids. An HTML interface at the top level made it
| much more friendly for people even intimidated by JS.
|
| We were heavily relying on Glitch and driving bunch of traffic
| to them at first, but now featuring a replit as one of the
| starter playground examples.
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| Hi! A-Frame is super interesting and I love how it has an
| innovative markup style and have a customizable entity
| component system at the same time. I've always known about it
| but never really dived in myself but looks like there's tons
| of good stuff and inspiration! Will definitely take a closer
| look. Thanks for replying and creating A-Frame!
| basicallysteve wrote:
| Hey! So I discovered kaboom.js yesterday and I think it's
| really cool! I'd like to starting building some games, but I
| was thinking about maybe making them multiplayer, running
| commands through websockets or something. I don't see any ways
| to control character outside of key pressing or clicks. Do you
| think this would be possible?
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| It definitely possible if you build your own networking
| stack, but native multiplayer support is planned! Also you
| can control characters through any events, like
| socket.on("msg", () => { player.move(...) })
| Mobleysoft wrote:
| This is very cool. What was your inspiration for this?
| slmjkdbtl wrote:
| Hi! It's mainly a summary of me trying to learn game dev and
| reflection on current tools, also Scratch kinda inspired the
| "blocky declarative" style because we hope kids can make games
| with kaboom with "real code" just after they completed learning
| Scratch. Also a lot of softwares I like e.g love2d, PICO8,
| sokol, Amulet, Klik & Play
| MaxLeiter wrote:
| They didn't create it, this was made by the team at repl.it. In
| case a mod sees this, it would be great to be able to provide a
| reason for flagging a submission
|
| Edit: assumptions bad
| amasad wrote:
| @slmjkdbtl works at Replit and he designed and lead this
| project :)
| MaxLeiter wrote:
| Ah my mistake! Awesome to see. Thanks for all the great
| work
| abalaji wrote:
| I wasn't alive for the web in the '90s but I really dig the retro
| vibe
|
| Super neat project!
| evo_9 wrote:
| I expected to see an example of this game written in this
| library. That would be an added clever bonus to the name of the
| project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaboom!_(video_game)
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(page generated 2021-04-07 23:01 UTC)