[HN Gopher] Heaps: A free, open-source and cross-platform game e...
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Heaps: A free, open-source and cross-platform game engine
Author : technophiliac
Score : 187 points
Date : 2022-04-09 19:00 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (heaps.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (heaps.io)
| farmin wrote:
| Can someone explain or link to a resource on how you would get
| this into a android apk? I see it is mostly demonstrated as
| HTML5.
| baddash wrote:
| is there some news/development recently regarding Heaps? or is
| this just a general awareness post?
| cpeterso wrote:
| What are some advantages of Heaps over Godot or Unity? Neither
| Godot nor Unity are mentioned on Heaps' website, though there are
| some mentions in Heaps' community forums.
| redundantly wrote:
| I don't have anything to add, just that I'd really like to know
| how it stacks up against Godot.
|
| I plan on learning Godot soon, curious if I should choose
| something else instead.
| irskep wrote:
| I've half-learned both. My impression is that Godot is more
| like a framework (but more so) with prescribed ways of doing
| things, with lots of custom languages and formats, and Heaps
| is more like a library you use in a codebase that belongs to
| you a bit more.
|
| From an ability-to-ship-games perspective, starting out, I'd
| go with Godot. Putting together a game's architecture from
| scratch with a library like Heaps sounds like a fun project,
| but to just get a game out the door without fussing around,
| Godot makes things easier without major downsides. Godot has
| so many custom things because those things _work_.
|
| That said, I'm just a dabbler, so I'm sure other people will
| chime in as well. I'm also sure that if you invest time in
| learning Godot or Heaps, it will pay off well, because they
| are both mature projects that people have used to ship
| commercial games.
| hyuuu wrote:
| I really wish Haxe would just take off in the application
| development world, it had so much potential to be what Typescript
| has become with the benefit of transpiling to different
| languages. We theoretically could have had 1 single programming
| language for a full application with JS front end, Django server,
| C++ workers, the best of all worlds.
| [deleted]
| xyst wrote:
| what happened to just using Vulcan
| Narishma wrote:
| If you mean Vulkan, there are a lot of platforms where it's not
| available.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| The idea of world generation being this easy in a game engine is
| cool. I can't wait to play around with it! Thanks for sharing
| this.
|
| https://heaps.io/samples/world.html
|
| Edit: spelling
| klodolph wrote:
| You can remember that there was a vibrant community of Flash game
| developers before the demise of Flash (EOL December 2020, the
| date of its "demise" is debatable). There's not really a
| replacement for Flash and the community kind of fragmented.
|
| That said, my impression is that a big chunk of talent from the
| Flash community went to work on HaXe. These are people who make
| games and want tools to make game development easier--as opposed
| to people who get excited about engines, architectural patterns,
| and programming languages. Just as a general impression, based on
| people I've recognized working with HaXe.
| koonsolo wrote:
| I ported my https://rpgplayground.com from AS3 to Haxe. It was
| the most sane technology to replace Flash, because it came with
| some platform independent benefits (as opposed to coding
| straight in JavaScript)
|
| Not using Heaps but https://github.com/Kode/Kha.
|
| And I think you are indeed correct in your assumption, since I
| know plenty of others who made that switch.
| nullfish wrote:
| I've written a couple side project games in Heaps and I'm a big
| fan.
|
| If you're familiar with Pixi.js, Heaps and it's language, Haxe,
| will feel very similar. Haxe is a pretty cool language, it's
| similar to TypeScript but compiles to native binaries for almost
| all major game consoles.
|
| Heaps was apparently the framework behind Dead Cells if that says
| anything about the level of polish you can accomplish with this
| set of tools.
| noduerme wrote:
| Pixi.js has been a lifesaver for generating interactive
| art/data pieces since the death of AS3, which used to be my
| main bag. I remember messing around with HaXe ten years ago or
| so, the main problem being most of the fl. graphics APIs were
| not ported at that time and the idea of rewriting my own GUIs
| and game engines built on those didn't make much sense. I'm not
| sure it does now, either. If this had a 1:1 naming system, e.g.
| Sprite and Graphics and Stage, I'd be all in. But so much of my
| 2D game code was based on extending Starling atlases, etc. and
| now that's all dead. I'd be afraid to invest the time needed to
| port it to a relatively exotic and not so well known
| framework... which still requires a well maintained VM to run.
| afrodc_ wrote:
| I had no idea Dead Cells was made in this. That game is
| incredibly sharp. Need to play around with this as it seems
| relatively simple.
| stryan wrote:
| Haxe (the language Heaps uses) was initially written by
| Nicolas Cannasse, who worked at Motion Twin for a while; not
| sure if he was part of the team that did Dead Cells. So it's
| not a big surprise.
|
| Still, that's a big +1 for Heaps/Haxe then Dead Cells runs
| fantastically.
|
| EDIT: Ah, looking into it more Nicolas also founded Shiro
| Games who made Evoland, Northgard, etc. So it might just be
| following him around (not to disparage it, still looks
| great).
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| is really cool, is 3d under the hood, then they make a 2d
| pixel render over.
|
| article of gamasutra about the gaming pipeline of dead cells
| https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/art-design-deep-
| div...
| mftb wrote:
| At first glance it looks pretty nice. I wonder why it hasn't
| gotten more attention? Or did I just miss it?
| ergo14 wrote:
| I really love what Nicolas is doing. But it kinda feels like
| whole Haxe ecosystem driving force is this one guy.
| setr wrote:
| Looking through the documentation, it's a bit lackluster. So
| I always got the feeling that the primary users of the engine
| were the engine developers themselves
| Hemospectrum wrote:
| The whole Haxe ecosystem flies under most people's radar,
| partly because it evolved from what was once the Flash
| ecosystem. It never really qualified for the kind of "NEW
| SHINY THING" announcement that creates hype elsewhere. A lot
| of people who have written loads of games are peripherally
| aware of it but have never actually gotten hands-on with it.
| msk-lywenn wrote:
| And all Shiro games: Northgard, Darksburg, upcoming Wartales
| and Dune games. Not sure about Evoland but I wouldn't be
| surprised.
| keb_ wrote:
| Yep, Evoland too! Shiro Games was founded by the creator of
| Haxe (Nicolas Cannasse). Smart guy.
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