Turbulenz HTML5 Games Engine Goes Open Source

New submitter JoeKilner writes "The Turbulenz HTML5 games engine has been released as open source under the MIT license. The engine is a full 3D engine written in TypeScript and using WebGL. To see what the engine is capable off, check out this video of a full 3D FPS running in the browser using the Turbulenz engine and Quake 4 assets. You can see some of the games already developed with the engine at Turbulenz.com. (Note — to try the games without registering, hit the big blue 'Play as Guest' button.) Also, IE doesn't have WebGL support yet, so to play without a plugin try Chrome or FIrefox."

Comments

What? No IE 6 support?!

[Billly Gates]

Why? Ask any phb and they will tell you it is a must for any client. All corporate sites continue to function so the issue must be the developer!

Re:What? No IE 6 support?!

[VortexCortex]

Well, it's WebGL, so all they have to do is compile Turbulenz for OpenGL and release it as a native client.

:-P <- This is the straight face I'm not able to keep.

Seriously though, for your IE6 crowd if they can just release the game with a Firefox or Chrome redistributable runtime...

Re:What? No IE 6 support?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have become a snap dancer!

Re:What? No IE 6 support?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wooshing seems to be working quite well on whatever browser you're currently using.

Re:What? No IE 6 support?!

[narcc]

for your IE6 crowd if they can just release the game with a Firefox or Chrome redistributable runtime...

Any chance you can clarify this? The closest thing I could find was TideSDK, though it won't have WebGL or web audio API support until the next release.

Re:What? No IE 6 support?!

[jakykong]

I'm pretty sure the parent post was thinking that we could thereby get Chrome and/or Firefox onto the IE6 user's machine.

Re:those that we do not speak of

[wonkey_monkey]

No. Grow up.

Finally, some open source HTML

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always despised how closed source HTML has been.

Nice to see someone giving us permission to "view source."

Re:Finally, some open source HTML

[Anonymous Coward]

Under stupid laws such a DMCA, I bet it's illegal to disable javascript so that you can right-click as select "view page source".

Re:Finally, some open source HTML

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever tried to understand code of any substantial complexity that gone through obfuscator?

Would rather play games *outside* the browser

[Anonymous Coward]

I love me a browser game, sure, but only if they're text based (Ogame, AAA, etc).

Like java applets, you're always left wondering "how much better would this experience have been if it was a stand-alone app..."

The experience is almost exactly the same as Flash: long load times, bad frame rates, incredibly high CPU usage. The demo game is definitely neat and fun, but the controls are slow to respond and I get a lot of tearing and frame skipping when the screen is full of action, and I'm on a high-end gaming rig.

I *really* hope this doesn't catch on, or at most that it takes the place of those shitty Flash games we all knew and loved and forgot about 10 years ago.

Yeah, I know the tech is new and will be iterated and improved upon, but I still don't see why any game developer would take HTML5 games seriously (no, Zynga is not a game developer--they're a social media company). My guess is that we'll see a game like Runescape, with better graphics, as the pinnacle of HTML5 gaming. In other words, the best HTML5 game will be a crummy ripoff of some triple-A title that doesn't do anything well, but it'll be free and playable by kids wasting time in their schools' computer labs.

Re:Would rather play games *outside* the browser

[DuckDodgers]

I like the idea of HTML5 games in concept because it makes the game more platform-independent. As a fan of open source software, I think that's good - one less bit of incentive for people to buy something running a proprietary operating system.

The devil is in the details, of course.

Re:Would rather play games *outside* the browser

[davidgaleano]

What "demo game" are you having performance problems with?

Re:Would rather play games *outside* the browser

[You're All Wrong]

The problem in the past was that there were 14 incompatible platforms for writing games.
http://xkcd.com/927/

Re:Would rather play games *outside* the browser

[DuckDodgers]

I think compatibility is more likely for Javascript than most other cross-platform methods. The browser vendors are in a race for performance and standards-compliance. I follow the Tom's Hardware "Browser Grand Prix" tests with interest. The most recent is: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/web-browser-chrome-25-firefox-19,3459.html

Re:those that we do not speak of

[Anonymous Coward]

"Grow up," says the guy that got all pissy about a joke on the internet.

Pot. Kettle.

WebGL is not part of HTML5

[Assmasher]

Just for the sake of clarity.

It would be nice if a low level audio system WAS part of HTML5 though.

Then we could really game game game away...

Re:WebGL is not part of HTML5

[davidgaleano]

Is Web Audio not good enough for you?

Re:WebGL is not part of HTML5

[Assmasher]

Yay! They picked one :).

I was wondering if it would be Google's (which it is) or Mozilla's (they had a good low level proposal as well.)

Thanks, I haven't evaluated it for a year, great to know I can finally manage the buffers myself.

Cheers!

Why Not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Javascript(!) crushing your quad core i7 battlestation PC.

How 'bout no!

source available by nature?

[inputdev]

First off, I admire this effort and the choice of MIT license, but I am also wondering whether the source is already available to anyone who plays the games, since they are run on the client? Am I missing something?

Re:source available by nature?

[Anonymous Coward]

The source would be available, though it might be obfuscated and/or minified. However, even if you have the source code, you can't legally copy it or otherwise redistribute it if it's not under a license that allows you to do so. Copyright still applies, even if you can see the source code--you can see the source of a book, after all, but that doesn't mean you can sell copies of it without getting permission.

Re:source available by nature?

[XerxesQados]

The source was already "open" before today, but under a non-free license. It was permissive, just requiring you to give Turbulenz Ltd. the option to publish your game on Turbulenz.com, and letting you do whatever else you wanted. Problem is, that would legally require you to use the Turbulenz.com API in your game's asset pipeline, even if your game didn't really need any of its features. So the MIT license gets around this restriction, with the added benefit of Slashdot coverage because OMG FOSS.

WebGL is not part of HTML5?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since "HTML5" is basically a buzz word anyway (and actual HTML5 is just the markup language, parsing rules and DOM interfaces), how is it that WebGL can't be included as part of "HTML5"? It's a standard from a nonprofit standards organization (the Khronos Group) that's implemented multiple browsers, and the Web Audio APIs aren't HTML either, so I don't know what "clarity" you are actually purporting to bring to this conversation.

demos require what?

[Anonymous Coward]

faceplant , being a twit , or using a cia+ er g+ account
FAIL

Re:demos require what?

[davidgaleano]

You do not need any of that to play the games. You can either play as a guest, OR if you want to save your progress, just create a regular Turbulenz account, there is no need to connect with other accounts if you do not want.