[HN Gopher] Heaps: A free, open-source and cross-platform game e... ___________________________________________________________________ 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-09 23:00 UTC)