Kha

Yeah, I saw the video about that earlier which is what led me to wonder if there was a native JS way now. They used Kha in order to port only the console versions, the desktop versions remained JS from my understanding: https://github.com/Kode/Kha which is built on top of Haxe. This works, but it also means not having a single codebase anymore which would be one of the benefits of a JS based system. There are other options here - something like using an AOT JS compiler like Porffor, but from my understanding it's never been tested (and would probably be missing a lot of support to get it working - like shimming canvas & providing a WebGPU context that the compiled JS could execute against).

I am glad people are working on it!! Have you seen Kha by any chance? It has similar goals. I find it quite awesome, but it won't gain mass adoption for a bunch of reasons. https://github.com/Kode/Kha Someone built an immediate mode renderer on top https://github.com/armory3d/zui, which is utilised by ArmorPaint https://armorpaint.org. I also use Zui for my own bespoke 2D game engine. I find this tech and tooling really quite amazing (just look at how little source code Zui has) given just how small the ecosystem around it is. I think Kha really illustrates what can be achievable if the lower levels have robust but simple APIs, just exposing the bare minimum as a standard for others to build upon. It really suggest taking a look at the graphics2 (2d canvas like) api. For the kind of project I work on (mostly 2d games), I think it would re

Also, for even things like physics there are many simple ways to do things. Take Towerfall's arcade physics for example[1]. In under 100 lines you can create the basis for your platformer game. Sure, it's not just pluggable into other pre-existing solutions, ie tile maps, but at least you aren't endlessly hacking all over the place to tweak Unity's physics into submission to get the controls feeling right for your simple 2d game. There is a massive wealth of gamedev knowledge that doesn't seem utilised to its potential because existing engines want sell their pre-canned solutions. I think what the gamedev scene needs are more tools like LDTK[2], with more thought given to how such tools could interop, and a better selection of low level rendering libraries (like Monogame and Raylib) with very robust cross platform support and dead simple

The immediate mode UI library (ZUI) that the developer created, and which ArmorPaint is built on, is also really good. I don’t think Kha or ZUI get enough recognition, and I find both of them extremely elegant and pleasant to use. It might also be surprising to know that besides a few files for specifying constants and enums, ZUI is a single file library with only around 2100 lines of code. https://github.com/armory3d/zui https://github.com/Kode/Kha

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.

At its core the beauty of Flash was the extremely tight interplay between vector graphics in nested timelines, and the the programming environment. Many people compare Flash to Unity, but I really don't find the two all that comparable. You don't create your assets in Unity, and by the time those assets get into Unity you have lost most potential for dynamic behaviour. Flash's tight integration allowed for extremely fast iterations, and its hierarchal model was very flexible and allowed you to work very fast and creatively. I'm surprised no one has had a good crack at re-creating the core functionality of Flash circa 2004, based on web tech, or something like Kha[1]. I've thought many times about starting such a project. I think the biggest challenges are developing a solid vector rendering runtime alongside the vector drawing tools, but

Thanks :) For the first point, yeah I agree, though I would still keep standard API documentation separated. And it gets "worse" when you add the 4th site: https://code.haxe.org which helps with 4th point (partly?). Tricky thing with guides like "how to make a game" is that it's not a haxe-specific thing; it's a haxe framework specific thing which they handle on their own: https://haxeflixel.com/documentation/, https://heaps.io/documentation/home.html, https://github.com/Kode/Kha/wiki (is there a better link for kha?), etc. There are links in https://haxe.org/use-cases/games/ but discoverability could likely be much better and include a generic "how to make a game" start point which points to either framework depending on your needs (2D/3D, mobile/desktop/console/web, etc.). Indeed Haxelib isn't visible :x Now that you mention it, we had

It runs on top of a multimedia library called Kha while running on consoles (https://github.com/Kode/Kha). Here's the talk you're (probably) talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfBzlzvt8RU

I've been building a map editor using Kha [1] and Haxe UI [2]. Kha does cross platform, hardware accelerated graphics like Skija (it abstracts OpenGL, Metal, and Vulkan). Haxe UI adds a DOM, standard components, CSS styling, etc. I've found it good (the small Haxe community makes author interaction brilliant), though not perfect. Great for the number of people behind it. Using Haxe, the apps can be compiled for native or run in JS. That probably lands it in about the performance category of JVM or above, not that performance is the key factor here. I worked awhile ago on Haxe UI's text field emulation, and there are many tiny details that are easily missed. Line wrapping, text selection, keyboard controls (Home and End), everything. I think those details being spot on are as important as UI styling for most real users. [1] https://github.

Kha is game framework for the haxe language. It can be used for other things like multimedia aplications. Kha can build apps for many different targets (thanks do Haxe), like windows, mac, linux, android, ios, html5, flash and others (see https://github.com/KTXSoftware/Kha and the wiki). It has support for 2d and 3d, and vulkan is being add. Kha is very simple and portable, usually the users use its functions or build a engine on top of it.

Quick note: this is NOT a flash player reimplementation. It's an API implementation. Thanks to Haxe, OpenFL apps can compile out to C++, HTML5, Flash, etc. I should also note that people might also be interested in the programming language that OpenFL is built on, Haxe, which has been around for ~10 years, is criminally underrated, and has many, many uses besides OpenFL's Flash API implementation (probably the most popular Haxe library). For instance, here are some other uses : - Isomorphic client/server web apps (http://ufront.net/) - Cross platform UI (http://haxeui.org/) - Other game frameworks - (snowkit: http://snowkit.org/) - (kha: https://github.com/KTXSoftware/Kha) - (nme: https://github.com/haxenme/nme) Course I'm a big fan of OpenFL! Also, for those who don't like the Flash API, OpenFL has a lower-level founda