1. it's a html5 game engine that helps you build isometric style games
2. the mobile version isn't working atm, but it'll be soon. Have talked to the guys abt this
3. they provide pretty much an end to end solution (writing the first line of code to server hosting )
4. with a single code base you can deploy to multiple platforms. Sure, the performance varies a bit now, but it's only going to get better.
The cons:
1) Facebook 2) see #1
All seriousness aside, however -- what in the world would you do with this thing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_with_isome...
That's along the lines of what you might do with it.
"Hey this looks cool. There must be a demo, right?"
"Okay well I had to follow like 4 links to the demo and do way more reading than I should have had to just to see a demo of something whose main feature is that it runs in a browser. Because I'm currently viewing all of this... in a browser."
"Finally found the demo link... cool, looks like it is loading up!........... Login via Facebook? Are you fucking kidding me?"
</close tab>
Thanks to HN comments I see that there is actually a way to demo this without a Facebook login, but lack of an instant right-in-your-face demo for something that is browser based is a huge failure of marketing this thing.
I'm just one guy working on this in my spare time (I have a full-time day job too) so things move a little slower sometimes that I would like! Currently looking for investment to get a full team to help!
Regarding the Node.js requirement, there is an offline version of the engine that runs on any standard web-host. It has all the network and server-side code stripped out.
Agree that the demo page has a lot to read, but it's written for developers rather than players so tech info is there to explain what the demo is showing (and what it's not).
A much more complete demo is on it's way I promise! :)
Thoughts- The counter read 218FPS, but it FELT slow. Any action (bring down the drop down menu) took FOREVER.
I signed in with FB, but would not have if I was a consumer. I immediately revoked access, before closing the app. God, this is a bold ("dumb?") move on the engine developer's part. There's no way I'd even consider the engine if this is a real requirement.
Is there no way to zoom in? This seems to be one of the big advantages to this type of game engine, versus a straight-on 2d engine, like Monkey Island.. I should be able to zoom these..
This seems very dedicated to a SimCity type game. What about Diablo, or Fallout style games?
When I had a man standing on a plot by himself, not moving, it still seems to set the rectangle to be dirty. Why? Because he "Could" move? That seems unnecessary.
The CPU on this seems higher than it ought to be on modern HW.
Overall, interesting project, I'll be watching this.
A big pain is setting up a Virtual Box just to use the server. Wish there were a Windows version of that. I also wish there were demos for other (non-isometric) multiplayer games. There's video of a platformer, but there's no live demo for it (nor is it multiplayer, far as I can tell.)
Still this is the best starting block for an HTML5/Node.js online game engine I can find. Will definitely be looking more into it.
