AjaxWar Tech Demo
I just recorded a little demo of AjaxWar, a game Adam Smith and I were working on. The goal was to do a real-time multiplayer RTS using only DHTML. Then, of course, the goal turned into making a great game, but the limitations of DHTML were pretty frustrating… and we were pushing it as it was. We decided that to make it a fun and complete game, we’d need to do it in Flash. While that means we didn’t get to finish a whole game, as I was hoping, we do have a working tech demo of what we were originally trying to accomplish: a real-time networked game using only DHTML.
So here’s a Flash demonstration that shows off some of what we finished. I’m using my trial of ScreenFlash here, but I’m looking forward to getting Camtasia Studio. Screen capturing to Flash is really handy!
Anyway, you might not understand the gameplay, as we were trying some interesting things, but keep in mind everything you see is done with Javascript and HTML using a "push" technique. That’s the point of the demo. : )
May 8th, 2005 at 2:12 am
Powered by self modifying javascript — now with advanced whitening action!
May 8th, 2005 at 2:37 am
I guess we should also point out that the system can handle n-players in n-games simultaneously even when players are grouped behind NAT/proxies/etc or even on the same box (as the demo shows) AND, oh yes, the demo was shot with g_fx = false. Normally there are crazy fading and puffing animations whenver things are built or destroyed.
May 9th, 2005 at 5:12 am
nub.
May 9th, 2005 at 2:00 pm
Didnt Machiavelli say something like…
“The wise prince, therefore, has always to divert his efforts to construction of his own [production units] before offense upon his neighbors. For otherwise he should find himself named a nub when his enemies come upon him.”
June 13th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Cool idea! I’m tempted to write my own! Are you keen to develop on this again? I was thinking combine the above idea with a google-maps-esque scrollable region and create a simple space or ocean-based strategy game. Use ruby for the back-end language and prototype/effects (mir.aculo.us) to handle the js effects.
June 13th, 2005 at 4:29 pm
Ben,
I don’t think so. I will work on the game again eventually, but in Flash. We were trying to think of a simpler game that could use this technology, but we ended up working on other things.
At one point, we actually wanted to use Google Maps as a playing ground… so you could play on top of real world locations. Actually, that was for another game, but we were talking about it while we worked on this. ; )
We used PHP for the backend because we know it well. Ruby is awesome though (well, mostly because of Rails). We did use Prototype and Effects in AjaxWar though.