I've been toying with the idea for a while now at trying my hand at this kind of thing, more for personal amusement and as a potential hobby than anything else. However....I'm not really a fan of Flash. And I'm certainly not eager about the prospect of getting anything from Adobe to work in it. I was wondering if there are alternatives floating around, my mind is kind of flitting around HTML5 but I've not explored the prospect enough and my understanding is that it's pretty much not living up to it's purported claims yet as a web-based alternative to Flash beyond video embedding a la Youtube.
What Are Some Alternatives To Flash For a Text Based CoC-Alike?
- Thread starter SassafRass
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HTML5 would be some of the best possible solutions. In fact, I've explored the possibility of CoC being made into HTML and it's entirely possible.
HTML5 has many advantages, especially the fact that it doesn't require plugins and if you minimize the usage of libraries, it won't take up a lot of memory. And to top it all off, you can develop for free. You'll need some knowledge of JavaScript too.
HTML5 has many advantages, especially the fact that it doesn't require plugins and if you minimize the usage of libraries, it won't take up a lot of memory. And to top it all off, you can develop for free. You'll need some knowledge of JavaScript too.
Well, that's actually a huge relief to hear...except the JavaScript part, trying to figure that out was headache inducing at least for me. I've gotten to the point since then that I can understand written C# and C++ well enough to figure out what the code does and where it references other libraries and objects, so perhaps I can pick JS if necessary. Thanks aplenty!
Perhaps, though I'd need to put in a fair bit of effort. Oddly, writing code is more difficult for me than reading it.
Had to look up what VB was, though I figured it was related to Visual Studio and thus Microsoft. Not entirely excited about it, but thank you for the suggestion!
If you're already familiar with C# then there's really no reason to get involved with Visual Basic. Most .NET projects can be written in either C# or VB.NET. VB is needed for some legacy support scenarios, mostly involving business software.
For game development, you'll get more mileage out of C# than VB. I think that it's possible to write a module in VB.NET and then use it in a Unity games, for example, but most of the sample projects and commercial libraries for Unity will consist of *.cs files.
Flash is quite vulnerable to code injection and asset replacement, which means that it's very easy to create mods for Flash games. ActionScript 3 (used by Flash) is quite forgiving of poor/amateur coding practices; it allows for anti-patterns such as heavy use of global variables. Hence, you don't need to be an experienced coder in order to start creating a Flash game; you can just start drawing stuff and then link your sprites and animations together with a few crude scripts. Of course, that openness can come back to bite you later on -- because the early sloppiness makes the entire codebase brittle and susceptible to bugs.
Flash has a few strengths, such as native support for vector graphics and a fairly straightforward visual hierarchy ... but these aren't applicable to your project.
HTML5 is generally easier to troubleshoot, much more open to collaborative development, and similarly tolerant of weak code. It's the logical choice for a CoC-style text-based game. If you plan on developing something more akin to a Visual Novel then Ren'Py has some significant merits.
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Could you....clarify on that Visual Novel simularity? I'm not familiar with the genre since a lot of what I've seen here and there isn't my cup of tea.
Speaking of which, I've been messing around with porting over TiTS to HTML5. I haven't even finished the character creation yet because I'm implementing classes and functions as I run into them (and Overwatch and DOOM coming out didn't help).
Here's a video of how far I've gotten: https://my.mixtape.moe/qibknk.webm
The UI and CSS is pretty much complete, and it looks really close to the Flash version in Chrome, minus the aspect ratio (again, I haven't implemented this part of the game yet, I just have all of the UI elements coded): https://my.mixtape.moe/rgtlsd.png
If you like to minimize the amount of coding you need, working with Twine is definitely an option. Quest is okay too.
If coding doesn't scare you away, you could check out HAXE. A very rough short version is that it's a AS3-like language that can compile into 12 different forms, Flash, HTML5, mobile (iOS & Android), and standalone .exe included.
If it peaks your interest, or anyone else poking into the thread, FlashDevelop is a great IDE for it and has HAXE built into its standard project list. Bloody love that thing.
Another alternative is Quest, as mentioned by MotoKuchoma. It's drag-and-drop-ish build thing lets to code directlyin Javascript, but may become too complicated to get it to do what you want it to do as it has no real IDE for it. (Read: Debugging is stupid annoying)
If it peaks your interest, or anyone else poking into the thread, FlashDevelop is a great IDE for it and has HAXE built into its standard project list. Bloody love that thing.
Another alternative is Quest, as mentioned by MotoKuchoma. It's drag-and-drop-ish build thing lets to code directlyin Javascript, but may become too complicated to get it to do what you want it to do as it has no real IDE for it. (Read: Debugging is stupid annoying)
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I have heard of HAXE from someone, more specifically Haxeflixel....but that's Flash, and I'd specifically like to avoid that? Though you mention it can compile into other stuff...how does that work?
As far as my understanding goes, HaxeFlixel != Flixel and therefore != AS3 Flash. It's a framework for Haxe to use Flixel's functions. See HaxePunk for a Haxe version of FlashPunk. But both are OpenFL, which is, as I undestand it, an HTML5 variant of the Flash API and what is what Haxe ultimately is. I forgot about that tidbit and if that sinks the deal, apologies.
Other things to look into include Godot, which is a kinda-sorta-maybe Unity3D-esque-lite engine that uses a custom variant of Python called GDScript that can output to Web, .exe, and mobile. But, it has very lacking documentation in areas. I've been mostly using Godot for the last few months and having to scour every corner of forums for help on its various UI elements as I was creating a UI-based game. But it's UI is, while cryptic, very good--basically the engine uses the same UI elements you do, so if you see it doing something, there's somewhat some how for you to do it as well. MIT License, ergo, no royalties, no restrictions on what you can do with it. The Engine is Scene-based, not Component-based, which is interesting albeit awkward to get used to--think of every object as a scene that can be instanced anywhere. It's tutorial does a better job describing it than I can. It's code editor isn't the best when it comes to intellisense as well, but that and the documentation are the only gripes I've been having. It should be workable for doing a CoC-atu, even suited for it as you can just swap out objects/scenes for areas. But I've been having issues organizing the 'engine' of my games and having a mess of Nodes in some semblance of component-based design that has devolved into spaghetti code.
Finally, the only other thing to think of is PyGame, just know it natively only builds .exe's (as far as i know, and I know I know very little.). It is, perhaps, the closest thing to Flash/Haxe without actually being Flash, but I've only began to mess with it so I can't be much help. It uses pure Python. The PyGame framework, at first glace, is at least straightforward, well documented, and established. Just be sure to use Python 3 tutorials when using Python 3 and install the correct version of PyGame. You might need to do some Command Line fussing, but hopefully not. As for IDE's, the native Python IDLE by means of File->New has it's own. It also turns out Visual Studio has Python tools and can access the PyGame stuff with its intellisence (thought it might require a build and/or a bit of fussing). If that's a bulldozer while you're looking for a rubber mallet, one of the tutorials recommended Geany though I have no experience with it.
Continuing back to HaxeFlixel just to conclude the thought. How it compiles. Skimming through the documentation, it looks like there are terminal commands that generate and compile the code. But! In FlashDevelop there is quite literally a drop-down box at the top of the window that chooses a compiler target. It's as fast and simple as choosing from that list and hitting run. That's it. I'm making an assumption, but I think FlashDevelop is running those commands for you and outputs the build in an appropriate folder in then project files. (Side-note, on fact checking a few things, the Haxe and FlashDevelop teams have collaberated and created HaxeDevelop, a more Haxe-centric version of FlashDevelop)
Hope this helps. If any help is needed, let me know.
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Uh, no.....that tidbit just leaves me more confused about what it is. You're saying Haxe is HTML5?
Haxe is not HTML5, but you can compile into HTML5.
Try it like this. You're writing a short story and you need to publish it. You can print it out on physical paper, you can publish it for Kindle, or you can put the story on a website. Your story is just the same, you've just published it differently.
With Haxe, you code in the programming language of Haxe, but have the option of compiling into HTML5. You're code is pure Haxe, the output is HTML5. or a standalone .exe, or whatever other Haxe lets you.
Sorry if I'm just all crossed wires, head's in a worse state state than I realized, but I suggest you poke around the site a bit, look up a few tutorials not for learning but for seeing how things are done.
Try it like this. You're writing a short story and you need to publish it. You can print it out on physical paper, you can publish it for Kindle, or you can put the story on a website. Your story is just the same, you've just published it differently.
With Haxe, you code in the programming language of Haxe, but have the option of compiling into HTML5. You're code is pure Haxe, the output is HTML5. or a standalone .exe, or whatever other Haxe lets you.
Sorry if I'm just all crossed wires, head's in a worse state state than I realized, but I suggest you poke around the site a bit, look up a few tutorials not for learning but for seeing how things are done.
Personally I like using JS and HTML with technology that is used to build websites (rather than games) such as AngularJS or React. I think this works well because text based games don't really need most of the things game engines come with like support for sounds, sprites and animation. Instead good text support and UI components are more helpful.
In general it does not make a huge amount of difference. Pretty much any platform will support this kind of game. So use whatever is most comfortable. Javascript websites, Java Apps, Unity games. It all works ok.
In general it does not make a huge amount of difference. Pretty much any platform will support this kind of game. So use whatever is most comfortable. Javascript websites, Java Apps, Unity games. It all works ok.
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