New HTML5 Game-Framework: SpellJS

[Julian]

Hi,

My name is Julian Haupt and I'm the founder and CEO of Spielmeister, the company that develops SpellJS. I am happy to announce the start of the product beta today.

 

 

About SpellJS

SpellJS is a development framework which enables you to create your interactive content using web technology and deliver it as a native app for iOS and Android as well as a web app using the HTML5 and Flash export. You can distribute your content to mobile and desktop web browsers and through Google Playstore and Apple's App Store.

 

SpellJS comes with an editor which is a complete visual development environment. The SpellEditor supports the whole development process and can also be used by non-developers (artists, QA, localization, etc.). The editor is available as a desktop and cloud version.  

 

Starting the Beta

After over one year of active development we can finally announce the release of the beta version. To this day the first commercial games have already been developed with SpellJS. So now you can download the desktop version of SpellJS here and start developing. Also check out our product screencast and documentation.

 

Development Roadmap

The following time schedule gives you an overview about how and when we plan to release the first stable version of the product:

• Oct 2013: Finalizing the integration of the Android and iOS build option in the Desktop version of the software

• Nov 2013: Bugfixing, API refinements

• Dec 2013: Bugfixing, 1.0 release (stable)

 

About the Company

SpellJS is being developed by Spielmeister, a german startup company. Being unsatisfied with the available solutions to build cross-platform interactive content and games which can be distributed to mobile & desktop browsers as well as app stores, we decided to develop SpellJS to solve this problem.

Besides from developing our own cross-platform technology stack, we are open for consulting and
development inquiries with SpellJS. Contact us if you need help with your next interactive/gaming project.

 

 

I would love to hear your feedback and discuss the product features with you!

 

Cheers,

Julian

 

 

Links:

 

» SpellJS.com
» Product Screencasts
» SpellEditor Demo
» SpellJS Downloads
» Get your free license

[Julian]

 

Using the SpellJS toolchain, we successfully developed and published the jump and run game Jungle Chaos together with our partner Kaisergames.

The game is fully localized for the german, turkish and international market and was played over 6 million times on the Kaisergames portal network.

The SpellJS hybrid loader delivers the HTML5 version to 71% of the clients. The remaining web clients receive the Flash version.

The mobile app versions of this game have top store ratings.

Check it out here:

» Web Version

» iOS Version

» Android Version

About Kaisergames

Kaisergames is an established german game publisher, developer and service provider. With a total reach of approximately 250 million page views and 40 million visits per month, Kaisergame's portal network is among the ones with the widest reach in the entire online gaming industry.

[ozdy]

So this sounds interesting, but how does it work underneath How does javascript -> Flash conversion go? How does javascript -> mobile go (phonegap?), is SpellJS even Javascript ?

[Felipe]

Look really interesting. I tried the free demo but every time I try to build for web it says : 

 

SpellEd can't connect to the Build-Server.

 

I think what it does is compile to native for every target and spellJS I guess is because of the scripting language it uses.

[Julian]

Hi ozdy,

 

SpellJS is based on ECMAScript3 with the addition of getters/setters from ECMAScript5. The compile process does some static code analysis and brings the source code into a form that can be compiled to ABC-Bytecode (SWF File) by the MXML-Compiler from the Apache Flex project.

 

For the mobile builds we use special crafted OpenGL ES 2.0 based runtimes (for maximum performance). We do not cross compile the JavaScript, it is executed by V8 on Android and SpiderMonkey on iOS.

 

We will ship all needed compilers with the product, so you're not depended on any cloud compile system.

 

Cheers,

 

Julian

[Julian]

Look really interesting. I tried the free demo but every time I try to build for web it says : 

 

SpellEd can't connect to the Build-Server.

 

I think what it does is compile to native for every target and spellJS I guess is because of the scripting language it uses.

 

Hi ilovepixel,

 

thanks for checking out our product. Did you provide a valid path to a locally installed JDK? Which platform are you using (win,osx,linux)?

 

We're currently in the process of simplifying (in terms of auto detection) the path setup and we're integrating better error messages.

 

Cheers,

 

Julian

[Felipe]

Hi ilovepixel,

 

thanks for checking out our product. Did you provide a valid path to a locally installed JDK? Which platform are you using (win,osx,linux)?

 

We're currently in the progress of simplifying (in terms of auto detection) the path setup and we're integrating better error messages.

 

Cheers,

 

Julian

 

Hello Julian,

 

I am on OSX.

I haven't set up the JDK path, my mistake.

 

Thanks!

[Julian]

Hello Julian,

 

I am on OSX.

I haven't set up the JDK path, my mistake.

 

Thanks!

 

You can run /usr/libexec/java_home to find out which path your JAVA_HOME path is (it's kinda tricky under OSX)

 

You can also run the spell command line utility in your project directory.

 

/Applications/SpellJS.app/Contents/Frameworks/"node-webkit Helper.app"/Contents/spellCli/spellcli build html5 -d

/Applications/SpellJS.app/Contents/Frameworks/"node-webkit Helper.app"/Contents/spellCli/spellcli build web

 

etc. This will provide you with better error messages. The Editor actually uses the the spellcli tool to trigger the builds but does not expose the error messages from there atm

 

We have also a open ticket to provide a function that will install spellcli in /usr/bin under osx Coming soon

[Chris]

Wow, sorry - but I can't stay quiet after I've read that post and looked (after developed some interest), googled a bit and clicked around...

 

1st: SpellJS

Plaese don't tell me the user is required to use the SpellEd app to create games.

It sounds very interesting to develop for flash and html5, as well as mobiles in JS, but the editor is imho a total dealbreaker.

 

I've launched the app from the demo section of the SpellJS website and... well to say it politely: its a mess. It loads as slow as nothing I could come up to compare against and is a interface hell. Confusing and very, very un-intuitive...

 

2nd: Your claims about the mobile version

 

 

 

The mobile app versions of this game have top store ratings.

 

I'm sorry, but if I click the apple store link you provided, there is exactly ONE rating that gives you 2 out of 5 stars.

And the user even says:

 

 

 

I would give this 2.5 stars because its the only Kiba & Kumba game that didnt crash when I opened it, Kaiser Games really needs to do better on these

 

The play store rating performs better, but I don't know how genuine that ratings are... They sound a bit too enthusiastic overall.

[Julian]

Hi Chris,

 

thank you for your interest in our product and our games!

 

> Plaese don't tell me the user is required to use the SpellEd app to create games.

 

The editor uses an open file format and saves all data in .json and .js files. You can edit these files with whatever IDE you like. Some of our developers use WebStorm to edit the .js files and use the editor only to place objects etc. You can use the spell command line interface to do the builds on the command line and your continuous integration server. We're currently in the process of adding a full-blown auto-complete function into the integrated code editor to make it more useful.

 

You can learn more about the file format in this video:

 

 

>I've launched the app from the demo section of the SpellJS website and... well to say it politely: its a mess. It loads as slow as nothing I could come up to compare against and is a interface hell. Confusing and very, very un-intuitive...

 

Did you try the desktop version of the product? We see the cloud version more or less to be an add-on to your desktop environment. In order to provide access to your artist etc without the need to install any software. You can also use the cloud version to do a mobile build, which can be useful in some scenarios (e.g. if you don't own a mac computer).

Are you an interface designer? To be honest the editor was build by developers and not interface experts. It somehow looks like the other tools we're used to use at the moment. Do you have any examples for development tools with a good interface design?

 

> I'm sorry, but if I click the apple store link you provided, there is exactly ONE rating that gives you 2 out of 5 stars.

> And the user even says: (...)

> The play store rating performs better, but I don't know how genuine that ratings are... They sound a bit too enthusiastic overall.

 

 

You're right, the "top ratings in mobile stores" relates only to google play store. The iOS version does not have as many installs as the android version. The ratings however are real. Kiba&Kumba is a popular brand in Germany. Have a look at the German online version of the game:

 

http://www.spielaffe.de/Spiel/Kiba_Kumba_Chaos_im_Dschungel

 

It was rated by nearly 100.000 Users at 75%. They like the game because of the brand.

 

>I would give this 2.5 stars because its the only Kiba & Kumba game that didnt crash when I opened it, Kaiser Games really needs to do better on these

 

The other Kiba&Kumba Games are developed using Adobe Air, haXe or Unity3d. The other games crash more often than our game which is based on our own runtime. I see it somehow as a compliment that the user noticed it. We have a very low amount of crash reports coming in and that is the reason why Kaisergames wants to continue to use our technology.

 

Cheers,

 

Julian

[rich]

I honestly thought this was a spell checking js library when I read the title

 

But it sounds neat if you need true cross platform (and haXe doesn't appeal for some reason).

[Julian]

SpellJS - the most powerful spell checking library in the world

[spelagon]

I tried SpellEd yesterday. Took a while to get the hang of it but I can see the potential 

 

Managed to get an image visible and some background music. I didn't manage to get a tilemap up and running though. I created one and connected it to a spritesheet image. First I thought you were supposed to add an exsiting tilemap (e.g. Tiled) but seems you design it inside of the editor right? But how?? Couldn't find anything in the docs explaining this..

[Julian]

 

but seems you design it inside of the editor right

 

Yes, the tilemap edit funcion is integrated into the editor. You can edit Tilemaps by selecting the tilemap entity (in development mode) and pressing strg+space. I'll write up a tutorial for this soon.

[yzigames]

Can't debug/export/release to WEB  SpellEd can't connect to the Build-Server

 

Set the JDK path to /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

 

I'm on osx 10.9.

[Orillian]

Well I took a look at the editor and the game on Android and just have a few comments.

 

1) The game was fairly snappy on Android 4.3 on a Nexus 4. So kudos for that! I wasn't a huge fan of the controls, I found them a little meh, not sure, but they felt a little off. Not sure if that is a SpellJS thing or the developer that needs to work on controls. Still it was fast and played pretty good for a platformer.

 

2) While the editor works. I would recommend moving your tool chain out of it and make it so that I can run the needed applications as command line tools in WebStorm or (insert other users favorite IDE here). Many of us get used to a specific editor and we don't like moving just to use a specific library etc. SpellJS has some really cool features and if it works just as well in iOS as Android and the web performance is good, I could see people wanting to use it. But don't force us to use your IDE.

 

3) Is Spell in SpellJS taken from your company name "Spielmeister"? I was pretty confused as well when I saw it, I thought it was a word engine before clicking your post as well. 

 

All in all a pretty good first showing I hope it goes well for you.

 

O.

[Julian]

Hi Orillian,

 

thanks for your feedback!

 

1) The game was fairly snappy on Android 4.3 on a Nexus 4. So kudos for that! I wasn't a huge fan of the controls, I found them a little meh, not sure, but they felt a little off. Not sure if that is a SpellJS thing or the developer that needs to work on controls. Still it was fast and played pretty good for a platformer.

Try the game on a HTC Desire or other crappy android devices It works

 

Yeah, the controls could be better. It's not a SpellJS issue. We simply started with the Desktop version and added the mobile controls in a rush at the end of the project.

 

2) While the editor works. I would recommend moving your tool chain out of it and make it so that I can run the needed applications as command line tools in WebStorm or (insert other users favorite IDE here).

 

The editor actually calls the spellcli command line tool to do the builds, initialize the projects etc. You can call it from anywhere you want to achieve the same result

julian@lechuck:~% spellcli --help  Usage: spellcli [options] [command]  Commands:    clean [options]     Cleans the build directory.        build [options] [target]    Creates a build for a specific target; available targets: web, web-html5, web-flash, android, ios.        export [options] [target]    Creates a release version of the supplied targets and packages them into a zip archive.        info [options]     Prints information about current environment.        init [options]     Initializes a project directory with project scaffolding.        license [options]     Prints information about active license.  Options:    -h, --help     output usage information    -V, --version  output the version number

 

3) Is Spell in SpellJS taken from your company name "Spielmeister"? I was pretty confused as well when I saw it, I thought it was a word engine before clicking your post as well.  

 

No, I think it's just a "not so well choosen" name At least people remember it as the dumbest name for a game framework. It's better than not remembering it at all

 

 

Cheers,

 

Julian

[Julian]

Hi yzigames,

 

Can't debug/export/release to WEB  SpellEd can't connect to the Build-Server

 

Set the JDK path to /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

 

I'm on osx 10.9.

 

We're currently working on a more fault tolerant build process. I think it will be released tomorrow. I'll keep you informed on that. Did you try to do a build on the command line?

 

Cheers,

 

Julian

[yzigames]

Hi Julian,

 

From command line building for flash I get:

 

s-iMac:demo_asteroids usr1$ /Applications/SpellJS.app/Contents/Frameworks/node-webkit\ Helper.app/Contents/spellCli/spellcli build web

Working on project directory "/Users/usr1/Documents/yzigames/demo_asteroids".

building...

building for target "web"...

building for sub-target "flash"...

generating AS3 classes...

compiling...

execvp(): Permission denied

Error: spawn EACCES

 

On html5 target build seems to be succesfull:

 

s-iMac:demo_asteroids usr1$ /Applications/SpellJS.app/Contents/Frameworks/node-webkit\ Helper.app/Contents/spellCli/spellcli build html5

Working on project directory "/Users/usr1/Documents/yzigames/demo_asteroids".

building...

building for target "web"...

building for sub-target "html5"...

Building completed successfully.

[Julian]

hi yzigames,

 

this will be fixed in version 0.9.1 which will be released today.

 

You can actually fix it yourself by running

 

 

chmod +x /Applications/SpellJS.app/Contents/Frameworks/node-webkit\ Helper.app/Contents/spellFlash/vendor/flex_sdk/bin/mxmlc

 

The file permissions are wrong on Mac OS X. (It works on Win & Linux)

 

Cheers,

 

Julian

[yzigames]

Thanks! Really great framework. I think it has lot of potential.

[Julian]

BTW: The Spell stage zero loader will automatically detect if the client is capable of running the HTML5 version. You can override this behaviour by adding a GET parameter to the index.html 

 

To force the delivery of the flash build, append the parameter target=flash => http://path/to/your/content/index.html?target=flash

 

You can also set this via the spell config:

var config = {   target: 'flash'}spell.start( config )

[ben0]

Great job, Julian!