Should I use a game engine for top down 2d "1942 style" game

[jdunwoody]

Hello everyone,

 

I am looking to create a top-down 2d game - firstly for desktop browsers - that has no need for gravity based physics.

 

I have a few algorithms that I would like to implement that perform flocking of multiple avatars along with obstacle avoidance and collision - driven mainly by mouse movement.

 

I'm quite happy implementing those but if there was a framework/engine/library that did the heavy lifting of Rendering, Sprite, Sound and Texture management - that would be useful.

Is it better to mix-n-match libraries or choose a game engine that allows me to disregard the gravity physics and let me have lots of control of the sprite movement (for obstacle avoidance) and mouse movement detection?

 

Thanks

 

James

[suyashmohan]

If you write your own game engine it could double your work as you have to write a game engine and your game.

Phaser is great engine. You can try it. If you don't want gravity you can use that way.

And if you don't want a high level game engine but a game engine that does the rendering stuff and you can write your logic over it then you can try pixi.js. It is the same engine that powers the phaser game engine.

[jdunwoody]

Thanks suyashmohan, i will give pixi.js a go first - until i understand what I might be needing from Phaser. I'm glad a horizontal scroller with gravity isn't the only type of game that can be created with these engines.

[user123]

I have positive experiences with Pixi.js, for me its really smooth/high framerate and there are many built-in effects and options.

Also each object you create has a predefined x and y position, so moving images is really easy.

As far as collision detection/math algorithms, thats stuff yuo have to solve on your own.

Afaik, there is no JS engine specifically designed for such things, and if there is, it is always better to do it yourself to improve your programming skills/mathematics.