Help to chose game engine for hex-based board game

[hexer]

Hi all - I'm new here and signed up because I want to write a game that I created using Vassal some time ago. Vassal's biggest drawback (apart from it requiring a lot of stuff to install to run it, JVM, Vassal, Vassal plug-ins) is that you can't easily do AI for it (it's really a framework for online play with humans).

 

That said, Vassal has some cool features I'd like to find in another engine:

1. abstractions for online gaming (it has its own server infrastructure) which has game states automatically managed
2. abstractions for moving pieces around a map (you don't have to write GUI code to detect clicks and react to them).
3. abstractions for maps with hex grids (it's very tedious - but I've done it before - to handle clicks in hex space)
4. abstractions for turn-based gaming (it's not a real-time game with collisions, animations, etc.)

Looking at http://html5gameengine.com/ I saw that Construct2 and ImpactJS are pretty popular. However, I am not sure about the board-game requirements with those engines.

 

LycheeJS seems to support networking, but looking at the code on github, I didn't see any support for hexes, grids, etc. 

 

Can anyone recommend an engine for my requirements? 

 

Cheers!

[Laurent Sigal]

Also very interested in the question here.

[mig]

If it's a 2-players game with no random and you want to run it for the Web (desktop and mobile), you may want to have a look at Jocly. It features a number of hexagon-based boardgames like 5 Chess variants (Brusky, De Vasa, Glinski, McCooey, Shafran), Yohoho and Crescendo, with source code to be used as examples. Plus, you will benefit a UML-based AI, WebGL 3D, live games between remote players, WebRTC for players to see each other's webcam in the board scene. Details of the API are available on the Jocly Wiki.

[totor]

since it's open source lgpl maybe you can borrow the parts you are interested in and glue them in a new js boardgames engine.

[hexer]

If it's a 2-players game with no random and you want to run it for the Web (desktop and mobile), you may want to have a look at Jocly. It features a number of hexagon-based boardgames like 5 Chess variants (Brusky, De Vasa, Glinski, McCooey, Shafran), Yohoho and Crescendo, with source code to be used as examples. Plus, you will benefit a UML-based AI, WebGL 3D, live games between remote players, WebRTC for players to see each other's webcam in the board scene. Details of the API are available on the Jocly Wiki.

Hi mig,

 

Jocly is spectacular to see and I love the idea, but sadly my game is more complex. The no-random limitation probably stops a lot of people from going with that engine! I have to admit, I wouldn't think it would be necessary to specify that as a requirement for a game engine in 2014, but I see that you guys kept it simple. 

[mig]

 

The no-random limitation probably stops a lot of people from going with that engine! I have to admit, I wouldn't think it would be necessary to specify that as a requirement for a game engine in 2014, but I see that you guys kept it simple. 

 

The no-random limitation is a problem on Jocly only for the current AI. We are working at a new version that will allow non-perfect information games to be handled, it will also manage any number of players.

[hexer]

Hey, it's been a year. Any updates to this? 

 

http://html5gameengine.com/tag/networking shows just four engines, but I'm assuming the "networking" tag is for criterion #1 above. 

 

lycheeJS seems interesting, but the Windows version says "experimental"