The value of HTML5 coupled with Javascript and CSS3 can enable the Device Oriented Developer within creating extraordinary games incorporating 3D, Animation, Canvas, Math, Color, Sound, WebGL. One of the more obvious advantages of HTML5 for game development is that the games will work on any modern device.
Certain game engines present just one more level of abstraction, which simply handle just a few of the more tedious tasks of game development. Others just seem to take care of asset loading, input, physics, audio, sprite maps and animation, but they vary quite a bit. Then, there are engines which are pretty bare-bones, while some simply go as far as including a 2D level editor and debug tools.
Most Game Engines are able to reduce the time it takes- whereby to create a fully-functional game, however – some developers simply prefer the process of building everything from the ground up so they can better understand every component of the game. There are quite a few Javascript-HTML5 based game engines out there, which is a good thing, however- it can also be a bad thing due to the fact that most of these have either stopped being maintained, or will soon cease in being maintained. One definitely needs to carefully choose an engine which will continually be maintained, updated and improved over the years to come.
In this article we have collected 20 Free JavaScript Game Engines for Developers by which to explore and test drive. Tell us which one is your favorite and why from this list or if you’ve worked with one that isnt included in the list provided, then please do share your experience with our readers in the comment section below.
Enjoy!
1. Crafty
This is a lightweight and modular JavaScript game engine which consists of many components like animation, event management, redraw regions, collision detection, sprites and more. It supports all kind of browsers including IE9, No dom manipulation or custom drawing routines required.
2. Quintus
The Quintus engine is an HTML5 game engine designed to be modular and lightweight, with a concise JavaScript-friendly syntax. In lieu of trying to shoehorn a standard OOP-game engine structure into an HTML5 JavaScript engine, Quintus takes some cues from jQuery and provides plugins, events and a selector syntax. Instead of a deep single-inheritance-only model, Quintus provides a flexible component model in addition to traditional inheritance to make it easier to reuse functionality and share it across games and objects.
3. Gamequery
gameQuery is an easy to use jQuery plug-in to help make javascript game development easier by adding some simple game-related classes. Since it is based on DOM manipulation instead of Canvas gameQuery is compatible with a large number of browsers even the older ones including Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Safari for iOS, mobile versions of Webkit and Opera.
4. GMP
GMP is a JavaScript game engine that fits good to creating sprite-based, 2-D games and it can easily power most retro-style arcade game designs or puzzles like Sudoku. It has a ready-to-go, self-booting game loop. Mouse and keyboard inputs can be used easily. The engine is well-documented and the major fallback can be the lack of integrated sound support.
5. lycheeJS
lycheeJS is a JavaScript Game library that offers a complete solution for prototyping and deployment of HTML5 Canvas, WebGL or native OpenGL(ES) based games inside the Web Browser or native environments. The development process is optimized for Google Chrome and its developer tools.
6. Enchant.js
Enchant.js is a framework for developing simple games and applications in HTML5 + JavaScript. It was released in 2011, and open source (MIT license), and therefore free to use.
7. Starlingjs
Starling is an opensource game engine for JavaScript which comes with pure ActionScript 3 library that mimics the conventional Flash display list architecture. In contrast to conventional display objects, however, all content is rendered directly by the GPU — providing a rendering performance unlike anything before. This is made possible by Flash’s “Stage3D” technology.
8. The Render Engine
The Render Engine is a cross-browser, open source game engine written entirely in JavaScript. Designed from the ground up to be extremely flexible, it boasts an extensive API and uses the newest features of today’s modern browsers. The Render Engine is a framework which is intended to aid in developing your game idea by providing the foundation and tools to speed up the process of going from idea to finished product.
9. Akihabara
It is a set of libraries, tools and presets to create pixelated indie-style 8/16-bit era games in Javascript using HTML5 canvas tag and some standard hooks.
10. JsGameSoup
Js Gamesoup is an open source free framework for making games using JavaScript and open web technologies. It runs on almost every browser including ios browsers too. JSGameSoup uses open web technologies like canvas and html5.
11. Gamejs
GameJs is a thin JavaScript library on top of the HTML canvas element. In addition to the drawing functions it has a growing assortment of modules useful for game development. Most of GameJs’ drawing API is based on the popular PyGame .
12. CSS Game Engine
It uses the Javascript language and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to dress up the page. They run pretty reliably together. Use this engine to create your own game. This project is intended for beginners, wanting to learn how to program video games. Better if you’re a web designer that knows some CSS.
13. Clanfx
clanfx is a 2D, tile-based Javascript game engine developed using Javascript and CSS. It currently works in Firefox, Epiphany and Opera browsers. Features include many animated sprites, spell effects, buildings, tiles/textures and basic game AI.
14. gTile
gTile is a browser based game engine entirely in Javascript and DHTML. A two dimensional tile based view has been chosen for simplicity and accessibility. Game play is achieved through rich interactions and behaviors of game objects, rather than fancy graphics or animation. The engine is perhaps best suited to creating adventure and roguelike style games, but may also be used to create 2D virtual world representations of communities and geographical locations.
15. J5g3
j5g3 is an Open Source (GPLv3) Javascript Graphics Engine. Easy to use syntax designed to be fast and extendable.
16. Jaws
Jaws is a 2D game lib powered by HTML5. It started out only doing canvas but is now also supporting ordinary DOM based sprites through the same API.
17. Cocos2D
Cocos2D JavaScript is an HTML5 port of Cocos2D for iPhone. It is a 2D graphics engine which allows rapid development of 2D games and graphical applications which can run in any modern Web browser without the need for third-party plug-ins such as Adobe Flash.
18. CopperLicht
CopperLicht is a WebGL library and JavaScript 3D engine for creating games and 3d applications in the webbrowser. It uses the WebGL canvas supported by modern browsers and is able to render hardware accelerated 3d graphics without any plugins.
19. Aves
This html/jscript game engine, reminiscent of oldieworldie RPGs (except, more graphically capable, even), all rendered in html & jscript. NO FLASH. No plugins.
20. LimeJS
It is a HTML5 game framework for building games that’ll feel native and work fast in modern touch screens and desktop browsers. LimeJS is created with Closure Library built by Google and comes with functions/classes to control the timeline, events, shapes and animations. Also, the framework has full support of sprite sheets (you can collect all images inside a single file).
