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I'm looking for a very simple HTML5 2D Hex / Touch game engine framework to build board game like:

  • Turn based 2D Hex Grid Wargame
  • Dungeon Crawler
  • Settlers of Catan
  • Krosmaster

I found an awesome article on Hexagon grids with a D3.js implementation but can't figure out how to start a boilerplate.

After digging around I found a list of HTML5 Game Engine and great game's components.

But I don't know which one would be the best for my use case. There few sample/tutorial that really match my needs. It's often:

  • Very tiny screen size
  • Or ugly assets
  • Or dead links
  • Or lot's of code

May be that kind of game do not match for HTML5 game ? Something based on Hexagon grids would be so cool ! It seems Phaser do not handle hex grid ?

Jean-Philippe Encausse
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  • Having explored hexagon grids before, I find it's easiest to think of them as being a normal rectangular grid, except: 1. the layout engine changes 2. the distance functions changes. – Adam Marshall Mar 14 '14 at 14:03
  • I grok what you want. Vassal has it in its HexGrid http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/HexGrid, but that is Java not HTML5 – Fuhrmanator Sep 15 '14 at 00:49
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    Questions like this are considered off-topic for stack overflow. From http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic: Questions asking us to recommend or find a book, tool, software library, tutorial or other off-site resource are off-topic for Stack Overflow as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam. Instead, describe the problem and what has been done so far to solve it. – 3ocene May 10 '16 at 22:15
  • @bern understood... computer science is more and more complex sometimes an opensource library is the right answer because "hello world" creating a new wheel on an advanced topic is not a good idea. – Jean-Philippe Encausse May 11 '16 at 15:04
  • @Bern Downvoting all the questions and answers on this page is your choice. SO is extremely popular and probably has outgrown its ability to self-check adequately those rules. – Fuhrmanator May 11 '16 at 20:59
  • @Jean-PhilippeEncausse I'm not saying that you should reinvent the wheel. The problem is that most questions like this just don't end up being constructive. You'll mostly just get spammy answers like James Earnest Pinto's. If you can't find a library on google you probably won't find it here. (Libraries normally have entire pages attached to them, other programming questions will often have answers hidden within docs) – 3ocene May 12 '16 at 01:45
  • @Fuhrmanator I didn't come here to down-vote everything on the page. I down-voted your answer because it was a broken link and obviously a dead project which isn't useful. Now that you updated it, I removed my down-vote. – 3ocene May 12 '16 at 01:48
  • It's always good form to say why you downvote, @Bern – Fuhrmanator May 12 '16 at 01:52
  • @Bern totaly agree ! But on some subject like HTML5 games, OpenCV, ... it seems the world "stops" and Google return many crapy outdated results. Why ? because people are not interested in that subject or because there is a "new way" to do it. For instance Unity has overtaken game subject and it could be a good start for me... – Jean-Philippe Encausse May 13 '16 at 11:49

4 Answers4

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Playcraft seems to support hex grids, at least in the announced 0.5.6 release: 

Here’s a big list of things we’ve changed:

* hex tile maps now supported using (pc.HexTileLayer)

The code is on Github. The project looks inactive since July 2013.

Fuhrmanator
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I don't think it's possible to provide a general answer to which engine/framework is the right one because only you know the exact requirements of your use case. So probably there won't be a way to avoid some evaluation. In the first place I would advise to check if the project is actively maintained and if it has a community of reasonable size to be sure you can get help if required. Also see how well-structured the code base is so you can fix or change things if they don't fit your requirements (e.g. Changing the screen size shouldn't be a big deal if it is well written code).

J. Mueller
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You can still use phaser along with hexagon tiles. Just use pixi.js and code a framework to implement it.

If it doesn't work out you can use Tiled as an external editor and code the collision part in whichever framework you want.

You can use Box2D for collisions.

If you WANT to use game engines then maybe try Unity it has an in-built hexagon tiling tool with collisions and it can be exported to WEB GL.

Frisk17
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You should use Construct 2 U can build many great games including turn based board games.

Here is a link that can help u create one easily

U can download installa dn use the free version of construct 2

http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/tutorials/build-a-two-player-small-tactics-board-game-in-construct-2-part-2--gamedev-12241

James Earnest Pinto
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