AlexGames: simple Lua games in a browser with multiplayer support, self hosting friendly. - Lemmy.ca
TL;DR: try my Lua web games here, see github for self-hosting instructions:
https://alexbarry.github.io/AlexGames [https://alexbarry.github.io/AlexGames] Hi
all, here’s a hobby project I’ve been working on: I wrote a bunch of simple Lua
games, compiled the Lua interpreter to web assembly, and defined a simple API to
draw on a canvas and handle input. It all builds to static HTML/JS/WASM, except
a few hundred lines of python for a websocket server for multiplayer. I recently
added some dockerfiles so I think it should be easy to self host. Here is the
web version on github pages: https://alexbarry.github.io/AlexGames/
[https://alexbarry.github.io/AlexGames/] , and the source on github
[https://github.com/alexbarry/AlexGames] (self-hosting instructions in the
README). I’ll list some of the games: * local/network multiplayer: chess, go,
checkers, backgammon, gomoku * single player or network multiplayer: minesweeper
* single player only: solitaire, “word mastermind”[1], “endless runner”, “fluid
mix”, “spider swing”, “thrust” [1]: it may not technically be multiplayer, but
my partner and I enjoy picking our own hidden word and sharing the puzzle state
as a URL or just passing a phone to each other. Part of my motivation is to
avoid ads on mobile games, and to be able to play different multiplayer web
games with friends without having to get them to make an account and all that
(just share the generated URL, it contains a multiplayer session ID). I also
like the idea of having my own private web games server, and not having to be
reliant on some service that might eventually get enshittified. I figure that if
I can throw together a similar game in a few hundred lines of Lua, then no one
should have to deal with full screen ads or pay ~$10 to play them. Especially
since most mobile games that I like are simple and I only play them for a few
minutes at a time, maybe only a few times per week. Self hosting isn’t necessary
to try it out, but without SSL it should just be a simple one-line command to
host the HTTP and websocket server with docker compose. For SSL support it is a
few more steps, I added steps to the README: one command to build the static
HTML (so you can copy it to your web hosting server, which should already take
care of SSL), and another to host the websocket server, which can have your SSL
certs passed as parameters. But you don’t strictly need the websocket server, it
should just fail to connect after a few seconds and then you can play the games
without network multiplayer. You can even use my websocket server and your own
static HTML, just add &ws_server=wss://alexbarry.net:55433 as a URL parameter to
your own URL. I haven’t self hosted much on my public server, so I’d love to
hear feedback on how to better handle SSL certs. Ideally you could just choose
to not use SSL for your websocket server, but firefox at least prevents you from
connecting to a websocket server without SSL if you’re using SSL to visit the
page itself on the same server. (On a local network without SSL it’s fine,
though) Some features that I’m proud of: * the network multiplayer works pretty
well, I’m pleased with websockets (previously I was hoping to get WebRTC working
but I didn’t have much luck). On the wxWidgets and Android prototypes I had a
normal socket server working too, but I’ve focused on the web version since it’s
good enough * an English dictionary for word puzzle games. (aside: loading ~220k
English words as javascript strings and a javascript array took like 12 MB of
browser memory or more, but I got it down to ~6 MB by moving the dictionary to C
managed memory) * state sharing via URL: for most games I serialize the state
and then you can export it as a base 64 string in a URL. This is useful to keep
playing on a different device, send a puzzle that you liked to a friend, or for
“word mastermind”, to choose your own word and get your friend to guess it. *
built in autosave, undo/redo, and browsing previous saved states. I used the
same code to render state previews that I wrote to render the games for normal
play, so all a game has to do is implement state serialization, implement a few
APIs to get that state, and call “save_state” whenever the player makes a useful
move. Then games can simply call a few lines to add an “undo” and “redo” button,
and those can call a one line function to fetch the previous or next state. (I’d
like to add a full history tree at some point, but for now if you undo many
times and make a new move, you lose the moves that you un-did (“undo-ed”?)) *
playing arbitrary games as zips of Lua files. While the self hosting community
might not need this much (since they can just add their own games to the source
and rebuild), I figured many people might be interested in writing a game
without having to build and host my project. So I added support for unzipping
bundles of Lua source files and storing them in the built in emscripten
filesystem in the browser. I added an example game and an API reference, see the
“Options” menu and the “Upload Game Bundle” section. Let me know what you think!
I’d love to hear feedback, or get new game contributions or bug fixes /
features.
mhoye
The Matrix.org Foundation
skariko
axby