👋

Clément

Florian

@FlorianRival

@ClementPasteau

GDevelop in a few words

• "No-code" game creation platform
• Open-source engine
• Based on web technologies
  • Game engine based on PixiJS
  • Interface built with React
  • Core logic written in C++, compiled to WebAssembly

GDevelop in a few images

React based interface

• The whole app is built on React (with Material-UI as a component library). 
• Scalable and works well for an app like GDevelop! 

Typing

• We have a mix of TypeScript (game engine) and Flow type (editor).
• Saved our lives more than once!
• Considering migrating everything to TypeScript in the future - as long as we can run type checking separately from the transpilation.

WebAssembly usage

• The core logic (how to represent a game, tools to generate code from a game, etc...) is written in C++
• Using Emscripten, we compile it to a WebAssembly library and use it directly.

Our usage of PixiJS

• Started with PixiJS as a dual canvas/WebGL renderer (which was useful at the time) and very performant
• Great to see support of WebGL2 (and looking at how WebGPU will rise 👀)
• Mostly smooth experience (except for some hiccups on iOS) 

Pain points,

challenges, or things hard to deal with

Storing data locally... and keeping it

• There are a few solutions to store data locally: Web Storage API (localStorage), IndexedDB.
• But it's always too easy for the user (or the browser) to just nuke everything without warnings.
• File System Access API seems a good solution... too bad it's not (yet?) usable everywhere (Firefox, Safari)

Consistent performance

• Easy to fall out of the “happy path” of JS engine and get deoptimized.
• Some warnings are surfaced in debuggers... but overall we need to be cautious.
  • Spector.js, Safari WebGL command inspector: we need more of these tools!
• Impact of garbage collection can vary across devices - no way to easily measure/trigger a GC.
• A "super strict"/"never slow" JavaScript mode would be awesome.

iOS and web technologies

• At each new iOS version, something will break.
• We had some large performance regressions. Fixed by the folks at PixiJS (kudos!)
• Heard too many horrors stories to try too many new things (IndexedDB, PWA support) - iOS forces us to stay old school in our approach.

Monetisation on the web and on mobile devices

• Is ads the only working solution for now? 
• Started to look at web monetization
  • Not sure if this getting any traction? Promises are a bit unclear to us.

Web games discovery

• Hard to get noticed (though that's true on app stores too)
  
  • Some indie stores (Itch.io) can help.
• But also hard to do "remarketing" as limited push capabilities/no app installed by the user.
• Some companies are promoting HTML5 games (Poki, Google with Gamesnack)
  

This being said...

being based on web technologies allows us to be:

fast, agile, working (almost) everywhere

Thank you!