Opera Developer Ports C++ Game to HTML5

Erik Moeller, a developer at browser maker Opera, has just released an HTML5 snapshot of his game Emberwind.

The game, originally written in C++, gets the HTML5 treatment and is being translated to JavaScript. The latest snapshot has still ways to go to reach the state of a playable game, but Moeller says that 100,000 lines of code have been moved and technologies such as WebGL with a Canvas2D fallback are working already.

The demo enables users to direct the game's main character, but ladders and doors are not functional. The focus is here is, of course, on the word demo, as it shows the possibilities of running a game within a browser and how we may be playing video in a few years down the road. If you run the demo, notice the smooth background animation as well as integration of Google webfonts.

According to Moeller, this brief demo is about 11 MB in size and has been tested on Windows 7, Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux and iOS with the current browser versions of Opera, IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

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There are 17 Comments.

Top Comments

13

killerclick , July 13, 2011 6:05 AM

68jghjr5fgjYou cant port a game to html5, html isnt a programming language. You mean they ported the game to java. Whats so special about that again?

Java is not Javascript.

Other Comments

-10

anonymous@guest , July 13, 2011 5:46 AM

You cant port a game to html5, html isnt a programming language. You mean they ported the game to java. Whats so special about that again?
-13

killerclick , July 13, 2011 6:04 AM

Please God, let HTML5 die. Dumb Apple-whores keep droning on about it for years while Flash gets the job done.
13

killerclick , July 13, 2011 6:05 AM

68jghjr5fgjYou cant port a game to html5, html isnt a programming language. You mean they ported the game to java. Whats so special about that again?

Java is not Javascript.
0

reggieray , July 13, 2011 6:21 AM

This news is huge as far as what will be the next gaming arena and Ubuntu is in the game. The fear I have is that they will move so mauch to web based that Bill Gates's dream of having everyone having to pay a monthly feee to use their computers.
The powers to be really want that and to make our computers into simple dumb terminals. Google is already testing it, Chromebook and look at the lose from moving from a 13" Macbook Pro to a iPad (tampon). I will keep my Pro and OS X 10.6. You can take OS X Lion (iOS on steroids) and your app store forced download of 4Gb to "upgrade" to Lion and shove it where the sun don't shine. Oh wait, your based in San Francisco so instead take it and walk off a short peer.
-6

applegetsmelaid , July 13, 2011 6:25 AM

I want the time that it took to read this article back please.
3

amk-aka-Phantom , July 13, 2011 6:33 AM

"The focus is here is, of course, on the word demo, as it shows the possibilities of running a game within a browser and how we may be playing video in a few years down the road."

Like hell I'll be playing this dumbass browser games in a few years. In a few years, there will be GPUs that will render photorealistic games without trouble, and we'll be playing Crysis 3 =)
2

reggieray , July 13, 2011 6:46 AM

Rumor control has it that STEAM is working on having it for Ubuntu (Linux) as well. OS X on STEAM opened that door.
-1

reggieray , July 13, 2011 6:56 AM

I would look at buying a iPad if it had some real storage space options to give the capabilities of a real computer such as a SD card slot and a micro-USB port. I would also want the iPad to be able to boot from the SD card slot in some sort of bios screen. Not until then.
3

pollom , July 13, 2011 7:04 AM

Steam for ubuntu !!! , now only we need good ati drivers
1

killerclick , July 13, 2011 9:05 AM

Jesus, what a bunch of ignorant children. Steam is a content delivery system. Just because there is Steam on some platform doesn't mean any more games will be available on that platform. The developers still have to port every game to that platform, and if they're not doing it for Windows and OS X, you can be sure they're not doing it for Linux.
0

FloKid , July 13, 2011 10:07 AM

pretty soon we will need only 1 window for everything : )
-2

alidan , July 13, 2011 11:57 AM

killerclickPlease God, let HTML5 die. Dumb Apple-whores keep droning on about it for years while Flash gets the job done.

i have somewhat the same sentiments. however i block ads, and html5 may be harder if not impossible to block out just the ads like you can with flash.
0

pepe2907 , July 13, 2011 12:11 PM

68jghjr5fgjYou cant port a game to html5, html isnt a programming language. You mean they ported the game to java. Whats so special about that again?

Although JavaScript is completely different from Java, literally you are right, because it is as well different from HTML5 /and the fact javascript is developed initially by a browser manufacturer and meant to be run by a browser doesn't make it a part of the HTML specification/.
0

rosen380 , July 13, 2011 11:11 PM

There was a product, like 15 [or more!] years ago called TegoWeb Express that would convert any program into a web enabled application.

http://www.tegosoft.com/InternetCourse/TegoWebExpress.htm#LiveSamples

Granted, I can't get any of their samples to run on a modern browser...
0

cookoy , July 14, 2011 12:34 AM

one html5 code to run on various modern browsers of different OS, just like java was developed for. will we be seeing JIT compilers later on
0

stuart72 , July 14, 2011 2:14 AM

wasn't this done months ago with quake 2 ?

http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/
0

vittau , July 14, 2011 10:50 AM

Very interesting, but the problem with JavaScript is that it's a lot harder to efficiently obfuscate code, which could be a problem for more serious game developers.

Opera Developer Ports C++ Game to HTML5

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