TANX: online multiplayer tank battle using WebGL and Node.js

[angersock]

Assuming that it's full of HNers...y'all are terrible at this game. Move and shoot, folks. Move and shoot. Control items.

Jeez, it's like you've never played Quake or Soldat before.

[pmontra]

It's very difficult with a touchpad unless one is left handed. Keys on the right, aim on the left: bad for the 90% of us. I should look for my mouse. I know I have one somewhere.

[randunel]

Most of us are using a touchpad :)

[ffn]

I think there's a good majority of us who grew up playing RPGs or city-builders. We're unfortunately unaccustomed to the ravages of war... even when it's just war on an internet-based tank game.

[lportion]

I was just kicking some butt in there with the green team.

Wonderful game by the way. However, when the game finishes I get a messy overlay of texts all in one place (assuming it's the name of each member of the team)?

[penetrarthur]

mmmm... soldat

[itsbits]

the time when we realise mouse would have done awesome job...

[bch]

Memories of BZFlag... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BZFlag

[jjoonathan]

And bolo! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_%281987_video_game%29

Speaking of which, the Bolo guy went on to do the multicast DNS stuff at apple (Rendezvous/Bonjour/MyMacBook.local). I was just paging through the RFC the other day. Small world!

[imaffett]

Playcanvas is doing amazing work with WebGL. The Mozilla team showed off a version of this at GDC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVAw_an6NBQ

Check out the SeeMore demo Will and his team were showing off at GDC - http://malideveloper.arm.com/demo-showroom/gaming/seemoreweb...

[ehmorris]

I found steering a little confusing since it's not correlated with the current direction of the tank, but still very fun.

[Retr0spectrum]

Yeah, it seemed especially un-natural for me since I've spent so long playing tanktrouble.com

[dubcanada]

The shooting is a little weird, I fired several times at a tank, and the bullet went right through him. And other times I fired and completely missed and he got hit.

[daredevildave]

That's network gaming...

[soup10]

yea the collision detection is off, i was shooting through walls half the time and not the other half. which shows it's not a lag issue.

[leetNightshade]

The bullets do damage but keep on going.

[bencollier49]

Was he the same colour as you?

[ffn]

Hey this is awesome! Really love your grid. Any chance you can share with us what frameworks you used? I'm particularly interested in what you used to build your 3d grid.

[mrmoka]

Thanks. We've used PlayCanvas free tools (editor) and node.js for server-side code. Check out here: https://playcanvas.com/ and source code of client https://playcanvas.com/project/45093/overview/tanx as well as server code: https://github.com/Maksims/tanx

[mizzao]

I open this (Chrome, Linux 3.18) and just get the two carets on an orange background. WebGL works on other sites. Broken?

[TD-Linux]

Firefox Nightly on Linux, I get this in the console: uncaught exception: Error loading script from 'http://apps.playcanvas.com.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.co...

[simonbh]

I am using Chrome 42.0.2311.50 beta (64-bit) on Linux 3.19.2 and it works just fine for me.

[alinhan]

I had the same problem. I disabled my adblocker (ublock) and then it worked. Using latest stable Chrome under up-to-date Ubuntu.

[TheHippo]

I needed to disable uBlock to get it working.

[jarrettch]

Really enjoyed this! Although, I did get killed right away after spawning. Maybe make the spawn zone a temporary safe zone while new players figure out the controls or so current players can't camp out?

[nsxwolf]

Pretty awesome overall, hit detection kind of sucks though. I thought I had to lob my shells at first.

Looks like 60fps, on my new low end Mac Pro. Is there a frame counter?

[kf5jak]

Doesn't seem to be loading for me. Just the PlayCanvas logo. Not seeing any errors in JS console. Using Chrome Version 41.0.2272.104 (64-bit).

EDIT: Tried another game from playcanvas.com and I get a banner saying 'This page requires a browser that supports WebGL.' However, it is enabled.

This is just an FYI for the developer, but is probably just a problem on my end.

[lvs]

So, you probably have hardware acceleration turned off in the settings, or else chrome doesn't like your graphics card driver and has disabled webgl. Check chrome://gpu

[heroic]

I was having the same issue. Just turned of AdBlock and it worked.

[novaleaf]

same for me, chrome v41.0.x on win64

[roybarberuk]

5.4.3.2.1.0 but then nothing happens :(

[MayorOfMonkeys]

Try again.

[nogridbag]

Cool game, but it's hampered by the 3D and controls (tank takes too long to change direction). If this was a 2D top down shooter it would be much better. Everyone playing appeared to be clueless. My last match was 28 kills to 0, 0, 0 before I got a phone call ;)

[nni]

those glow effects are sweet - the whole thing is inspiring and motivating

[aceperry]

Wow, doesn't do anything. All I see is a playing field with the orange rectangle in the center. Wish there was more to it.

[mrmoka]

Server went down, should be good now :)

[jsd1982]

Damn you, GUEST!

[ianstallings]

This was fun. The only thing missing was a chat for some smack talk because I just OWNED a couple people.

l2p noobs ;)

[fit2rule]

Great work! A bit monotonous after about 30 seconds, but definitely a neat demonstration of what can be done ..

[bvanvugt]

This is an amazing experience and a ton of fun.

I loved being instantly put into a game. I was able to immediately recognize that I was on a team and dive face first into the battle.

Sure, the controls and hit detection are a bit flakey, but experiencing this for the first time was a lot of fun. Great job :)

[stevedekorte]

cool graphics - would prefer all keyboard controls