Newsletter – Issue 023

📆 2024-09-25

🔥 Headlines

🦋 We now have a Web Game Dev Bluesky Starter Pack that you can use to easily sign up and follow 100+ folks from the JavaScript game dev and front-end ecosystems. There is also a list that you can follow.

Subscribe to the new YouTube channel where we post Trezy’s Games Showcase meetups!

WebXR is now enabled by default on Apple Vision Pro. Watch the Build immersive web experiences with WebXR WWDC24 presentation by Ada Rose Cannon and read the WebKit 18.0 release notes.

Kaboom.js is no longer maintained, but there is now a community fork called Kaplay.

Unity 6 is coming with a new focus on the web and WebGPU, as announced at the Unite 2024 Keynote. They announced the Crazy Web Game Jam 2024 with CrazyGames (Unity-only), and canceled the Runtime Fee.

🌐 The Ray Browser (video) is a new browser focused on gaming, with support for split-screen (with a game on one side and Discord on the other, for example). It has features for developers such as its WebGL2 inspector.

The State of JavaScript 2023 survey results are out.

Poki is on a mission to create the ultimate online playground – where players and developers come together to play and create! Together with a growing 400+ game developer community and 65 million players each month, we’re creating a new standard for web games. Interested in working together? Share your game with us!

Poki, the market leader on Web, is proud to sponsor Web Game Dev! In the coming month, we will give the community access to our new Playtesting feature - which provides unlimited and free playtesting of your game with our audience! Keep an eye out for more in the Web Game Dev Discord at the beginning of October! Learn more about Poki in this presentation.

🏎 Engines

Three.js r168 (changelog, migration guide)
Drei Vanilla 1.19.0 – Expose Caustics materials, add MeshWobbleMaterial and MeshDistortMaterial.
Three.js Shading Language Sandbox – TSL examples by Bruno Simon.
R3F v8.17.0 – Adds flushSync, which forces React to flush any updates synchronously and immediately.
Drei v9.113.0 – InstancedAttribute and createInstances, support any color representation in GradientTexture.
@react-three/xr (video) went through a major overhaul, thanks to Bela Bohlender (who also made uikit).
TresJS 4.2.0 – Adds dpr prop to TresCanvas, and userData to inspectable devtool properties.
Cientos v4 – AnimatedSprite, breaking changes and refactors.
PlayCanvas Engine 2.0.0 – A release that drops WebGL1 support among other breaking changes and API cleanups, and adds new custom shader and hardware instancing APIs.
Phaser v3.85, Phaser Editor 4.4, and Phaser Beam Technical Preview 4
Wonderland Engine 1.2.3 – Editor Scope plugins, configure shortcuts, and Streaming Fetches.
Construct r407 – Instance Bar, instance tags & signals, flowcharts improvements
PixiJS 8.4.0
Babylon.js 7.26.2
Needle 3.48.0
Excalibur.js has a new newsletter.
Orillusion v0.8
Web Export in Godot 4.3 by Adam Scott
GameMaker (Lua) has a new engine with experimental WebGPU support.
Flutter can be used to make games, now with WebAssembly support. Watch the Google I/O presentation.

🛠 Tools

N8AO 1.9 by N8 – 10-20% perf boost, more config options, quantize AO tones for bevel and toon effects.
Three.ez InstancedMesh2 – Simplified and enhanced InstancedMesh with frustum culling, fast raycasting (using BVH), sorting, visibility management and more, by Andrea Gargaro.
InstancedBatchedSkinnedMesh with GPU mixer by Cody Bennett.
v0, Vercel’s AI code-generation tool, now supports React Three Fiber and its ecosystem.
Interactive Water Surface (demo) by Toby
Ecctrl FixedCamera mode by Andrew Chen
VFX-JS and React-VFX – WebGL-powered visual effects by AMAGI.
TypeGPU – A type-safe toolkit for WebGPU. by Iwo Plaza from Software Mansion.
🎾 Jolt Physics 5.1.0 – Improvements to soft bodies, characters and vehicles, by Jorrit Rouwe.
🎵 Pelimanni – Web Audio classical instruments and utilities for making dynamically looping music by Joni Korpi.
Colyseus 0.16.0-preview by Endel

🎬 Videos

Advancements in WebGL and WebGPU (August) at SIGGRAPH by Khronos Group
WebGL + WebGPU Meetup - July 2024 by Khronos Group
WebGPU Compute Shaders Crash Course by Visionary 3D
WebGL and basic graphics programming by yellowFloppyDrive
Learn Three.js by Building 5 Projects by Robot Bobby
Three.js Game Dev: Wormhole Blaster by Robot Bobby
Embracing WebGPU and WebXR With Three.js by mrdoob
Building an RPG with Three.js series by Dan Greenheck
The Future of React Three Fiber by Kris Baumgartner
Make a 3D Avatar Builder series by Wawa Sensei
Third Person Controller by Wawa Sensei
Wiggle Bones Threejs Library by Wawa Sensei
Three.js Third Person Controller with Rogue Engine by P. Martin Ortiz
Wonderland Engine in 100 Seconds (not actually Fireship) by Wonderland Engine
Phaser Game Engine 2024 Explained by Phaser
Building Excalibur.js by Erik Onarheim
Kaplay Library Crash Course by JS Legend
I made a full game in 400 hours - This is how! by Imphenzia
🎓 ExileCon 2023 - Rendering Path of Exile 2 by Alexander Sannikov
🎓 The Most Valuable File Format You’ve Never Heard Of (OpenUSD) by Acerola
🎓 A simple procedural animation technique by argonaut
Here’s how to release a game on Poki by Denis McKeown
🌎 Presentation of CrazyGames at Gamescom by Rafael from CrazyGames

✍️ Articles

What’s New in WebGPU – Chrome 129, 128, 127 by François Beaufort
WebGPU Unleashed: A Practical Tutorial by Shi Yan
Three.JS WebGPURenderer Part 1: Fragment/Vertex Shaders by Christian Helgeson
I like big fog and I cannot lie by A Number From the Ghost
Tilt Shift, Blend Modes, and the Necronomicon by A Number From the Ghost
The Art of Dithering and Retro Shading for the Web by Maxime Heckel
PS1-Inspired Jitter Shader by Oguzhan Tufenk
Loading assets in React Three Fiber - Zero to Hero by Aaron Claes
Simulating 20,000,000 particles in JavaScript by David Gerrells
Physically Based Rendering in glTF guide by Khronos Group
📚 Game Maker Toolkit Notebook by Steven Yau
Discord Activity Playbook by the creators of Death by AI
Bring your Phaser game to iOS and Android with Capacitor by Phaser
Autotiling Technique by Justin Young
Cellular Automata by Justin Young
Systemless Components with Excalibur.js by Matt Jennings
Building an HTML5 game with KaplayJS by Rohan Thakur
⚡️ List of spatial indexing algorithms with pros and cons by Juan Linietsky

Kevin Glass from the Rune platform has been putting out a ton of great articles on Rune’s blog:

🎮 Games

Blumgi Racers by Blumgi – Gravity-defying puzzle game.
Quivershot by Dedra Games – Top-down pixel roguelite.
Blaze Drifter by Deer Cat Games – Racing game with takedowns.
Stunt Bike Extreme by Hyperkani – Motorbike balancing game with stunts and jumps.
Ping Pong Go by Happylander – Ping Pong game with increasing difficulty.
SquadBlast by UltraHorse – Multiplayer 2D hero shooter and platformer.
Kour.io by LEGiON Platforms – Multiplayer FPS with various game modes.
Dungeons n' Ducks by Long Story Short – Puzzle game with original mechanics.
Bulletz.io by Luke Wood – Agar-inspired game in which you grow by consuming other players.
WorldGuessr by Gautam – Open-source geography game inspired by GeoGuessr.
Brawl Bugs by Jay – Multiplayer arena brawler with insects.
Connection Home – Platformer demo game made to showcase the Hology Engine.

✨ Demos

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