Book Image

Hands-On Game Development with WebAssembly

By : Rick Battagline
Book Image

Hands-On Game Development with WebAssembly

By: Rick Battagline

Overview of this book

Within the next few years, WebAssembly will change the web as we know it. It promises a world where you can write an application for the web in any language, and compile it for native platforms as well as the web. This book is designed to introduce web developers and game developers to the world of WebAssembly by walking through the development of a retro arcade game. You will learn how to build a WebAssembly application using C++, Emscripten, JavaScript, WebGL, SDL, and HTML5. This book covers a lot of ground in both game development and web application development. When creating a game or application that targets WebAssembly, developers need to learn a plethora of skills and tools. This book is a sample platter of those tools and skills. It covers topics including Emscripten, C/C++, WebGL, OpenGL, JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS. The reader will also learn basic techniques for game development, including 2D sprite animation, particle systems, 2D camera design, sound effects, 2D game physics, user interface design, shaders, debugging, and optimization. By the end of the book, you will be able to create simple web games and web applications targeting WebAssembly.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)

Object pooling

We have defined our first game object, which represents our player's spaceship, but all we can do is fly around the game screen. We need to allow our player to shoot a projectile. If we created a new projectile object every time a player shot a projectile, we would quickly fill up the WASM module's memory. What we need to do is create what is known as an object pool. Object pools are used to create objects with a fixed lifespan. Our projectiles only need to be alive long enough to either hit a target or travel a fixed distance before disappearing. If we create a set number of projectiles that is a little more than we need on the screen at one time, we can keep those objects in a pool in either an active or inactive state. When we need to launch a new projectile, we scan our object pool for an inactive one, then activate it and place it at the launch point...