Game developers have dropped Flash for its competitor, HTML5, which, along with some help from a Javascript plugin, makes smaller and more interesting online games for browsers or game apps for mobile.
The mobile platforms are the most important reason why Javascript and HTML5 games are gaining this much popularity. Along with the rise of the smartphone market, the HTML5 and Javascript games have risen too.
If you want to create a game like the ones you have on your phones, you don’t necessarily have to build it from scratch, reinventing the wheel. You can use a Javascript game engine library and there are a lot to choose from.
Each of them has various functions that can be attractive to you, depending on what type of game you want to make. You can even find a tutorial for them, or even comprehensive documentation which will make your work easier.
At first when I thought of doing this article, I never could have imagined that I would find so many HTML5 & Javascript game libraries.
Phaser
Phaser is a fun, free and fast 2D game framework for making HTML5 games for desktop and mobile web browsers, supporting Canvas and WebGL rendering.
pixi.js
Super fast HTML 5 2D rendering engine that uses webGL with canvas fallback. The aim of this project is to provide a fast lightweight 2D library that works across all devices. The Pixi renderer allows everyone to enjoy the power of hardware acceleration without prior knowledge of WebGL. Also, it’s fast. Really fast.
Babylon.js
A complete JavaScript framework for building 3D games with HTML 5 and WebGL. Nothing needs to be installed on your computer to develop programs with BabylonJS. Nothing needs to be installed by the client to run your program.
Matter.js
Matter.js is a JavaScript 2D rigid body physics engine for the web. Matter.js includes a sample renderer, but this is optional and it’s easy to use your own.
PhysicsJS
A modular, extendable, and easy-to-use physics engine for javascript.
verlet.js
Particles, distance constraints, and angular constraints are all supported by verlet-js. From these primitives it is possible to construct just about anything you can imagine.
Stage.js
Stage.js is a 2D HTML5 JavaScript library for cross-platform game development, it is lightweight, fast and open-source.
Panda.js HTML5 game engine
EasyStar.js
Easystar.js is an asynchronous A* pathfinding API written in Javascript for use in your HTML5 games and interactive projects. The goal of this project is to make it easy and fast to implement performance conscious pathfinding.
JSIso
JSIso is a Tile-Based engine which uses the HTML5 Canvas element. It’s still classed as being in early stages and will be until it is capable of much much more. The engine is still under constant development and is licensed using MIT.
EaselJS
EaselJS provides straight forward solutions for working with rich graphics and interactivity with HTML5 Canvas. It provides an API that is familiar to Flash developers, but embraces Javascript sensibilities. It consists of a full, hierarchical display list, a core interaction model, and helper classes to make working with Canvas much easier.
Isogenic Engine
The Isogenic Game Engine allows you to create games in both 2d and isometric and has built-in isometric depth-sorting, path-finding and even supports Box2d in isometric!
Turbulenz
The engine libraries are implemented in optimized JavaScript supporting rapid iteration of game code and data. The engine executes directly in the browser and includes several interesting features.
Crafty
Crafty is a JavaScript game library that can help you create games in a structured way
melonJS
melonJS is the result of our enthusiasm and past experiments with Javascript, and came from the feeling that no simple, free and standalone library was available to develop games. And although still a work in progress, melonJS already allows to easily create some nice games
RPG JS
LimeJS
LimeJS is a HTML5 game framework for building fast, native-experience games for all modern touchscreens and desktop browsers.
gameQuery
gameQuery is an easy to use jQuery plug-in to help make javascript game development easier by adding some simple game-related classes. If you know how to use jQuery you almost know how to use gameQuery
Sprite.js framework
gamecore.js
enchant.js
enchant.js is an HTML5 + JavaScript based game engine. It is a standalone library that enables cross-platform application development for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android from just 30 KB of source code.
GameJs
GameJs is a thin library on top of the HTML canvas element. In addition to the drawing functions it has a set of generally helpful modules for game development.
Akihabara
It is a set of libraries, tools and presets to create pixelated indie-style 8/16-bit era games in Javascript that runs in your browser without any Flash plugin, making use of a small small small subset of the HTML5 features, that are actually available on many modern browsers.
Frozen: an open source HTML5 game engine
lycheeJS
lycheeJS is a JavaScript Game library that offers a complete environment for prototyping and deployment of HTML5 Canvas or WebGL based games inside the Web Browser.
Its architecture is independent of the environment which means it will run on any JavaScript environment, such as V8, Node, Spidermonkey etc. The only requirement for such a platform is a lychee.Preloader.
j5g3
Collie
Collie is a Javascript library that helps to create highly optimized animations and games using HTML 5. Collie runs on both PC and mobile using HTML 5 canvas and DOM.
Collie can stably process multiple objects using rendering pipelines and supports useful features including sprite animation and user events. Stably supports iOS and Android, and renders with an optimized method for each platform. Also easily responds to retina display.
PlayN
Construct 2
Construct 2 is a ground breaking HTML5 game engine. It lets anyone make games – without any programming experience.
Tom’s Halls – A JavaScript Platform Game Engine
Impact
Impact is a JavaScript Game Engine that allows you to develop stunning HTML5 Games for desktop and mobile browsers.
The GMP Javascript Game Engine
GMP is great for making sprite-based, 2-D games, and it can easily power most retro-style arcade game designs. It is also well suited to making puzzles such as sudoku or gogopop. Check out the games on this site to see what it can do.
Professional game developers will find GMP useful for making rapid prototypes during their game development cycle. Set up is quick, and changes can be viewed by anyone with a browser.
Game hobbyists will find GMP easy to learn and hack. It’s simple enough to use as a learning tool, and powerful enough to run the back-end of production-quality games.