Cobalt Calibur 3 Open Source

Multithreaded JavaScript has been published with O'Reilly!

Screenshot
Screenshot

Well, I suppose it was only inevitable. After getting so excited and developing the game so quickly for a while, I eventually ran out of steam and stopped working on the project (it was about that time my Raspberry Pi arrived).

Cobalt Calibur 3 is an HTML5 based game engine with a Node.js backend. The graphics work by drawing pieces of a sprite sheet onto the screen using Canvas, Audio is played thanks to the HTML5 audio spec, data files are downloaded in parallel from the server and the game starts when data is received thanks to some promise/deferred code. Communication is made between client and server in real time thanks to the websocket technology in socket.io.

Some of the gameplay features includes the ability for characters to build and change the world around them, an evil corruption which is pushed back when the player builds towards it, NPCs which roam the map killing a player in close proximity, a day/night cycle, changes to nature (such as tree growth), and earthquakes which deposit ore and more stone.

Note: If you're looking for a free place to host Cobalt Calibur, I've written a step-by-step guide for downloading the code, creating an account, setting up the app, and uploading it to the OpenShift cloud by RedHat.

Download the Cobalt Calibur Source Code on GitHub, released under a dual BSD/GPL license. If you haven't yet, play the Cobalt Calibur demo to get a feel for how it works.

Thomas Hunter II Avatar

Thomas has contributed to dozens of enterprise Node.js services and has worked for a company dedicated to securing Node.js. He has spoken at several conferences on Node.js and JavaScript and is an O'Reilly published author.