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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Show HN: I made a 2D game engine in Dart
_stillmind wrote 4 hours 5 min ago:
I haven't used Flame engine, but I know it already exists as a way to
make games in Dart. So, if someone like me is curious about making a
game in Dart, it would be nice to know the pros/cons of using this
versus using Flame.
Maybe remaking Flame's Klondike tutorial, or one of the others, using
Bullseye to help show the distinct advantages that this engine brings
over other solutions? It's not very obvious to me when this would be
the right choice for me over Flame.
Nevertheless, it's cool to see something new come to the scene for game
dev in Dart. Thanks for making this!
joemanaco wrote 3 hours 44 min ago:
I don't have looked into Flame too much, but I would say the main
difference is that Flame builds on top of Flutter while right now
Bullseye2D only builds on the web package.
Flame offers more out-of-the-box features, while with Bullseye2D you
have to build many things yourself, but it doesn't force you into a
predefined structure as much. The API is more prodcedural style,
making it relatively quick to learen in its entirety, without too
much "magic" happening under the hood.
I think for most people Flame would be the better choice (it is also
been around longer, which means better support...), however, I really
love extremly simple approaches. I also believe it has advantages
when you tailor your systems and architecture to your own
requirements. Lots of stuff in 2D Game Development is also extremly
simple (so often having to deal with a complex physics module or
rendering pipeline or entity component system is contraproductive).
voidUpdate wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
> Writing games is fun again
Was it not before? The only parts I've not enjoyed in the past has been
working with a team that didn't pull their weight. What part of this
makes it fun again?
joemanaco wrote 4 hours 38 min ago:
Yes, maybe it's a stupid thing to say. My thought was that the
simplicity of the API takes out a lot of the complexity of it
compared to engines with complex structures, entity hierarchies,
event systems and features that need to fit a wide range of genres.
Especially if you want to make something simple or just a prototype.
voidUpdate wrote 4 hours 29 min ago:
Probably better to say "Writing games is simple again" or something
then. Though engines like unity or unreal would make 3d games a lot
simpler to make than this, so it's only some kinds of games
joemanaco wrote 4 hours 18 min ago:
You're right. I fixed it ;)
sgt wrote 5 hours 58 min ago:
This is promising. I just did a review of some of the code and the
premise of the platform, this is clearly not your first rodeo in
gaming. I wish you luck! I might consider sponsoring as well.
joemanaco wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
Thank you.
socalgal2 wrote 7 hours 15 min ago:
I hope this isn't off topic. What is the draw of Dart? In other words,
what does it claim to do special or emphasize over other langauges?
Like if you were going to try to convince someone they should give Dart
a try, what reasons would you give?
nmfisher wrote 1 hour 1 min ago:
Off the top of my head:
- Properly cross platform (including first-class JS/WASM interop)
- AOT & cross compilation
- Hot reload
- Static typing with many nice features (generics, extension types,
enhanced enums, etc)
- Expressive without being overly verbose
- Well-supported by the language & SDK teams (i.e. it's not dead)
- Easy build/package system
The only things I really feel are missing are (1) union types and (2)
access modifiers like protected/friend.
999900000999 wrote 1 hour 29 min ago:
Dart/Flutter imo is basically a better React Native.
It doesn't have 30 years of JavaScript legacy code.
The problem is Google cut significant funding to Flutter, it's not
clear if it'll be supported for much longer.
I've built several toy apps in flutter for myself and friends. I like
Flutter. But Google's lack of commitment is concerning.
Dart itself feels like a safer Typescript. The tooling is just
better.
Alifatisk wrote 13 min ago:
> The problem is Google cut significant funding to Flutter
Just to be clear, Google slashed teams across their entire
organization, not just the Flutter / Dart team. So it wasn't like
Google targeted the Flutter / Dart project
> it's not clear if it'll be supported for much longer
> Google's lack of commitment is concerning
I had similar feelings. When looking this up, it showed that Google
continues to actively develop and invest in Flutter, with regular
updates, new features, and performance improvements being released
for both Flutter and the Dart language.
The official Flutter roadmap has been updated through 2025
URI [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/FlutterDev/comments/1jrz4cd/googl...
IshKebab wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
The language is a little nicer than Typescript (though not in all
ways), the performance is better and the tooling is excellent. Even
better than Go's. And it can be AoT compiled to a self-contained
binary or transpiled to Javascript.
The LSP server in particular is amazingly fast and reliable - better
than Java IDEs. It's practically instant from typing something to
seeing the squiggles update. C++, Rust, Go, Typescript etc. don't
come close.
Obviously there are downsides: relatively tiny ecosystem, sometimes
weird syntax (why is a match expression and match statement
different??), this very annoying issue that I see remains unsolved
after 5 years:
URI [1]: https://github.com/dart-lang/language/issues/1188
sgt wrote 6 hours 3 min ago:
Having developed Flutter apps for a few years now (albeit not full
time), I have to say that Dart is simply a pleasure to work in. The
language - at least - doesn't hold you back at all. I guess it's
kinda like Java should have been.
freitzzz wrote 7 hours 2 min ago:
I would say that the best benefits are:
- Cross Compilation (even wasm and js) out of the box
- Simple concurrency model, similar to NodeJS
- Ability to use it on a popular cross platform framework (flutter)
- Hot reload capibilities (has JIT and AOT mode)
- Strong developer tool chain
All of these are built on top of a language that has a pretty syntax
and supports many language paradigms.
The biggest con is the (weak) package ecosystem and community.
Alifatisk wrote 15 min ago:
When making bullet points, I think you have to add a empty line
in-between each point so it gets rendered as a list
sgt wrote 6 hours 0 min ago:
I think it's also important generally speaking - not just
Dart/Flutter, but really any language ecosystem, to not blindly
start adding packages. You'll end up with conflicts and Dart is no
exception. Sometimes it is sensible to vendor a library into your
own source code tree, or just build it yourself ("Own it").
isoos wrote 7 hours 3 min ago:
Modern, but sane syntax (readable), good defaults (strong typing,
null safety...), good-enough runtime performance, good APIs and
tooling out of the box, cross-platform (also hot-reload on some,
AOT). The list goes on, what specifics do you care about more?
zxexz wrote 7 hours 24 min ago:
I really hate to be that guy, but I don't see a single screenshot/demo
on the main page.
niekiepriekie wrote 4 hours 17 min ago:
Well, it does seem a bit hidden and the demo's are a bit simple. The
Pong demo doesn't seem to work on safari desktop (When playing, the
ball stops after 0.2 s . But he! You have to start somewhere.
Good luck!
rodnim wrote 6 hours 15 min ago:
Click "Showcase" in the main top menu.
leecommamichael wrote 10 hours 59 min ago:
> An easy-to-use, high-performance 2D game library for Dart.
This is one of those things you say to interest people. To put their
concerns to rest that it might not be able to make the game they want.
It doesn't really mean anything. No absolute measurements or relative
comparisons.
nurettin wrote 8 hours 20 min ago:
To me it just means that they are satisfied with their work. Enough
to announce success and joy.
ghurtado wrote 10 hours 39 min ago:
Surely this isn't the first time you see software that claims high
performance and speed without any hard benchmarks attached.
You can benchmark an algorithm or a small piece of code, but for
something like a game library, the definition of what is "fast" and
what isn't is too dependent on context to be meaningful.
That doesn't mean that the statement is useless: it tells me that
this is, at least partially, one of the goals of the library.
Joel_Mckay wrote 9 hours 38 min ago:
For most folks I think they use an fps score while not sacrificing
aesthetic quality or game play experience.
i.e. The engine is considered lower quality if it is laggy,
generates DLSS chowder, or glitches up on some hardware.
The people responsible for shader cache performance get a lot of
grief given the performance hit in unpredictable play contexts is
often very noticeable.
The Unreal devs made it look deceptively easy. =3
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWS8Mg-JWSg
devrandoom wrote 11 hours 20 min ago:
The Boing game doesn't work mobile, is that by design?
joemanaco wrote 5 hours 14 min ago:
I ported this game from the Book "Code The Classics" which was
written in Python/PyGame. It should be relativley easy to add mobile
touch inputs to it, but I didn't have time for that yet.
stpedgwdgfhgdd wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
Probably worth it as most people read HN on tablet or phone.
What is potentially a problem is the lack of training material for
AI agents to generate games on top of this platform.
bovermyer wrote 21 min ago:
Anecdotally, I never use HN on mobile devices. I don't have
access to data for HN device usage. Do you?
"Training material for AI agents?" The lack of such is not a
problem. AI agents are an adversary for many, not a target.
lionkor wrote 2 hours 1 min ago:
You can just read the documentation and write code, there's
really no need for AI here. Your argument sounds a bit like "What
is a problem is that I cant enjoy my hourly whisky while
driving". Maybe the problem isn't the platform :)
munificent wrote 11 hours 21 min ago:
This is so cool! I love it.
joemanaco wrote 5 hours 8 min ago:
Thanks. Hearing that from someone who works on Dart and wrote two
books Iâve read makes the compliment really special to me :)
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