Ask HN: Frameworks for game-style UI with WebGL?

3 points

4 years ago

I'm at the point where I am starting to write shaders to do custom effects in WebGL, such as combining a left and a right image to make an anaglyph image.

What I'm thinking about next is about how to make "game like" UIs on the web for desktop and mobile. Some things that I am inspired by are:

(1) The Playstation 3 interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XrossMediaBar

(2) Interfaces in video games for viewing a database or documentation about the game world. I'd like to make something similar but for some part of the real world.

The Pokédex from Pokémon is a familiar example but it's not such a good one because Pokémon games mostly run on low-spec handhelds, so I am thinking more about what you'd see on a PC or TV console games... But instead of using a game controller you'd be using the touchscreen, mouse or keyboard.

(3) However I very much like how games for the Nintendo DS/3DS use the touchscreen such as peeling stickers in Paper Mario Sticker Star and how you can make Luigi fight in the boss battles in Mario and Luigi Dream Team. So some advanced capability for touch gestures is wanted.

I'd prefer programming in Javascript, could accept Typescript but it would be a hard sell if it (say) compiled something else to WebAssembly unless that came with awesome capabilities.

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