Langenium - A web-based Sci-Fi airship MMORPG

[thezeski]

Langenium is a web based MMORPG. There are 6 careers paths spread across 3 factions. Each career has it's own line of airships and uniforms to complent it. Characters are sprite based, but will move around in the 3D world.

Server:
- node.JS and various packages (socket.io, JADE, express)
- mongoDB for persistence
- Currently hosted on EC2 Sydney

Client:
- THREE.JS (webGL)
- jQuery
- socket.io



I've been working on the game since October 2012. My career background is in making websites and purpose built web applications. I realized that I could start making games once I saw what could be done with three.JS and node.js

The gameplay is split between flying an airship in a fully 3D world and moving around as a 2D sprite character, similar in look and feel to the SNES RPG era.

The MMO market is pretty flooded, but I do think that we still haven't seen a good storyline that works for both solo and party/guild play styles. I'm having at my own crack at this, and my plan is to interweave two time periods - a single player tutorial/campaign set in 2099 and the multiplayer realm of 2299.

The single player 2099 story is about humanity's escape to a new planet, Ibidan, and follows their struggles to rebuild. The 2299 story picks up directly from the single player, but this won't be immediately apparent. In the story, Langenium is an element unique to Ibidan. It is named after Dr Bruno Lange (who invented the first solar cell) due to it's highly efficient photosynthesis applications.

In the spirit of games like Final Fantasy, there is going to be some hidden big bads pulling the strings. There are going to be secrets, conspiracies and dramas in this world.

This is going to be a big game and as I'm only working on this by myself right now, I'm trying to do it in broad strokes - covering off areas in art, concept and development as I need them. To ease the burden of production, I'm also building up a game editor that will act as a scene builder and camera/script automation tool.

I've currently got a freely available alpha for people to have a play with. As gameplay elements go in, I'm hoping to attract a community to help both contribute to and provide feedback on the game. Players will have access to the same tools as me, allowing them to create missions and story arcs of their own - either to share with the community or just amongst their circle of friends.

At this point, I'm happy for feedback on any aspect of the game. In particular, I'd be really keen to have some in-depth discussions about code, art direction and story development.

http://langenium.com
http://langenium.com/play (WASD for direction, shift and space to go up and down, mouse to rotate and fire)
http://langenium.com/editor

Github: https://github.com/paulbrzeski/Langenium
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Langenium

Youtube trailer of an early build
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJcr09qIVrI

Latest screenshot

[qubodup]

Cool! A WebGL game that runs on my slow machine at high resolutions!

I recorded a video:

youtu.be/3QUHvSG-EGo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QUHvSG-EGo

I thought it's funny that my key repeat is visible in the game. I'd recommend using keydown/keyrelease(up) instead to stop/start movement.

Forward movement wasn't noticeable while playing (I see it in the video though) so I mostly just rotated.

My system, FYI:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

Distro      Linux qbox 3.10.10-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Aug 30 11:30:06 CEST 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux
CPU         model name : AMD Phenom(tm) 9550 Quad-Core Processor
VGA         01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS780 [Radeon HD 3200] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
RAM         Mem: 3.6G 2.9G 700M 0B 39M 906M
GCC         gcc (GCC) 4.8.1 20130725 (prerelease)
VGA driver  OpenGL vendor string: X.Org

PS: If you would like to get art recommendations/contributions, I recommend introducing this project on the OpenGameArt.org forums!

[devnewton]

I'd love to play it, but it makes firefox crash and chromium only draw FPS indicators... Maybe because I only have an old GPU (intel GMA 950)?

WASD for direction

Could you add arrow keys support or configurable key mapping? WASD is only usable on Qwerty keyboards

[qubodup]

I'd love to play it, but it makes firefox crash and chromium only draw FPS indicators... Maybe because I only have an old GPU (intel GMA 950)?

When I try running WebGL on my EeePC 1000H netbook (might be the same graphics card) it doesn't work in Chrome and often crashes Firefox as well.
I was able to do and run a little bit of 3d in it though: http://qubodup.net/cultsvstowers/

Could you add arrow keys support or configurable key mapping? WASD is only usable on Qwerty keyboards

Really? Just because of that z<->y switch? Did you know of AZERTY?

I agree of course, that binding arrow keys are an advantage for many players. By the way, I am amazed at how useful and trust-enabling and unknown-thing-fear-disabling it was that you wrote the controls right next to the link to the game! I was actually able to learn the controls while deciding whether or not to test the game.

[thezeski]

qubodup,

Thanks heaps for that tip on keypresses! This is a commonly spotted flaw that I honestly haven't put my attention into. Also thanks for the kind words about the controls. Cheers!

In terms of forward movement, have a look at the editor (langenium.com/editor) as it has around 100x the velocity threshold. The scales in the game are quite vast - and the server side positions can get screwy over international links if you're quite far away from Sydney.. I've had complaints from people testing in the UK who similarly feel like there is no movement, because the latency is causing the ship position to drift too far apart between server and client (the network code hasn't been optimized yet, but this will definitely be addressed)


devnewton,

Do you have native graphics drivers installed? I'm assuming you're a Linux user?

Arrow keys will come - the keyboard bindings will be configurable as everyone has different preferences. I just opted for WASD as it feels a bit more natural when simultaneously operating a mouse.

But certainly, everyone should be able to bind the controls however they like - especially if they use DVORAK (like yourself I'm guessing?) or want to play by binding joysticks/pads to keyboard shortcuts. I think this could be particularly cool for people using Bluetooth peripherals on a mobile.

[devnewton]

Do you have native graphics drivers installed? I'm assuming you're a Linux user?

Yes and yes! I tried on another computer with an nvidia quadro pro GPU, it works, but I only get 13fps.

That's still one of the few webgl games that I've been able to play without crash! I think that when your game will be ready, this technology will be more usable than today.

[devnewton]

want to play by binding joysticks/pads

If you want to implements gamepad autoconfiguration, I build a gamepad layout database: http://devnewton.bci.im/en/gamepad_db

[thezeski]

Here's a look at the latest work done on my game Langenium. I'm using some shaders to procedurally generate the clouds on a sphere and the ocean on a plane.

Most of the work in the past 2 months has been to move to an MVC style architecture, but I'm now working towards a new website design which needs the game as a backdrop.

Code is available at https://github.com/paulbrzeski/Langenium
https://github.com/paulbrzeski/Langenium/tree/master/views/game/shaders

Feel free to drop me a message if you have any questions.

More information about Langenium is available at the website www.langenium.com and the Facebook page - http://facebook.com/Langenium

Procedurally generated ocean and sky,



Website mock-up using this new look,

[Natasha_Gita]

Very cute character design! ^.^

[oberhamsi]

this looks incredily slick. i favorited your github repo and am looking forward to see it grow!

[thezeski]

Introducing the Langenium Staging server.

http://staging.langenium.com/
http://staging.langenium.com/play

Due to the website being bound to the same server, I've had to hold off on deploying the latest code. To get around this, I've setup a new instance.

The new website is in very early days. The endgame is to unite all the frontend code into a single stack that can then treat the website and game as one entity - allowing really rich and interesting backgrounds for the site.

The game client has also had some heavy work on water and clouds, as well as a better camera.

If anyone has any questions fire away

Screenshot of game client on staging:


Screenshot of website on staging: