Picking the Right HTML5 Game Engine
The web revolution spearheaded by HTML5 made modern browsers more powerful than ever. Instead of having to rely on third-party plugins, they are now capable of rendering sophisticated graphics natively, 2D and 3D alike. For game developers, this opens up unlimited possibilities. While you can certainly write an excellent game in pure JavaScript, there are many game engines designed to streamline this process. An engine — or a game framework — has most core elements already included, leaving it up to you, the developer, to make use of those elements and build your game around them. Today, we’re here to find out what some of the best HTML5 game engines have to offer and how they compare.
Meet the Stars of the Show
The first engine we want to mention is Construct. As alluded to by its name, this engine allows you to construct full-fledged 2D games without any coding. But don’t let this outward simplicity deceive you: Construct has quite a few cards up its sleeve that make it stand out. For starters, Construct supports hardware acceleration on Android and iOS: your games will perform just as well on mobile as they do on desktop. Recently, this engine has been expanded with basic 3D functionality (while keeping a 2D-first focus). You can combine the accessibility of Construct’s visual editor with your JavaScript skills to refine your game to perfection.
Much like Construct, Defold has many things to rave about. It offers a visual editor, allowing you to create 2D games — zero-code style. If you know a thing or two about Lua, you can further improve your projects with a few lines of code. Defold has a massive advantage over Construct, as it’s multi-platform and completely open-source. You won’t have to pay any royalties or subscriptions to use Defold’s feature-packed toolkit.
Defold rightfully holds the spot as one of our catalog’s most commonly used engines with a thriving community. In tandem with the Defold team, we held a month-long Games Jam back in 2021. Check out the winners here.
Speaking of open-source, GDevelop is another freely distributed engine designed for 2D games. Similar to Defold and Construct, GDevelop’s main draw is its visual editor. While the UI might feel a little clunky, GD is a respectable event-based engine. But what if you’re looking for advanced 3D capabilities?
Even if you’re not a game developer, chances are you’ve heard plenty about Unity, the world’s most popular game engine. Love it or hate it, Unity is hands-down the most versatile framework included in this list. Thanks to the WebGL library, Unity games can run in modern browsers.
Sadly, there’s a catch: as powerful as it is, Unity will hardly do any serious programming for you, unlike Construct or Defold. This engine requires a good command of C# and can be incredibly intimidating for beginners. Another downside of this engine is its proprietary nature — you’ll need to pay a licensing fee if your monetized games make over a certain amount. Finally, games created with Unity are infamously tough to optimize, which used to be doubly true for HTML5 games. Luckily, the recent release fixes some of these issues, and the Unity team is constantly working on ensuring buttery smooth WebGL performance.
A free, open-source alternative to Unity, Godot is another contender jampacked with features that can satisfy your 3D needs. That’s not to say Godot isn’t great for 2D games as well: in fact, that’s where it shines even more. Godot’s snappiness, an advanced physics engine, an editor for visual programming, and native support for multiple programming languages are just some of the many perks it has going for it. If you need to add some code, you can do so within the engine itself without having to use a third-party IDE. (We’re looking at you, Unity!)
Rounding up our brief spotlight, LayaAir is an open-source ultra-lightweight engine that supports 2D and 3D. Mind you, it’s not an easy engine to pick up, as proficiency in JavaScript and TypeScript is a must. But it pays off — HTML5 games created with LayaAir run flawlessly even on low-spec PCs by seamlessly switching to Canvas if the GPU doesn’t support WebGL. By the way, when we say “ultra-lightweight,” we really aren’t exaggerating: LayaAir only takes up a dozen megabytes. For comparison, Unity can consume as much as 12 gigabytes of disk space when packed with added components.
But Wait: There’s More
There are plenty of other engines and frameworks suitable for HTML5 game development, such as Unreal, Twine, PlayCanvas, GameMaker Studio, RPG Maker, Phaser, Babylon, and so on. We’ll walk through some of them in one of our future posts. For now, just remember that no one engine is inherently better than any other: it’s up to you to decide which piece of software is best, all according to your very own vision and confidence in your skills.
Some engines are modest in features and tailored for ease of use, while others offer a virtually limitless arsenal of tools but are much more demanding of the user. Opening an engine like Unity for the first time can be scary, but the sheer number of things you can achieve with it may well be worth it. Conversely, a friendlier engine won’t make developing a full-fledged game a cakewalk: a lot goes into a good game, from assets and overall design to individual mechanics.
But no matter which engine you decide to run with, we’ll be happy to publish your HTML5 games on our platform — totally free, with zero strings attached. All you have to do is follow our developer’s guide to get started. In there, you’ll also find a ready-made Yandex Games SDK for easy integration of your games into our platform. Earn money from in-game purchases and ads while leaving the hard work to us: Yandex Games has your infrastructure, advertising, and analytics covered.
