The simplest way to convert your web game into a desktop app | Hacker News Reader

The simplest way to convert your web game into a desktop app

nassimsoftware.com

The simplest way is to add a web app manifest with "display": "standalone", and then ask the user to install the website from the browser.

This doesn't solve the problem of wanting to sell your games on Steam or Itch. It's also not viable for implementing saves in your game.

> It's also not viable for implementing saves in your game.

Client-side storage is part of the web platform. Any website can store data locally.

While you could use local storage for saving it's not a reliable method because the user could need to clear their cache for X reason and not realize that their save is now wiped out as well.

Neutralino offers you the ability to use native methods to save data on your computer's storage. You can also use this to create portable save files that the user can keep and transfer over to different computers.

Are you doing this for Steam? How are you integrating with the Steamworks API?

It seems the Steamworks API is just a normal Web API. [0] So you probably just need to use fetch() to make requests to it.

0: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/webapi_overview

No, it’s a C++ API for (among many other things) local functionality such as restarting the app via Steam, triggering achievement pop-ups, controlling the Steam Overlay, and whatnot.

For Electron, there is an integration library called Greenworks. For Neutralino, I haven’t found anything similar, so it might be inconvenient to add Steam-specific functionality down the road.

I’m just raising this limitation because it’s one of a few concerns that steered me away from Neutralino for my Steam port project.

If I have my game working on the Web, where people can play it without having to trust me, why would I want to replace it with a native desktop version where people do have to trust me to play it?

One use case : You have a web version up that is low friction and gives people a taste of the game and you have a desktop version with additional content + ability to have saves that you put behind a paywall.

I think the famous vampire survivor game did this. FNF which is another game went viral with its web version and they're now working on a full release.

Why are there HN apps? Why is there an app for everything Google provides on the web? Why is there .... etc I could really go on forever because your question is not very well thought out.

I know you're asking this question from an extraordinarily narrow point of view, but it isn't hard to see that doing this is really quite common and in demand.

So why all those things?

Why do people use an HN app? I never knew they existed because, to me, the website is almost perfect.

I don't disagree, because I prefer web things on the web myself, and the idea that app updates might be two steps away from the web version really irks me. But everyone has their routines. Some people like the self-contained feeling of everything being an app on the phone. Others prefer the self-contained feeling of everything being in the browser.

There is no general answer other than "choice," and given a choice, there will almost never be an option everyone agrees on.

One of the laziest apps I ever saw was a MOTD that literally only had 365 quotes that occasionally got updated. Is that a real app? It's not even a real web app. To someone, it's the bee's knees I guess. Not I. But kudos to whomever made coin on such a thing. I thought it would have been brilliantly underhanded to write a horoscope app that way.

That’s true. I find that “save to Home Screen” gets me quite far.

I think the answer is too often, “so we can control and milk our users more easily.”

The Reddit website doesn’t have to be garbage.

There's a perfect example of why an app might be better than the web page.

One good reason would be the ability to play it offline.

Isn't that what service workers are for?

Probably to put it on Steam or other online stores. There are users on there that won't leave that ecosystem and have no way of discovering your game otherwise.

Does Neutralino support 32-bit Windows? Also, how do you ensure the WebView2 runtime is present on Windows?

Those were the sticking points I ran into when investigating Neutralino.

According to this : https://github.com/neutralinojs/neutralinojs/issues/869

Neutralino doesn't support 32bit however, there seems to be a fork that does.

This assumes all web games primarily, or exclusively, use canvas. Is that accurate? (Sincerely asking.)

Well you could make a web game that uses the DOM but you could be having issues with the UI not rendering the same on different platforms. Otherwise I think most games uses the canvas.

On this topic: has anyone seen a web game with anything beyond a rudimentary UI that’s in canvas?

For RPG inventory menus and management I love putting DOM on top of my canvas frame. I’m not sure I’ve seen any good examples of rich UIs in canvas, though I’m sure some exist.

Check out shapez.io. It has an full rpg/builder UI (I think in canvas), and the full code is up on github.

Oooh thanks. A full RPG UI builder has got my attention!

I’ll check it out when I’m at work as their website just says that there’s no mobile support. :/

Full builder game w ui, not ui builder :D

I think an example would be the famous 2D Action RPG CrossCode [0] which is a game that was made using the canvas alone [1]. I doubt that the UI in that game is made using the DOM.

0 : https://store.steampowered.com/app/368340/CrossCode/ 1 : https://steamcommunity.com/app/368340/discussions/0/12918172...

Many html5 games use a dom layer above the webgl layer for UI. Phaser, arguably the most popular html5 game engine, depends on this.

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