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I just watched parts of your "How Not to Build a Video Game" talk and I am blown away. I have not seen anyone build a game at this level with css. Do you know of any other games that take this approach? If you were doing this again would you choose a 2d game rendering engine that uses canvas like phaser or pixi.js? I'm curious as well about speed and loading times, if there really is a noticeable benefit over using canvas?

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There is a section on WebGameDev, an awesome resource for building games with web technologies: https://www.webgamedev.com/games-demos#dom-based-games

There are only a few crazy folks like us right now

I became a lot more pragmatic, so next time I'd probably start with a game engine that uses WebGPU/WebGL. You get so much value from the DOM and CSS, but it's also really not meant for building such interactive experiences like I want to. It works kinda ok for a turn based strategy game, but likely breaks down for some more involved games.

I'm currently developing a web game and initially I wanted to go the pseudo-3d route with perspective facades and a "stage" feel and lean into the css/svg filters to make it pop. The effect was kinda cool but having to do all the effects bespoke rather than have batteries included from the three ecosystem/playcanvas felt like I mistake and I could already see performance limits, so I also pivoted to webGL and aside from the learning curve I couldn't be happier.

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