Building Games With Web Scripts

When you're considered the world's leading expert on DirectX technology, gamers expect results. This is the type of burden on the shoulders of Alex St. John. Gamers may remember St. John as Microsoft's ex-evangelist for the DirectX API (along with being one of its creators) and now-defunct ChromeEffects multimedia project. Since his departure, St. John has kept a seemingly low profile as he plotted his big comeback into the world of Internet multimedia. Today, GameSpot News got a taste of what St. John and his Internet start-up, Wild Tangent, had in store for gamers.

The company was formed in January of this year, when St. John had the idea to build a scalable multimedia technology that would be easy to program but would deliver the high-performance hard-core gamers expect.

The Web Driver, which St. John defines as software that attaches the Web to new gaming and hardware technology, is a 3D graphics and multimedia engine that renders 3D objects in an environment along with textures and other graphical information. Web Driver uses standard DirectX technology to render scenes with all the same pieces of hardware you'd use with any CD-ROM game but stores all the game data in your browser's cache.

But the real revolutionary part of the game is that you don't need to learn how to code much beyond some of the basics of web site construction. You can use the Web Driver SDK in conjunction with languages like Javascript, Java, Visual Basic, Visual Basic script, or C and C++ if you already program for games.

And you can now look at the technology and see for yourself. Simply download the Web Driver software, install, and then take a look at the demos. We suggest looking at the Monster Truck Mayhem demo, as it shows off the high point of the technology. While the game is a clone of Microsoft's Monster Truck Madness, you'll be amazed at how nice the demo looks. St. John says that the game was created by a web page writer in notepad in just over a week, and showed us a newer version of the game that looks even better.

For future games, the technology has a great deal of potential, as it could be used to power anything from first-person shooters to massively multiplayer online RPGs. Since all the data are stored in your browser's cache, as newer versions of a particular game are uploaded to a server they'll automatically download to your machine when you log on. Already, Wild Tangent is talking to publishers about using the technology to help build demos and promote titles, but the company wouldn't talk about which specific companies it was in discussions with.

For now, the company is focused on getting its technology out to gamers and developers for free as it works on the next-generation of Web Driver technology. The company plans for its technology to compete as a real-time game engine and not just as a web-based one. With demos bursting into the 100MB or more range, the option to play a smaller Web Driver demo could be just what gamers need.