Command & Conquer coded in HTML5

Remember the classic RTS known as Command & Conquer? Well, an enterprising coder, Aditya Ravi Shankar, actually recreated the strategy game using nothing but HTML5, where it runs on 69k of Javascript. Why did he set out on such an adventure? For starters, Shankar’s attempt was a self-mandated undertaking in order to improve his coding skills, where he gave himself a one month window to rebuild the game in the browser, and had to comb through the original game’s files in order to obtain all the right sprites, sounds and specs. According to Shankar, “In hindsight, I might have wanted to take smaller steps and make a tower defense game instead of jumping directly into an RTS. Trying to do the whole thing in under a month all by myself wasn’t the smartest idea.”

As part of Shankar’s recreation of Command & Conquer, it included buildings, terrain, combat, tiberium harvesting and regrowth, in addition to the ability to sell and repair buildings. You want fog of war? It has that, too, in addition to a pannable map, different cursors, tooltips, and drag selection for multiple units. Currently, the full game is far from finished, as it is limited to a handful of buildings and units, an extremely tiny map, and the occasional glitch.

Shankar’s effort is far from finished, but finish it he will. You can play it here, although Chrome or Firefox works best with it, and for those who want to lend Shankar a helping hand, the source code is available here.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers, Gaming
Tags: html5, javascript