neobox is an experimental, fully open-source alternative to hitbox.io.
Hitbox.io has many issues.
These include bugs, memory leaks, and exploits (see Hitbox.io Wiki - Glitches for an example).
This results in an unpleasant experience, especially for competitive players in longer sessions.
I believe in open source, and a project such as this is an immensely useful learning exercise.
It's also a way to fix a game I enjoy.
For there to be a useful alternative, it needs to be better than the original.
This is why I have set up some goals that I believe will make the project an improvement over the original.
- Even small maps on hitbox.io (with a low number of physics objects) can get very laggy on older systems with more than a couple of players.
Improving performance would make playing more accessible to more players.
- Hitbox.io only allows up to 10 players per lobby. This is fine for simpler maps, but for FFA maps, this is inadequate.
- Chaz, the developer of hitbox.io, has not updated their game in more than a year. The fact that their game is closed-source means that no one else can contribute to the game.
This means that a serious bug or vulnerability won't get fixed nearly as fast as one found on an open-source project will.
More will be added later