Kaetram

Kaetram is an open-source 2D MMORPG that expands on the original idea created by Little Workshop's BrowserQuest (BQ). We aim to provide a collaborative gaming experience as well as a game-engine for those interested in creating their own version. The game is still in early development stages and all help, suggestions, and bug reports are welcome. All of the assets are licensed under CC-BY-SA3.0 and we aim to hold onto the original BQ assets as well as expand upon them. The entire code-base has been re-written from scratch, optimized, and documented. Please see the GitHub wiki for information regarding development. Kaetram first started development in 2015 under the name of Tap Tap Adventure (TTA). In 2017, Kaetram was started as a complete re-write of the code which was formerly BQ-based.

Live Version – https://kaetram.com

Join us on Discord – https://discord.gg/MmbGAaw

Technologies

BQ was initially written as an HTML5 experiment showcasing the capabilities of web technologies back in 2012. Kaetram builds on top of the idea and uses modern standards to help facilitate readability, performance, and compatibility. Some of the many features are as follows:

• Multiplayer using Socket.IO.
• Enhanced rendering engine (includes dynamic lighting, overlays, animated tiles).
• Region/chunking system (client caches and saves data from the server as needed).
  • Dynamic tiles (tiles that change depending on player's progress in achievements/quests/etc).
  • Global objects (tiles such as trees (and more in the future) that the player can interact with).
• Quest and achievement system.
• Minigame system for special in-game events.
• Plugin-based mob behaviour (used for special mobs such as bosses).
• Plugin-based item interaction
• RESTful API for cross-server communication
• Discord server integration (in-game and discord server can communicate with eachother).
• Cross-server private messaging and interactions.
• Enhanced map parsing w/ support for compressed tilemaps.
• Yarn v3 with workspaces for monorepo packaging.
• Player synchronization amongst servers (friend lists, login status)

Get Started

Prerequisites

You must first install Node.js to run the project, and optionally install MongoDB to store user data on the server.

NOTE: Node.js

You need to use a Node.js version greater than or equal to 14.19.0, following the Long Term Support (LTS) schedule, to have the most stable experience when developing/experimenting with Kaetram. Older versions would not work with our current dependencies and package manager.

NOTE: MongoDB

MongoDB is not a requirement for Kaetram to run, but you can store and save user data if you install it and run an online environment with all the features enabled. To do this, see Configuration, and set SKIP_DATABASE=false. If you do choose to install MongoDB, a user is not necessary, but you can enable authentication with the MONGODB_AUTH setting.

Yarn

You will also need to enable Yarn to manage your dependencies.

The preferred way to manage Yarn is through Corepack

https://yarnpkg.com/getting-started/install

Starting from Node.js 14.19.0, Corepack is included by default with, but is currently opt-in.

To enable it, run

corepack enable

Installing

Install the dependencies by simply running

yarn

Running

To run live development builds, use

yarn dev

To create production builds, run

yarn build

Then, to run each production build, use

yarn start

Add --host at the end to make the game visible on your network.

Configuration

Optionally, if you want some additional configuration, There is a file named .env.defaults, and it's values will be used unless overridden by a new .env file, or by setting environmental variables.

Copy and rename .env.defaults to .env, and modify the contents to fit your needs.

Keep in mind, you have to rebuild the client and restart the server every time you change your configuration.

Testing

End to End

As a prerequisite to run the E2E tests, you need a MongoDB server running as well.

Configuration for test-only environments can be configured on .env.e2e. All it's values will fallback to .env, then to .env.defaults, if present.

To run test on your console, use

yarn test:run

Alternatively, if you want to have the test environment open interactively, so you can select the test you want to run in a UI, use

yarn test:open

Features

Regions

The region system works by segmenting the map into smaller chunks that are then sent to the client. The client caches the map data and stores it for quicker loading in the local storage. When a new map version is present, the client purges the cache and starts the process again. The region system is split into static tiles and dynamic tiles. Static tiles do not undergo a change and are part of the map permanently. Dynamic tiles change depending on conditions such as a player's achievement/quest progress, or, in the case of trees, depending on whether the tree has been cut or not. In the future we plan to use this region system to create instanced versions of areas, for example running multiple minigame instances at the same time.

Video example showcasing region system using an exaggerated example:

Tilemap

Kaetram uses Tiled Map Editor to create and modify the map. Our map parsing tool is used to export a condesed version of the map data. The server receives the bulk of the information and uses it to calculate collisions, tile data information, and areas (pvp, music, etc). The client stores minimal data such as tile 'z-index' and animations.

Map Parsing

Once finished modifying your map in packages/tools/map/data/, you can parse the map data by executing yarn exportmap inside the packages/tools/ directory.

Example command:

yarn exportmap ./data/map.json

To build the current game map, you can run

yarn map

Kaetram Hub

The hub functions as a gateway between servers. Due to performance limitations of NodeJS it is more feasible to host multiple servers instead of one big one containing thousands of players. The hub does exactly that, once the hub is running and a server instance is given the host address for the hub, it will automatically connect. The hub becomes the primary connection point for the client. When a request for connection is received, the hub will pick the first server that has room for the player. Alternatively, it allows players to select any server amongst the list of servers.

To enable the hub server, see Configuration, and set these values to true.

API_ENABLED=true
HUB_ENABLED=true

Roadmap

Here we have The Roadmap Project Board. This is the main board of the Kaetram-Open project. A kind of Kanban tasks board for tracking and presenting the progress to the community. Here we plan, prioritize and track our work.

See also the open issues for a list of proposed features (and known issues).

TODO

• Add player trading
• Add special attacks to weapons
• Add functionality to the special abilities
• Add player-owned guilds and/or parties
• Weapons/armours/rings/pendants enchantments
• Diversify game content (add more skills, minigames, activities, items, etc)
• Improve usability of the user interface on mobile devices
• Move pathfinding to the server-side once alpha is over

Donations

Sponsor

Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/kaetram

Open Collective – https://opencollective.com/kaetram

Crypto

BTC – bc1qeh0tdlkuc5q82j2qk9h3sqmwe6uy75qpjtc0dv

LTC – MMRo7dfAi2T8rJrx7m3DmzhsgHRC7XJ83f

ETH – 0x4c6de7175f789DAf0f531477753B07402EEfedaC

BCH – bitcoincash:qzx6uqunqj4mtv74jng97pea0mfcl4nmyqsew92enu

License & Commission

For all inquiries about purchasing a different license or commission work, please contact @Keros on Discord.

This project is distributed under the Mozilla Public License Version 2.0. See LICENSE for more information.