Turbulenz was a

video game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC a ...

company based in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, and was focused on

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...

game development. They created a HTML5

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...

also named Turbulenz. The company published third party video games as well as developing their own.

History

Turbulenz was founded in 2009 in

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

, by several former industry veteran from

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

and Criterion, after raising $5 million in funding. Some of the funds raised were set aside to help developers work on browser game. Gavin Shields is the

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

, and David Galeano is the chief technology officer (CTO). The company's goal is to create an end-to-end platform for creating, publishing and monetizing web games. In 2012, several game industry veterans from

Lionhead Studios Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson (British game designer), Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the ''Black & White (series), Bl ...

joined the company to create a new game. Shields stated that the ability to recruit industry veterans validated the company's direction in promoting HTML5 gaming.

Turbulenz engine

Turbulenz's primary product is an

. It supports

3D graphics 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for the ...

dynamic lighting Computer graphics lighting is the collection of techniques used to simulate light in computer graphics scenes. While lighting techniques offer flexibility in the level of detail and functionality available, they also operate at different levels of ...

shadow map Shadow mapping or shadowing projection is a process by which shadows are added to 3D computer graphics. This concept was introduced by Lance Williams in 1978, in a paper entitled "Casting curved shadows on curved surfaces." Since then, it has b ...

s, physics, 2D animations, and audio. It relies on

WebGL WebGL (Short for Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelerated ...

, Web Audio and

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

, and is intended to support the development of web browser based games. The engine is supported by a development community hub site and a consumer store site. In 2013, the engine was made

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

under the

MIT license The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...

. It was the first 3D JavaScript engine to be made open source. At the time, there were over 3000 developers working with the engine, and the company was working towards mobile and tablet support. The engine has been used for third party games such as

Denki Denki is an interactive television and console game developer based in Dundee, Scotland. The company is the developer of over 180 console and interactive television games, covering a range of platforms. Denki has worked extensively in the dig ...

's '' Save the Day'' and

Xona Games Xona Games is an independent Canadian video game developer founded in 2008 and headquartered in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. Games The company makes shoot 'em up games, targeting primarily Xbox LIVE Indie Games and Xbox LIVE Arcade which are ...

' ''

Score Rush Xona Games is an independent Canadian video game developer founded in 2008 and headquartered in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. Games The company makes shoot 'em up games, targeting primarily Xbox LIVE Indie Games and Xbox LIVE Arcade which are e ...

''. In 2015, it was announced that Turbulenz's game Boundless, which uses the

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

, would be released on

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

. In 2021, it was bought by Larian Studios and integrated

Games

Turbulenz has also developed and released games using its engine. The games are released under their first party team, Wonderstruck Games.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://biz.turbulenz.com/ 2009 establishments in the United Kingdom Companies based in Guildford Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies Free game engines