Cube Slam meets Google Cloud Platform

The Google Creative Lab team has built another fun Chrome Experiment called Cube Slam. Cube Slam connects players into a three dimensional, virtual gaming arena, complete with real-time audio, video, and data feeds.



Cube Slam demonstrates some of the coolest new web technologies, all in one application:

• WebRTC - WebRTC, a free, open project that provides Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple Javascript APIs is built right into Chrome and other modern browsers (no plug-in required!). Cube Slam uses WebRTC to transmit a live audio and video feed from your opponent’s webcam, so you can see and hear your opponent react as the game unfolds.


• WebGL - Using a combination of WebGL and the three.js JavaScript library, Cube Slam provides smooth, responsive, and fast rendering of 3D graphics.


• Google Cloud Platform - The game is hosted by a scalable, high performance back end written in Go and served by Google App Engine. A STUN/TURN server running on Google Compute Engine is used to exchange data across and between firewalls.

Cube Slam is an open source project, available via this public repository. You can read more about the technology behind Cube Slam.



Here’s a screenshot of one of our engineers playing Cube Slam live:

We hope this Chrome experiment inspires you to build your own applications harnessing the Google Cloud Platform and the latest web technologies built right into Chrome!



- Posted by Marc Cohen, Developer Programs Engineer