Using ReactJS on itch.io

Despite clearly not being a game engine, ReactJS has a lot of potential for being used to create simple HTML based games - in fact, one of the first use cases React introduces to you in its tutorials is using the React framework to create Tic Tac Toe.

So say you want to build a game in ReactJS and upload it to itch.io. If you started your project by running npx create-react-app, then ran npm run build, zipped up the folder, then uploaded it to itch.io, you will see a result of something like this:

So how do you fix this? The solution is, thankfully, quite simple. Go into your package.json and add the following line after the version number:

Then simply rebuild the project, upload it, and the results should be as follows:

Hopefully this has helped you if this was a problem you encountered.

ReactJS is certainly far from being a common framework used for online games, but there are a fair few examples of great React games to be found on itch.io. Here are a few I liked:

• hacker-forest - great puzzle game with simulacra of hacking into a website.
• Turkey Hunt - classic arcade hunting game.
• doop - really well polished puzzle game about rotating layers.
• Happy Mice - curious little simulator of mice life and death.
• Minesweeper Clone - very clean minesweeper clone.
• Valyrian Wordle - a Wordle clone, but in High Valyrian, a language of Game of Thrones.