Author Archive
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The Reality of HTML5 Game Development and making money from it
25th Jan 2012116
Note: This was written near the end of January 2012 and as such reflects the state of the technology and markets at the time. Everything is moving so fast a lot of the information below is subject to change, so bear that in mind.
HTML5 game development and indeed the abilities of web browsers are in state of rapid evolution right now. On the HTML5 Game Devs site that I run I’ve been noticing an increasing pace of new content, game releases, tutorials, business news and technology. High profile and high quality game releases such as the Microsoft sponsored Cut the Rope are making headlines across the world, and engaging the public more than ever before. But what is the reality of developing an HTML5 game today? Especially for those coming from a different platform. And more importantly is it possible to actually make any money doing it?
HTML5 is just a mark-up standard!
Relax 🙂 When I talk about “HTML5” I’m doing so from the popular media use of the word, rather than the technical one. On a technical level HTML5 is of course just a specification for a mark-up language. But the media has chosen to use the term as an umbrella, spanning lots of browser related technologies including WebGL, JavaScript, Web Sockets, GLSL, Web Audio, NaCl, Canvas, DOM, CSS3 and more. As a whole these things do not comprise “HTML5”, indeed they have their own standards, but I guess to preserve the sanity of the layman (and journalists?) that isn’t really what HTML5 means any more.
What is an  HTML5 game?
This seemingly innocuous question actually has a myriad of answers, and can get complex pretty fast. While I could say that on a basic level an HTML5 game is made using JavaScript paired with a browser based technology, that isn’t strictly true as it’s actually possible to make complete (albeit simple) games using purely CSS3. So let’s approach it by listing the technologies available to HTML5 game developers and what they offer:
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HTML5 Game Devs.com is Live
4th Jan 2012
As I mentioned in my New Year post I am focusing a lot on HTML5 / JavaScript game development at the moment. I’ve been investigating the scene for a while and there seemed to be a real lack of game developer specific sites. So I created one. HTML5 Game Devs.com is now live in its first public beta.
Right now it’s a news stream where I collate together all of the interesting articles I see floating around the web each day. A short summary / extract will lead on to the full piece, so you can skim the news list and see which items interest you most. I’m also including new game releases, tutorials and the business and social sides as well.
In the coming months I’ll add a developers forum, market place and some home-grown articles 🙂 If you’d like to help me run the site by contributing news items then please drop me a line. For those who prefer their news delivered via twitter, just follow html5gamedevs. And for those that prefer to digest it via email there is a subscription box on the site which uses the WordPress post notification system, so you can be sure your email address is safe and won’t be spammed / sold to anyone.
I’m currently working on a new site design at the moment, as I’m sure it’s quite obvious where the inspiration for the current one comes from 🙂 but for now I just needed to let the news flow. Happy reading!
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A quick glance back and a long look forward
1st Jan 2012Happy New Year! 2011 was certainly eventful. While I won’t dwell too long on the past I will pick out a few key moments and drop my 2012 thoughts into the mix.
2011 was the busiest year yet in terms of blog posts. As well as a new redesign we published 104 articles. Everything from coding tutorials, lots of Ilija’s stunning artwork and of course observations on the Adobe debacle. This is a pace I don’t intend to reduce in 2012 although focus is going to shift from being so heavily Flash based.
At the start of 2011 we were still riding high from the successful launch of Cat Astro Phi and it remains to this day my favourite game we’ve created so far. In terms of actual game releases 2011 was pretty light with only 1 full game Chickaboom and one mini-game Jingle Bells. The reason being that at the start of 2011 I released the first version of my Flixel Power Tools. What started out as a few helper classes turned into quite the monster by the end of the year, boasting 32 different classes, 88 examples and an interactive test suite that I’m still really proud of. It was my largest open source project yet and I’m extremely proud that developers are genuinely using it in their games.
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Play Jingle Balls – Our Christmas gift to you all :)
22nd Dec 2011
I felt like making a “Game in a Day” and this little Christmas mini-game pinged out the other end as the result. 6 hours last night, about the same again tonight and we’re done. And putting me to shame Ilija did the graphics in just 1 hour, on a lunch break at work. Damn his lightning fingers 🙂
You get 3 clicks (1 click per round). When you click it explodes a snow-flake which scales up in size a little bit and then fizzles out. If it touches anything while it exists, that item explodes, and thus a chain reaction occurs. Basically see how many items you can destroy per round with your single click.
Ok so it’s not exactly Skyrim, but see how high a score you can get anyway 🙂 and enjoy the cute music and fx from Olley Neale, who literally composed them in the space of a few minutes notice as a result of a tweet I sent around this morning. Ahh the power of twitter!
Anyway have fun and if you celebrate it, Happy Christmas!
(hit the jump to play the game, embedded below)
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Amiga Demo Gallery and JavaScript MOD/XM Replay Source
17th Dec 2011
I’m a massive fan of demos, both old-school and new. There’s just something elegant, creative and raw about them. A while ago I downloaded the complete Break’s Amiga Demo Scene Collection. And I’ve been pouring through them file by file, taking screen grabs of the bits that caught my eye! I’m not very far through but already I’ve taken over 600 screen shots. I find them quite inspirational as well as containing some amazing pixel art work here and there.
So I’ve opened an Amiga Demo Grabs Gallery on this site to collect them all in. Feel free to browse the collection, 100 images per page! There’s a lightbox script with easy slide-show if you’d like to sit back and just watch. Each image also has a permalink should you wish to share it. I’ll be updating them irregularly, dropping another 50 or so images in whenever I can. They’re ordered by “most recently added first”, so check back from time to time for the latest grabs. Incidentally the screen shot above is from Ilija’s very first Amiga demo artwork 🙂 Say no more.
FlodJS 1.0 – MOD / XM Replay in JavaScript
Remaining on an Amiga theme Christian has recently released FlodJS 1.0. This is a JavaScript port of his famous set of AS3 libraries that replay a massive variety of Amiga format music. From the original Ultimate SoundTracker, to NoiseTracker, ProTracker and more esoteric formats such as SidMon and Future Composer, he’s covered them nearly all. There is also a JavaScript port of his FastTracker 2 player meaning XM file playback in your HTML5 games is now totally possible. Full details can be found on the FlodJS page.
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