Posts Tagged ‘html5’
-
JavaScript books and IDEs at 50% Off – Including one by an 8-bit Game Dev Legend
18th Nov 20110If you have a need (or just want) to get into JavaScript development there are some great offers to be had right now! A whole stack of books from O’Reilly at 50% off and a really great IDE.
First up is the WebStorm IDE from JetBrains. If you’re one of those developers who just can’t code with code-insight then this is about as invaluable an IDE as they come. It’ll inform you of JS coding errors in real-time, offer code optimisation suggestions and of course cross-project code-completion too. Licenses are 50% off until November 27th 2011 and include a free upgrade to version 3.0. That makes is just £27 (around $60) so well worth considering.
As wonderful an IDE as WebStorm is, I personally get on much better with Sublime Text 2. This is not an IDE, just an Editor. But it’s the best editor I’ve ever had the pleasure of using! Extremely fast, super-slick in operation, great colour schemes and fonts – and the best feature I’ve ever seen in an editor: The mini-map overview. There’s no discount on it, sorry 🙂 But as it only costs $59 I’m not sure you even need one. I find myself using it to edit even AS3 files now. Grab the free download and evaluate it for as long as you like.
As for books O’Reilly have got a “JavaScript Path to Mastery” deal on until January 19th 2012. Put in the code at checkout and get 50% off the e-books or 40% off the printed counter-parts. There are some really great books on offer including High Performance JavaScript and the essential reading JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. I personally recommend this one, it helps explain just why JavaScript does some of the weird things it does, which is essential if you’re coming to it from AS3. There are also a load of HTML5 books available, but to be honest the only one that interested me was the one on Canvas, but you may find some that you need.
Interestingly they’ve also got a book on offer called Supercharged JavaScript Graphics by Raffaele Cecco.
If you’re old enough that name might be familiar to you as he was an 8-bit game developer of some notoriety. Responsible for creating gaming classics like Exolon, Cybernoid 1 and 2, Stormlord and Deliverance, I picked up his book with keen interest. It’s a bit of a hodge-podge, diving all over the HTML5 spectrum of new tech, but the section on canvas blitting and game design is really nice. I’d like to have seen a whole book just on this from him 🙂
There you go. If you’re going down the JavaScript route the above links should save you plenty of money, which is always handy around this time of the year.
-
JavaScript Fast Tracker 2 XM Player
18th Nov 2011
Christian Corti (author of Flod XM) has been hard at work converting his AS3 classes to JavaScript. And here’s the first test from that work. Fast Tracker 2 XM replay via pure JavaScript and clever use of the new web ‹audio› API.
You’ll need Chrome to hear anything at the moment. I tried it with version 15.0.874.121 which is a standard release channel build, not even the beta channel, and it worked fine with lots of different XM files.
Click here to test it out. You need to select a local XM file to play. If you don’t have one handy there are thousands on modarchive.org (just make sure you filter by xm)
-
The reality of developing web games with Flash, HTML5 and Unity
10th Nov 2011
Update: Lots of new links added at the bottom and feedback from comments inserted into the article body.
Today was a black day for Flash developers world-wide. Adobe announced it will drop Flash support for mobile browsers. This came the day after announcing mass redundancies across the company. On the face of it that doesn’t seem like a significant problem. But it has got the whole “Flash hate wagon” on the roll again, so I felt it was time to finally commit my thoughts to this blog.
First of all: I am only concerned about game development for the web. This entire article focuses on this specific topic and this topic alone. This is not a “Flash vs. HTML5” article. It’s not an article about building native apps for mobile. It’s entirely and utterly about the reality of making web games today.
I compare Flash, HTML5 and Unity, as they are the only viable web gaming platforms today. For each of them I cover 10 topics:
- Workflow – How easy is it to actually create a game?
- Platform Stability – Will things change between the time you start and finish your game?
- Backward Support – Will your game still run 10 years down the line?
- Mobile – Will your game run at all?!
- Distribution – There’s no point making something no-one will play
- Security – Code and IP protection
- Monetization – All about making games to make money
- Facebook – The social gaming angle
- How many people will play your game?
- 3D Support – Stage3D vs. WebGL vs. Unity
These are all areas that I feel game developers ought to be aware of when evaluating new platforms. I conclude this with my advice to Flash game developers both new and seasoned.
It’s a long read but it was vital I covered as much as I could, using facts and stats rather than hyperbole, so you can make the best informed decision possible.
-
Edge magazine on the world of Flash gaming
24th Oct 2011
Edge magazine recently ran a series of articles on their website about the state of Flash gaming. They interviewed people like Tom Fulp of Newgrounds, Chris Hughes of Flash Game License, and .. err .. me! It’s a really interesting read covering both the perception of Flash in this post-Apple/Jobs HTML5 tainted world, and where things might be heading. The article is split into 5 parts:
Doing deals with Chris Hughes (about Flash game sponsorship)
Trouble ahead? (the HTML5 influence)
The Future (Stage3D, Unity, etc)
-
Akihabara – 8-bit style game library for HTML5
30th Apr 2010Given all the current Flash vs. HTML5 furore going on at the moment, I thought I’d throw this into the pit and let it smoke:
Akihabara is a set of game libraries that let you create 8-bit/16-bit style games using JavaScript, utilising a small sub-set of HTML5 that is available in most modern browsers. Yes, HTML5, not Flash. The site claims they’ll work across Chrome, Safari, FireFox and Opera. Apparently a benefit of the engine is that they’ll also work on the iPhone, although given that they use the keyboard for movements/jump this claim is a little strange. But this is of course game dependant, and you could easily code a “mouse only” game that the iPhone could cope with.
There are some demo games on the site, which are also the example games in the download. None of them are going to set the world on fire and all are easily re-created in Flash at much higher frame rates. But I have full respect for the developer who created this project, and I’d love to see where it progresses.
The only reason I won’t invest any time in digging deeper is that the example games don’t work on Internet Explorer (and nor does the author claim they will). And like it or not IE is still the major browser of choice. As a result this is confined to “nice curiosity” rather than “contender” for the time being.
http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/
Final thoughts: It’s going to be years before HTML5 is a viable platform for building games, but the day will come. Nothing can prevent it. However I firmly believe that Flash will evolve with this, and there is no reason at all why HTML5/JS can’t become a new publishing target for the Flash IDE.
Of course I firmly hope that Adobe will wake-up and give game developers what they’ve been asking for for years from Flash Player itself. The video battle is over Adobe – you started a whole new wave of technology on the web when you pioneered it. But time has moved on and the browsers have caught up. Leave video behind and start empowering us game developers before you lose us too. We are your final real foothold Flash Player has on the web today. Flash games are still the one area where there are no real contenders, but we regularly have to scale back our games because we know Flash Player can’t cope. We’re hitting the limits of your technology, pushing it as hard as it will go. This is a dangerous place to be.
All of your RIA movements are admirable, but they offer nothing that cannot be achieved via many other different options. Unity know game development, and they know game developers. But their plug-in will never gain critical mass.
Support us or lose us Adobe.
Hire Us
All about Photon Storm and our
HTML5 game development services
Recent Posts
OurGames
Filter our Content
- ActionScript3
- Art
- Cool Links
- Demoscene
- Flash Game Dev Tips
- Game Development
- Gaming
- Geek Shopping
- HTML5
- In the Media
- Phaser
- Phaser 3
- Projects
Brain Food
