HTML 5 Games

#1 DaRatmastah

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Posted 10 May 2013 - 07:54 AM

Anyone have any good resources and/or experience on this front? I'm googling it up, and I know about W3Schools, but I was wondering if anyone had some knowledge on the subject, as y'ally are pretty knowledgable folks.

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#2 Guest_ElatedOwl_*

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Posted 10 May 2013 - 09:20 AM

HTML isn't a programming language - it's a markup language. It's merely for display elements on the page.

If you're looking to make a game in a browser, you'd need some basic knowledge of HTML and you'd be using javascript to write the actual game. Keep in mind when you're making a game you more or less need advanced knowledge of the language you're using. I say that not to discourage you, but just so you know that it's going to be a steep learning curve so if this is something you want to actually do expect to put a lot of time into before you really get to see any results.

#3 DaRatmastah

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Posted 10 May 2013 - 12:05 PM

Ack, sorry, should have specified...I have lots and lots of experience doing other types of web coding, HTML/PHP/CSS/some javascript. I was just curious about other people's experiences with HTML 5 as I haven't messed around with it much at all yet. If it's just a javascript game then what's the difference between all these new-fangled HTML 5 games, and the old AJAX games I used to write? I ask because there's an air of snootiness from web developers about "old fashioned" or "outdated" AJAX games VS HTML 5 games, but if javascript is driving them both I don't see how HTML 5 is so revolutionary...

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#4 Guest_ElatedOwl_*

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Posted 10 May 2013 - 02:08 PM

Honestly, the labeling is 100% wrong and ridiculous and now I need to go off on a rant. (to be clear, this is not directed at you I'm aware that people refer to there games as this and it has never made a lick of sense)

To call it an ajax game... what does that even mean? The game makes an asynchronous request to another page, thusly labelled an ajax game? Doesn't make sense. ajax used to stand for asynchronous javascript and xml and is purely the mechanic of retrieving data from another request without interrupting the current page. ajax doesn't do any data processing, so to label an ajax game... I just don't understand, lol.

To call it an HTML5 game... what the shit does that mean? This at least makes a little more coherent sense because the HTML5 standard introduced svg and the canvas element which is extremely useful for graphs/games, but still, why would it be called an HTML5 game? If I set the doctype on the page to HTML5, does that make it an HTML5 game? Where is the line drawn? I mean, HTML can't keep track of data, can't process information, can't manipulate itself, it's merely a way of communicating how the page should look to the browser; HTML5 game is basically an oxymoron.

Honestly, when "developers" have that snootiness it's usually because they don't know what they're doing/talking about and somehow think that what little they do know makes them better than others. I feel you on that snootiness, I really hate when people get that attitude.

#5 DaRatmastah

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Posted 10 May 2013 - 02:37 PM

hahaha, yeah, I understand what you're saying completely. I've been investigating the whole HTML5 thing today and it looks like the main thing distinguishing it from the older browser games is the ability to make direct draw calls/audio buffers/vector draws etc. directly in the HTML, with a bunch of native plugins for it. I can see where this would be quite nifty. The lack of full market support at the moment(if you don't have chrome or safari you're kind of screwed out of a lot of stuff) makes it pretty niche, though. I think it might make more sense to go with an older-style AJAX(yeah, yeah...) framework with the idea of building in HTML5 plugin support later on. As far as real-time games on the PC go, Flash is still way the hell more accepted, and on mobile you might as well go with a real programming language anyway.

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#6 Guest_ElatedOwl_*

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Posted 10 May 2013 - 03:48 PM

There's aren't HTML5 features, though - that's ecmascript 5 functionality.

There's fallbacks for just about everything for ecmascript 3 compabitility you can use. Unless you can't find a specific polyfill for something, top down is the way to go.

#7 DaRatmastah

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Posted 10 May 2013 - 09:40 PM

Gotcha. Thanks for the advice =D I don't really have much time to throw into a new project at the moment but I've been thinking about avenues to take in the near future, so this has been a big help.

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