The Reality of HTML5 Game Development and making money from it. The Reality of HTML5 Game Development and making money from it 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. 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. What is an HTML5 game? This seemingly innocuous question actually has a myriad of answers, and can get complex pretty fast. Canvas. Financial Aspects of Game Development. Video: Building browser-based games using HTML5. [Note: To access chapter selection, click the fullscreen button or check out the video on the GDC Vault website] Now that HTML5 is ubiquitous across desktops, tablets, and smartphones, it seems reasonable to assume that it would be a great solution for launching easily accessible games that don't require installs or third party plugins.
Five key facts about free-to-play design. A free tip from Miyamoto: Make your first level last. "When we’re doing an action game, we make the second level first.
We begin making level 1 once everything else is completed. " - Nintendo's legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto, in a candid conversation with Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii in 1989. The topic of conversation was about how both creators find that the level designs in their heads (or on paper) end up being a little too difficult in practice. Miyamoto goes as far as to say that (at least at the time) his teams reduce the difficulty of his game's levels by around 20 percent once the game is complete.
Horii says that the Dragon Quest dungeons he designs on paper are "outrageously difficult" in practice, and he's usually forced to adjust the designs later. In a world where many developers find themselves forced to polish a game's opening sequence first in order to get a playable demo out, this 23-year-old advice might not seem feasible, but I think there's some golden wisdom here. 5 tips for making great 16-bit-style action games. Bring up Shinobi III, Strider, or a number of other classic action titles to veterans of the 16-bit console game era, and you're likely to see a spark in their eyes, a fond remembrance for the good old games that the industry once produced -- 2D titles that demanded precise attacks, prescient acrobatics, and the sort of time investment that few adults could spare.
"A lot of people look at those games with nostalgia, but they don't really identify the fact that those games never actually stopped being fun," says indie developer Kris Durrschmidt. "These games aren't outdated. The game mechanics aren't outdated. People just stopped [making them]. " Durrschmidt, along with programmer Taron Millet, recently formed a startup called Crazy Viking Studios to create games that look and play like those action titles they remember from the Super Nintendo and Genesis' glory days, the kind of experiences that big publishers have, for the most part, since left behind.
Why are we so obsessed with the boring parts of game development? The industry has become far too obsessed with platforms and business models, to the point where we've started to forget what video games are actually about -- having fun and feeling passion for what we create, says DICE's Karl Magnus Troedsson.
"Why are we so obsessed with the boring parts? " asked Troedsson, general manager at Battlefield developer DICE, as part of a talk at GDC Europe this morning. Why do we so often discuss which platforms will cannabilize others and which business models will prevail? "Business models and platforms come and go," noted Troedsson. "If we make great games, we will survive all the different transitions. " Cliff Bleszinski's Game Developer Flashcards. Epic Games' design director Cliff Bleszinski profiles common developer behavior in this special Gamasutra feature.
As of this summer, I'll have been making games for 20 years professionally. I've led the design on character mascot platform games, first-person shooters, single-player campaigns, multiplayer experiences, and much more. 5 tips for making great animations for 2D games. In this era dominated by 3D games, when even the latest versions of Street Fighter and Super Mario Bros. are made up of polygonized characters, quality sprite-based 2D games are rare.
Many now consider the process behind making beautifully animated productions like Metal Slug or Aladdin to be a lost art, forgotten and undervalued as developers chased the excitement and economy of 3D graphics. But there are still a handful of gorgeous sprite-based games that release every once in a blue moon, and a few have had the fingerprints of animator Paul Robertson all over them, like Ubisoft Montreal's highly-regarded Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game. Robertson's style is immediately recognizable, featuring short and stocky figures that look like River City Ransom characters brought up to modern standards, with much more detail and personality packed into each frame. Google I/O 2012 - Ten Things Game Developers Should Know. David Perry — dPerry.com.