2D Game art for HTML5 Game Programmers Posted 16:16PM on March 17 2012 by Pascal Rettig Chris Hildenbrand has a great blog called 2D Game Art for Programmers targeted at programmers designing art for 2D games, focusing on using open-source tools such as Inkscape. Also check out Chris' introductory post on GamaSutra which covers a lot of the basics and is a huge boom to indie-developers without design skills. Here's a sampling of recent posts: All-in-all, great, well-illustrated tutorials that should greatly help programmers with an "Art Problem", here's a sample of how the tutorials are illustrated (click through for the tank tut):
JavaScript Physics Engines Comparison In this article we will take a look at three popular Javascript physics libraries and one that is currently in development: box2dweb, Ammo.js, JigLibJS, and Cannon.js. For each one, a quick introduction will be given and then the library will be rated based on ease of use, performance, and feature set. Though it is possible to run any of these libraries without a visual representation, that isn’t much fun, so we will set up a small environment to see the results as the simulation runs. I’ll use Three.js and its CanvasRenderer for this due to its popularity and how simple it is to use. Setup Our base scene that will be used in each example has two ramps which lead down to the ground. box2dweb box2dweb is a port of the C++ box2d project and is unique on our list of libraries in that it is designed to only simulate two-dimensional scenes. Collision detection with box2dweb is easy to do by using the b2ContactListener object. Overview: Ammo.js JigLibJS Cannon.js Conclusion
Working with CSS Media Queries and Media Types, Part 1 RELATED: "HTML5 and CSS3 Feature Detection with Modernizr" and "HTML5 Is in Style: Working with CSS3 and HTML5" The latest statistics on Internet consumption show that close to 9 percent of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices. That percentage is a significant increase over previous years and is certain to increase even more as consumers continue to purchase more and more devices. If you've been browsing websites from a mobile device, you've probably noticed that many sites aren't optimized for smaller screen sizes. CSS Media Types If you've ever printed a page and noticed that it looks different from the actual page displayed in the browser, you've more than likely witnessed a CSS media type in action. Figure 1 shows an example of using a CSS media type to change styles as a page is printed from the browser. Figure 1: Defining a CSS media type for printing This type of code can be placed directly in a <style> element in a given page or in an external style sheet. More to Come
Mobile Game Primer Until recently, performance of browser-based games for mobile devices has lagged significantly behind desktop performance. If you wanted to create a Canvas-based mobile game, performance was terrible and you needed to build your game around the limitations of the platform. Developing a usable game meant using tricks like scaling up from very low resolutions or doing partial screen updates instead of full refreshes, meaning your game design was limited by the platform’s weaknesses rather than your creativity. Luckily, this has changed. iOS5 now ships with Nitro Javascript Chrome for Android browser is now available on Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Windows Phone 7 Mango launched IE9 mobile with hardware acceleration All feature a GPU hardware-accelerated HTML5 Canvas element and both feature multi-touch support inside of the browser, a must for any but the simplest games. Developing HTML5 games that work in the mobile browser comes with its own special set of requirements. Touch Controls
hot barrel Working with CSS Media Queries and Media Types, Part 2 With more and more Internet traffic now coming from mobile devices, it's time to start thinking about how your website can be optimized to look good and function well on phones, tablets, and other devices, if you haven't thought about it already. Although there's no magic pill to transform a site to look good across multiple devices, you can start the process by integrating Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) media queries into your site. Media queries provide a way to dynamically reorganize content in a page using pure CSS. Although they aren't the only thing to consider when creating mobile-optimized sites, CSS media queries do provide a simple way to repurpose existing content without changing back-end code. In the previous article of this series, "Working with CSS Media Queries and Media Types, Part 1," I introduced the concept of CSS media queries and discussed the fundamentals of how you can use media queries to target different screen sizes. Figure 2: Widget Masters sample website
Adventures in JavaScript Development FPS TACTICS: Strategy guide to first person shooter online multiplayer gaming A Unified Approach to Client-Side Storage Papa's Perspective A Unified Approach to Client-Side Storage By John Papa08/31/2012 This simple API can give you a leg up on local storage in your Web apps. Web apps, generally, have sets of data that either don't change a whole lot, or that represent state -- the configuration, content and attributes -- which must be maintained between page calls. Why Use Storage? You can use cookies, but there are some limitations, which Christian Heilmann explains in his article, "Local Storage and How to Use It on Web Sites". Say you're building a Web app that supports multiple versions of different browsers. Unified API with Amplify.store This is the sweet spot for AmplifyJS, a library of jQuery components built by the folks at appendTo LLC. Note: If your browser doesn't support JSON2, you must include JSON2.js as well. Local storage stores a key value pair, where the key and the value are both strings. The following sample code defines an array of people objects: About the Author
Bouncy Mouse Introduction After publishing Bouncy Mouse on iOS and Android at the end of last year, I learned a few very important lessons. Key among them was that breaking into an established market is hard. Given this experience, I saw an interesting opportunity on the Chrome Web Store. In this case study, I will talk a bit about the general process of porting Bouncy Mouse to HTML5, then I will dig a bit deeper into three areas that proved interesting: Audio, Performance, and Monetization. Porting a C++ Game To HTML5 Bouncy Mouse is currently available on Android(C++), iOS (C++), Windows Phone 7 (C#), and Chrome (Javascript). So now the question is, can anything be done to make a codebase easily hand-portable? Keep the Codebase Small While this may seem obvious, it’s really the main reason I was able to port the game so quickly. Not writing any excess code may seem obvious, but it’s one thing I always fight over with myself. Don’t Take Dependencies You Don’t Need That’s pretty much it. Audio
What they DON’T tell you about being a game developer So I’m in an interesting position. Malevolence, while not my first game by a long shot, is my first RELEASED game, and I’ve been lucky enough to have it gather a lot of attention (for an indie title) early on in its creation. From what people tell me, this does not normally happen. STAGE 1 – DELUSIONS ————————— Going through university I had the same delusions as most people that I would get my qualifications, build a folio and get a job at a AAA game company. A good example of what it is to be a tester, provided by Penny Arcade. Sure, that would give me a foot in the door to have my true skills recognised later on, however, most game companies go through and trash their QA teams at the end of every project after smothering them in NDAs which make their soul now below to the company. EDIT: Since this seems to be causing some controversy, let me clarify that my thoughts listed below are not my opinion of ALL games companies. I was young.
Easy Form Validation using HTML5 Writing validation logic using JavaScript in an HTML form is not an easy thing to do. We all have seen it in HTML4 but what’s new in HTML5? Will it provide us with an easy way to validate a form by writing just a small piece of code? Today we will be talking about this validation stuff in HTML5. Reference: Easy Form Validation using HTML5[^] Introduction In HTML4, we had a single input type for entering text but in HTML5 we have different input types for entering different data types, e.g., we have email data type for email address, url data type for entering a website URL, number for numeric inputs, and text data type for strings. Not only this, HTML5 also supports placing a watermark text as a place holder text of any textbox. As usual, HTML still has an issue in terms of browser support. Here is a comparison chart of HTML5 Validation support in different web browsers: Look at the above chart and you will notice that IE support is still missing. Playing with code End note
html - Sublime Text 2 Keyboard shortcut to open file in Chrome The Weblog Opinion: Indie Game Design Do-s and Don't-s: A Manifesto [Veteran indie game creator Edmund McMillen, known for his work on 2005 IGF Grand Prize winner Gish, Time Fcuk, and Super Meat Boy for WiiWare, shares his opinions and manifesto on making indie games, with 24 clear do-s and don't-s to make your art thrive.] One of the most common questions I'm asked in interviews is, "Do you have any advice for independent game developers who are new to the scene, or tips for developers in general?" Well, I actually answered it this time: I came up with this list of indie do-s and don't-s. Now, I'm going to make clear that I'm not perfect and I'm sure as the years go by this list will change. But from where I stand right now, having made independent art/games for a living for the past 10 years, the advice below is crucial to all indie game designers, and all artists for that matter. Also note that when I refer to a "designer" or "artist," I include programmers. This is a list for the creative designer who strives to be independent. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.