Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Now, the main source of energy inefficiencies in mobile apps is extensive, unneces-
sary hardware use. For example, if an application pulls the GPS multiple times per
second, it will probably run down the battery fairly quickly. However, in an HTML5
application, direct hardware access is not as readily available.
In the case of a web application, the main way to save energy is to do as much
caching as possible. The main point of caching here would be to avoid extra network
activity. Not only would the extra processing require more energy, but it would also
force the user to spend what is often limited bandwidth. As an added bonus, caching
would also make your application behave much faster.
Plan for offline
A very large amount of mobile gamers today have a limited amount of internet ac-
cess from their mobile device. Any extra use of that precious data plan might be a
costly deal for the user. As a result, many users actively disable internet access on
their device. As a result of that, you should never make the assumption that your
games will have continuous access to the internet.
Again, the best solution to this use case is to use caching to your benefit. First, by
making fewer server round trips, even if each batch is larger, you will be saving ex-
pensive bandwidth that the user is trying to save. Second, the application can seem
much faster and more responsive if HTTP requests are saved up for a moment when
the application is not doing anything meaningful (such as displaying a game-related
message or waiting for the user to input information).
Offering a desktop version
There are many reasons why a user might want to checkout a mobile application's
non-mobile version. Perhaps it is because of missing functionality, maybe the user
has a good enough mobile device that can actually handle the full version just fine
or maybe the user wants to access the full version from a mobile device just out of
curiosity. Whatever the reason, adding a link to the full-sized version of your applica-
tion is perhaps the easiest thing you can do, so why not do it for the minority of users
who might actually use it!
