Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
provide the learner with both a very exciting set of examples to show each concept in
action, and also a powerful physical product as the outcome of the learning process.
Our goal in this topic is not, however, to teach you how to develop video games.
What we're setting out to do is to teach you HTML5 first and foremost. If you already
know game development, and have some experience in this arena, you will not only
learn the latest and greatest features of HTML5, but also learn how they can be ap-
plied directly to designing and programming video games. If you're not a very exper-
ienced game developer, or haven't done any game development at all as a matter
of fact, do not fear! You will still learn some techniques of game development, since
we'll walk you through the concepts involved, but keep in mind that the focus of the
topic is HTML5.
The games we will be writing in the topic will be fun, complete, and easy to extend.
We will be building each game in layers, so that adding more capabilities or refact-
oring parts of it will be simple enough. At the end of each chapter you will have your
own HTML5 game, which because of the Open Web, you will be able to share with
all your friends with access to the Internet, as well as with hundreds of millions of
people world wide.
Finally, since HTML is nothing more than text markup, and JavaScript is a dynamic,
interpreted language, we will not be needing expensive or complex tools in order
to develop our games. If you have a text editor program in your computer, and a
modern web browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, or the
latest Internet Explorer, then you are good to go. You will also need one type or an-
other of a web server, which we'll go into more details about in the next chapter.
Thanks to the nature of the Open Web and HTML5, it doesn't matter one bit what
kind of computer system you have. Whatever HTML5 code you write on your partic-
ular system will run just the same on somebody else's different computer. Best yet,
there will be no installations required, which further lowers any barriers that could
keep your games from being enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people world wide.
