Want to start building great web games with HTML5 and JavaScript? Moving from Flash or other game platforms? Already building HTML5 games and want to get better and faster at it? This guide brings together everything you need: expert guidance, sample projects, and working code!
Evan Burchard walks you step-by-step through quickly building 10 popular types of games. Each chapter implements a game within a well-understood genre; introduces a different free, open source, and easy-to-use HTML5 game engine; and is accompanied with full JavaScript source code listings.
Each game recipe uses tested and well-proven patterns that address the development challenges unique to that genre, and shows how to use existing tools and engines to build complete substantial game projects in just hours. Need a quick JavaScript primer? Evan Burchard provides that, too!
Coverage includes
· Mastering an essential HTML5/JavaScript game development toolset: browser, text editor, terminal, JavaScript console, game engine, and more
· Accelerating development with external libraries and proven patterns
· Managing browser differences between IE, Firefox, and Chrome
· Getting up to speed on web development with a QUIZ game built with JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and JQuery
· Creating INTERACTIVE FICTION “gamebooks” that leverage new CSS3 features and impress.js
· Building PARTY games around the lightweight atom.js engine
· Developing PUZZLE games with the easel.js graphics rendering engine
· Writing PLATFORMERS with melon.js and its integrated tilemap editor
· Coding intense 2-player FIGHTING games for web browsers with game.js
· Building a SPACE SHOOTER with the jQuery-based gameQuery game engine
· Implementing pseudo-3D techniques like ray casting for an FPS (First Person Shooter) style game
· Producing a 16 bit RPG (Role Playing Game) complete with interfaces for dialog, inventories, and turn-based battles with enchant.js
· Building an isometric RTS (Real Time Strategy) game that incorporates server components along with node.js, socket.io, and crafty.js
· Engaging players with content that encourages exploration
Turn to The Web Game Developer’s Cookbook for proven, expert answers–and the code you need to implement them. It’s all you need to jumpstart any web game project!
“The Web Game Developer’s Cookbook is a fun hands-on introduction both to building games and to web technologies. Learning through making is an empowering, exciting first step.”
—Jonathan Beilin
DIY.org
“It is not only a book about libraries: it teaches how web pages work, how games work, and how to put everything together. Study one, learn three: best deal ever.”
—Francesco “KesieV” Cottone
Web Alchemist, and Technical Advisor at Vidiemme Consulting
“A wonderful overview of the HTML5 Game Development landscape, covering a wide range of tools and 10 different game genres.”
—Pascal Rettig
Author of Professional Mobile HTML5 Game Development
“With a friendly and reassuring tone, Burchard breaks down some of the most well-known gaming genres into their basic ingredients. The Web Game Developer’s Cookbook transforms a seemingly daunting task into an approachable crash course even for those who’ve never written a line of code before.”
—Jason Tocci, Ph.D.
Writer, Designer, and Researcher
