I was looking for a book on HTML5 game programming. I was being a little bit picky. What I did not want was a book that wasted my time introducing JavaScript nor did I want a book that discussed the in depths of implementing a path finding algorithm.
I was after a book that said, ok here are the set of technologies that make up HTML5 and here is how to use them to make a games. Here are some of the gotcha's and here are some ticks.
I think I found the book I was looking when I got HTML5 Games.
The book basically goes though the process of creating a simple bejewelled clone but does so in a way that the book really focusses on the technology rather then the game design. So along the way it deals with all the issues you might face while developing a HTML5 game.
The book is refreshing in the it assumes you know some stuff so can move at a reasonable pace.
Early on there is a chapter on getting you game to work on mobile devices. I suspect for anyone who wants their game to work well on small screens this chapter will be worth the price of the book. At the moment I am not focussing on mobile stuff but when I do that chapter will be studied well.
Apart from lots of useful tips here are a few of the bigger take away thoughts on the first half of the book.
- Mobile web stuff and handling different screens sizes is no easier than doing it in directly in android but, hopefully, you only have to do it once for all platforms
- Front End parts of the game and UI's should really be done using html tags and css rather than directly in the canvas object. I am guilty of this mistake and will be changing for the next game.
- Web Workers are not quite there yet as a technology to use. When they are they will be a pretty nice way of offloading things like AI.
I am looking forward to the later chapters in this well written book. So far I recommend it.
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