JavaScript/HTML 5 Gaming?

cjcela writes "Lately I've seen some HTML 5/JavaScript games popping up on the web. Most of them lack sound, and are not polished, but little by little this is changing. As an example, check Galactic Plunder. While it is only a single-level proof of concept, it is one of the first arcade non-Flash games that I've found playable. Do you know of other comparable or better pure JavaScript games?"

Comments

Re:No

[Elbereth]

I think that basically sums it up.

Unless you count Kingdom of Loathing and such.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

me neither, but that looks cool

All demos

[QuantumG]

Everything I've seen so far has been "hey look what I can do". It's not the domain of cottage industry game developers, yet.

Just today I was looking at WebGL which will allow hardware accelerated 3d in the browser.

I just hope someone, eventually, figures out that the "full screen" button we have in web video can also be used in web games.

Re:All demos

[AHuxley]

Exactly it seems to be a sub set of html thats faster, cleaner, better but its not flash.
In the rush to open source, less crashing and speed a lot has been dropped.
We are left with MS or Apple like apologists telling us how good the new parts that work are and that nothing better ever existed.
Flash is not good, but it does offer functionality that seems to have been totally lost in todays development efforts.
html is evolving but seems far in the past.

Re:All demos

[QuantumG]

I'm sure the complete lack of a decent development environment has something to do with it too.

Re:All demos

[SquarePixel]

I just hope someone, eventually, figures out that the "full screen" button we have in web video can also be used in web games.

That is actually one of the most significant problems with HTML5. It provides no way for the video to maximize to full screen and is actually even against such functionality with JavaScript (page could maximize the window automatically and so on).

Currently the only way is to install a Firefox Addon that adds a context menu item to maximize the video object. But that is only for the video object, works only with Firefox and is in no way user-friendly.

Everyone here always says sites should start changing to HTML5 video, but when it lacks basic functionality like that I just don't see it happening.

Re:All demos

[somersault]

I just hope someone, eventually, figures out that the "full screen" button we have in web video can also be used in web games.

For flash at least: just find the direct link to the swf and download/paste it in the address bar, that's what I've always done.

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

In the rush to open source, less crashing and speed a lot has been dropped.

There's nothing about Flash that makes it special, it just had a 10 year headstart. Give it a year with FF4 and IE9 hardware accelerated canvas and then see.

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck should your game (or ad, hmmm?) be able to take over my full screen? It can already take over the entire page area in the browser, and if I want it maximized or full screen, I'll tell the browser and/or window manager about it, thank you.

Re:All demos

[SquarePixel]

Maybe you can do so, but it's way too complicated for the casual user to start messing with it like that. They have got used to just clicking the "full screen" button in their YouTube player. If you're watching videos full screen, it also makes no sense to have huge browser bars and taskbar around the video just taking up space and distracting you.

Re:All demos

[tepples]

It provides no way for the video to maximize to full screen

Have you tried pressing F11 in your web browser? Just because it's different from YouTube's control doesn't necessarily make it worse. It works especially with games that resize their canvas upon a browser window resize, and the game's scripting could sniff the browser and tell the user which key is a particular browser's key for full-screen mode.

Re:All demos

[SquarePixel]

That works of course, but how user friendly it is to always tell the user to press F11? How user friendly it is to first make the user click the "full screen" button on YouTube and after that still make them press F11? In top of that there are countless amount of people who probably don't even understand what they should do then, and start moaning that it's "broken".

That beside the fact that one of the purposes of HTML5 is to get every browser support it the same way (including IE), so that developers can write code that works the same in all browsers and devices. Sniffing user agent and acting differently based on it just takes us back to the problem.

Re:All demos

[popo]

You're missing the point: You *can't* tell the browser about it.

Re:All demos

[tepples]

Does a console game tell the user how to set the TV between 4:3 and 16:9 modes or how to pull the TV out of picture-in-picture?

Re:All demos

[TheRaven64]

Pressing F11 is more user friendly, because it's the same for every single web page in that browser. Take a look around the web and see how many different icons you see for making Flash things go full screen. Just about every single Flash thing I've seen uses a different icon and puts it in a different place, while the full-screen menu item in my browser is in the same place all of the time.

The problem is that there is no way of combining the 'let this game take control of the window' and 'make the window fill the screen' operations. A browser could do this quite easily by, for example, adding a Squeek-style halo around all canvas and video elements on mouse over, allowing you to make each one fill the screen by clicking on a floating element. There is nothing in the HTML 5 spec that precludes this, it's a browser issue.

Re:All demos

[SquarePixel]

Does a console game tell the user how to set the TV between 4:3 and 16:9 modes

While you can do it manually, at least mine does it automatically.

The thing is, users have already got used to the button that easily takes them to full screen. If you now add an intermediate step in to it, users will just think it's broken or shit. Hell, even I wouldn't want to always take the extra steps when watching some video.

If you want to do it the hard way (majority doesn't), then HTML5 should offer the functionality and browsers should offer an option to turn it off. Just like for the HTML5 local storage and so on. It's not that complicated, and you make it a lot more user friendly. Internet has not been just for the geeks for over 10-15 years now.

Re:All demos

[tepples]

HTML5 should offer the functionality and browsers should offer an option to turn it off.

If it's opt-out, there will likely be a well-publicized incident where a canvas, audio or video takes over the full screen of an inexperienced PC user (who forgot to turn it off or didn't even know it was possible) and impersonates the operating system's user interface.

Re:All demos

[Threni]

"Press escape to quit full screen mode" is pretty populare on YouTube. I'm sure users can respond to "Press f11 to overcome the shitty limitations of web standards" could also catch on.

Re:All demos

[Mad Merlin]

I'm sure the complete lack of a decent development environment has something to do with it too.

What on earth are you talking about? Vim works with every language.

Re:All demos

[Pollardito]

I can hit F11 or click the Full Screen option under the View menu. As long as the video is taking up the full page, that should take care of it right?

Re:All demos

[mcvos]

I don't see why browsers can't add a similar fullscreen button to their video. There's nothing magical about Flash that allows it to do stuff other programs can't.

Re:All demos

[Sloppy]

That is actually one of the most significant problems with HTML5. It provides no way for the video to maximize to full screen

Try this in Firefox: Command-shift-F (on Mac OS) or F11 (on Linux). There's your full screen. The video doesn't need any way to do that, because it's right at the user's fingertips ***IF*** they want it, and likewise, the user isn't compelled to live with the programmer's arrogance if the user doesn't want fullscreen. This is a good thing.

Adding a way for javascript programmers to interfere with the user's window environment in such a way, would weaken HTML5. It might make it ever-so-slightly more convenient for your local intranet app server, but for The Internet, it would be a step toward degrading HTML5 into the realm of Flash and ActiveX. Even if they fuck up and add this "feature" to HTML5, then you're just going to have all the browser authors need to add preference options to enable/disable it, and since no one will have reason to suspect that issuing that API call will actually result in full screenage, no one will use it anyway. This idea is just as useless as the past mistake of adding the calls which allow pop-under windows.

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

HTML5 should offer [full screen] and browsers should offer an option to turn it off.

If it's opt-out, there will likely be a well-publicized incident where a canvas, audio or video takes over the full screen of an inexperienced PC user (who forgot to turn it off or didn't even know it was possible) and impersonates the operating system's user interface.

Has this happened with Flash?

Re:All demos

[Sloppy]

That works of course, but how user friendly it is to always tell the user to press F11?

It's not; you never tell the user what to press, because you never have a way of knowing what they need (or want) to do. Telling a browser to switch to full screen (or worse, telling them how), is like telling a user to bookmark, telling them how to follow a hyperlink, telling them to change their font sizes, or telling them how wide to make their browser window. Every web guy in history who has ever tried to do those things, got it wrong. And now you want another thing to get wrong? If switching to full screen is something that users want to use often enough, then the browser is going to have some obvious way for letting them do that. Or else that browser is "hard to use" and people stop using it.

Sniffing user agent and acting differently based on it just takes us back to the problem.

That's why you don't do it. You don't have to worry about how they go to fullscreen if they want to. You worry about making the video available, the browser worries about how to show it, and the user worries about what they want to watch and how they might want to alter the browser's default behavior. For all you know, the browser always starts out showing things in fullscreen anyway, and getting out of fullscreen is the exceptional use case. For all you know, the user might have already decided that they watch their videos or play their games on the bigscreen TV while reading web page text on their higher-resolution but smaller 'n' closer monitor.

Do you really think you can guess all the possibilities and which ones which users want? Nobody has made the perfect media player yet, and now you want each webmonkey to be forced to take a shot at it, instead of leaving it to the people who actually want to work on it? If you think you have The One True Answer for how to play video which just happens to work best for everybody at once, then you don't be a webmonkey, you be a browser author.

HTML frees you from having to worry about all this unguessable bullshit, by shifting the decision away from the web developer toward the user. It's not your problem anymore, just like deciding how many characters to put on a line before wrapping, isn't your problem anymore. That's good! That's one less thing to worry about, since no matter how brilliant you are and how carefully you think about it, you'll still get it wrong most the time anyway.

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this works, except that 99.99999% of Flash games were made terribly fucking slow, so that you can't even view the MENU at a resolution above 800x600 without it dragging the whole fucking system down.

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not add an overlay button (like in Flash) that presses F11 when the user clicks it? You can even put fancy title text that'll pop up with "click here to fullscreen this <app>" and leave it there (just like Flash). That will work for every major browser.

Re:All demos

[spinkham]

Flash has security controls that limit the impact. HTML5 would need to do this also.

See the security section here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/full_screen_mode.html

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash would be too slow and buggy to be convincing.

Re:All demos

[Surt]

You think its the flash _games_ fault when it happens to 99.99%? I'll give you a clue its the adobe engineers that are incompetent.

Re:All demos

[gnalle]

I think that the html5 designers wanted to avoid malicious websites that look like a login screens and steal passwords. Therefore they have introduced keyboard limitations so you cannot use your keyboard in full screen mode, and they have made it difficult for websites to go full screen without user interaction.

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

So what about devices without keyboards? I can't press F11 on a touchscreen that doesn't have an F11 key on it's (virtual) keyboard. Additionally, (for me) once you started that game, none of my F-keys (F5, F11) worked. I tried clicking on the text on the side to deselect the active object (the game) but nothing happened.

Colour me unimpressed. Compare to: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/433921 :

Desktop: (dual 2.4GHz)
HTML5: It hit my computer up for 40% CPU usage with (as far as I could tell): 1 background texture, ~10 sprites / interactive objects on screen at once + ~10 lines for the bullets / lasers. Box-style collision detection. No wonder why it looked so simplistic. No mute button, no pause button, dunno if that'd be easy to add (probably, I'd hope). if they added anything else it, it'd probably destroy some older computer's CPU.

FLASH: Still hit up the CPU 40% average (WITH other animated ads and components in the background - no flashblock), gets me one layer of changing textured background plus an additional starfield for improved "motion" perception, sprite-based bullets (not just rotated colour lines), and about 30-40 sprites (including bullets), slightly faster loading, and MUCH better collision detection (not a simple box detection -- you can maneuver the ship so that the wing and nose are right next to an enemy and it won't detect a collision)

Mobile Version (Nexus One, 1GHz):
Flash: Worked exactly as on desktop, although choppy. Expected, considering that 40% of 2*2.4GHz is about a 2GHz processor. Also playable since it was mouse-based controls and autofired, but that's just an interface decision.
HTML5: Couldn't do a fair comparison. I couldn't move since I don't have arrow keys, and bringing up the virtual keyboard and spamming Z didn't do anything. Music didn't play at all. Once the ship collided with the first object, the background and other sprites flicker out leaving me with just the ship and the background stars.

I think you'll need a better demo for HTML5 then a game that feels like it's made back in the early 90s and not breaking other keyboard shortcuts despite not interacting the the game before convincing people HTML5 is ready to replace Flash. It's a good start, but it's clearly not ready.

Re:All demos

[tepples]

I can't press F11 on a touchscreen

Browsers on multitouch tablets tend to run maximized in the first place, and a canvas can expand to cover the whole window.

(not a simple box detection -- you can maneuver the ship so that the wing and nose are right next to an enemy and it won't detect a collision)

Orthogonal. You can still use box detection to ignore wing and nose strikes. Pretty much every bullet-hell shooter tests bullets against only the cockpit.

Music didn't play at all.

Some web browsers support only patented codecs; others support only unpatented codecs. But as of the next IE, Apple will be the lone holdout in not providing a way to play Ogg/Vorbis audio and WebM video.

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

/---/ A browser could do this quite easily by, for example, adding a Squeek-style halo around all canvas and video elements on mouse over, allowing you to make each one fill the screen by clicking on a floating element. /---/

[ctrl] + [+] a couple of times achieve the same thing in most browsers. In some browsers (e.g. Firefox, IE and Chrome), you can get slightly desoriented and have to scroll around to find the right element, but other browsers (e.g. Opera), usually zoom into the right elements. I do this all the time. Of course, this only works if the web-page is coded right (i.e. important elements don't hide each other when you zoom into the page).

Re:All demos

[vlueboy]

Have you tried pressing F11 in your web browser? Just because it's different from YouTube's control doesn't necessarily make it worse.

I am a heavy user of F11 for text pages. Minor gripe: Safari 4.0.5 for Windows doesn't seem have fullscreen options, just like free Quicktime vids.

Anyway, Flash is different from plain text. Most Windows XP / Vista web browsers and gnome distros on my PC and laptop let Flash supercede their text and F11 input routines: once I've interacted with the object, and sometimes without anything else, F11 is ignored. Opera seems to do it right.

Re:All demos

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, actually, it generally is. Flash is slow, but not that slow. Most Flash games are using vector images instead of raster (bitmaps) for the UI, which equals slow as shit when scaled (resized, not stretched). You can find Flash games on par with Quake 1 at 1024x768, when the programmer knows what the fuck he's doing. Which... is almost never.

Re:All demos

[rgviza]

If right-click -> full screen is too complicated for a casual user, it's a fair bet they aren't watching movies on the internet in the first place.

Re:All demos

[WingCmdr]

So does emacs, but then the op asked for a decent development environment, not an operating system.

Re:All demos

[Simetrical]

That is actually one of the most significant problems with HTML5. It provides no way for the video to maximize to full screen and is actually even against such functionality with JavaScript (page could maximize the window automatically and so on).

This will be done. See this whatwg thread, or this one. WebKit has a non-standard experimental implementation, and it's likely we'll see progress on standardization and deployment in the next year or so. For now, you can usually view videos full-screen by right-clicking and choosing the fullscreen option, or by opening in a new tab and hitting F11. This is one of six concerns that John Harding of YouTube told the WHATWG was important for YouTube to use HTML5 video more, and all the implementers are aware it needs to be fixed at some point.

Re:All demos

[Surt]

If the default path that everyone winds up on sucks, that's adobe's fault. Bad APIs, bad documentation, whatever, it's Adobe's inability to make the common case work that is the problem. Besides, why should vector be slow? The computations are dead easy, and can be vastly accelerated on every platform flash is on by a competent engineer.

Re:All demos

[Timmmm]

Unlikely. You can already do full-screen flash and (somewhat amazingly) it hasn't been abused as far as I know.

Chrome has added a javascript full-screen video API, and Firefox has a non-javascript full-screen context menu item for HTML5 videos.

Re:All demos

[jonaskoelker]

and impersonates the operating system's user interface.

Downloading emacs.js

1% done

processing...

processing...

1% done

processing...

processing...

1% done

processing...

processing...

HEAP SPACE EXHAUSTED

(from a loving user)

Re:All demos

[Minwee]

That is actually one of the most significant problems with HTML5. It provides no way for the video to maximize to full screen and is actually even against such functionality with JavaScript

I don't see this as a problem. The last thing I need is for random pages to be able hijack the entire screen without my consent. If I want something to be full screen, I will make it that way myself, and then turn it back off again when I want to.

If you don't see why this is in your best interest, please start up Internet Explorer 6 and start browsing porn sites until you achieve enlightenment.

Re:All demos

[Ellie K]

I thought emacs was an editor? It went well with vi, no?

Re:All demos

[corysama]

Full screen WebGL is being held up by security concerns. The browser vendors are eager to get it in as soon as they settle on how to make it difficult to exploit.

Re:All demos

[badkarmadayaccount]

Yeah but the emacs operating system comes with a pretty good editor - viper-mode :P

Hits?

[curmi]

Someone trying to get hits on their games website? :-)

Anyway, that particular game didn't seem to work well on my machine (Mac OS X) with Safari. The Z button wouldn't shoot, and collision detection didn't seem to work most of the time. So not really a good example of what can be done I would say.

Re:Hits?

[Dr. Zim]

I'm with curmi on this one. Couldn't get the thing to work.

Re:Hits?

[Yvan256]

Safari 4 or Safari 5?

Same bugs as you with Safari 4.0.5. I even had the "ground" disappear.

Re:Hits?

[spongman]

very nice. plays just like the original. now do Exile ;-)

Re:Hits?

[ockegheim]

Ditto. It was fine on Firefox. In my head I have Safari as one of the more compliant browsers, but maybe I’m wrong.

Depends what you mean by "comparable"

[spion666]

I don't know if this one qualifies as "comparable". Its Connect4, has an AI and also has online play via Facebook.

It uses SVG/VML (actually Raphael) for graphics and doesn't even require HTML5 :)

Effect Games

[xnt14]

There's also another awesome game written in html5: http://www.effectgames.com/effect/games/crystalgalaxy/
It runs at decent speed in firefox, and its very fast in chromium.

Re:Effect Games

[physburn]

None of there games are HTML5, says so in the comments.

Re:Effect Games

[drinkypoo]

Not only it is not HTML5, but it loads twice. And you have to wait longer for the loading after you click start than the loading before you can click start. What assholes. If I knew how long it would take I would never have listened to this shitty music so long.

Also play control is poo

Re:Effect Games

[Minwee]

None of there games are HTML5

I think the phrase you were looking for was "None of them there games are HTML5, yay boy."

Re:Effect Games

[xnt14]

ah, I remember seeing that game as an HTML5 game... must have been a clone.

Re:No

[TheViciousOverWind]

No

Understandible. It can be hard to seperate HTML5 content from flash content these days. However, there is games popping up at a pretty constant rate. For example, look at these links:

• HTML 5 games library
• 10 HTML5 Games
• Canvas game library

Another thought: The HTML5 canvas element and Java's AWT "Graphics" element are very alike. I wonder how long it takes for someone to program a converter, so all java applet/mobile games are available as HTML5 games?

Pure Javascript

[flakron]

If I'm not wrong Lord Of Ultima

Re:Pure Javascript

[Jarik C-Bol]

maybe, but that game is so hackable, its a joke.

Re:Pure Javascript

[ewrong]

It's interesting to see EA stepping into this market. Surely a sign of things to come.

there are a few

[LinuxRulz]

yesterday I stumbled on http://www.boingboing.net/arcade/ which presents a few games which are mostly html5. Since a lot of people are choosing html5 over flash I believe we'll see more and more of them coming in the future.

Re:there are a few

[Anonymous Coward]

wow - had a quick look and to be honest the games are laughably bad!!!!

html is for text and embedding pics - its pathetic when you think of the work and time that goes into trying to get it to do stuff that so obviously should be done with flash.

the results are so sub-standard that they only serve to demonstrate the extent to which flash is unassailable, and will be for years to come.

while html5 catches up do you expect flash to stand still...?

Re:there are a few

[Beardydog]

Flash has been standing still for years. They're supposedly going to blow us away with the addition of 3D this year or next. They should have done it ten years ago. I don't even know why the version number keeps going up, apart from their continuing quest to make the IDE stupider and stupider, and the player's ever-expanding ability to crash on demand.

based on that

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on that game, I think it'll be quite a while before I show friends and co-workers what can be done without Flash. It's a step in the right direction, but there's a really long way to go.

Google Pacman

[SaxMan101]

Wasn't Google's pacman thing pure javascript/html5? Its still up at http://google.com/pacman

Re:Google Pacman

[h7]

It was Javascript, no HTML5.

Re:Google Pacman

[tepples]

JavaScript is the scripting language used by HTML5. Google Pac-Man is mostly written in JavaScript; it uses an SWF helper to play audio because half of Google users are still on IE versions that don't support HTML5's <audio> element.

Re:Google Pacman

[h7]

Like I said, no HTML5 browser specific features were used.

Very crude game, check out this instead:

[carlhaagen]

I found this shoot'em up to be very crude. It was jerky and not particularly well-made; anything but a good showcase (but with that said, no slandering of the author's effort).

If you want to see some real nice examples of JavaScript/HTML5, check out http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/

Re:Very crude game, check out this instead:

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that those are better, but the graphics are still like games looked 15 years ago. Maybe WebGL could change that, but on the other hand, you can already use OpenGL and reach the same audience now, and probably get better performance.

Re:Very crude game, check out this instead:

[Jarik C-Bol]

didn't even work for me, you could move the ship, but not fire, and there was no sound. maybe a little more work.

Re:Very crude game, check out this instead:

[carlhaagen]

You might want to use a browser that manages HTML5. The games are, after all, HTML5 games. They work just fine in FF3.6, Safari, Chrome, Opera.

Re:Very crude game, check out this instead:

[Anonymous Coward]

tried the first on the list and like most of these games it doesn't work (using recent ver of ff)

even when these html games work they are pretty lame.

whats the point? is it like those people who run marathons wearing a heavy gorilla suit...?
at least the dudes in the inappropriate outfits are raising money for charity!

Re:Very crude game, check out this instead:

[Jarik C-Bol]

my browser manages it fine thank you very much. (safari, fully updated)
Way to make assumptions there champ.

The best game with source I found was this

[hellop2]

Asteroids: http://www.kevs3d.co.uk/dev/asteroids/

I found that through this site that has a lot of canvas demos with code: http://www.canvasdemos.com/

HTML5 Game library?

[hellop2]

Does anyone know of a FOSS HTML5 game library that handles cross-browser compatibility for you?

Re:HTML5 Game library?

[h7]

I believe Adobe is currently developing tools that allow browser independent portability of HTML5, just like Dreamweaver takes care of browser compatibility in the generated code.

Re:HTML5 Game library?

[Foofoobar]

Well Akihabara is a game framework for building game in HTML5. I'm actually contributing code and building a MORPG in it.

Re:HTML5 Game library?

[Joe Tie.]

It's like open source developers either go for the most insane names possible, or go for something that ensures low page rank on searches.

Snakey

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not html5 but javascript: http://www.thebrentc.net/games/snakey/ :)
and a bit buggy i know

b

Total Shameless Plug: We've got some very neat BGs

[Qbertino]

Total Shameless Plug (TM):
We've got some very neat Browsergames in our top line, such as OGame, Ikariam or Guild 1400 aka 'Europe 1400' (english name), all of them have scored multiple independant awards and are state of the art. No arcade stuff yet, but we've totally pushed the envelope in Flash with the upcoming release of Warpfire It's internal Beta right now and maybe will get a slightly different name and branding when it goes public beta shortly, but it really rocks.

We've got a stash of generic BG stuff that's isn't very spectacular and I usually don't recommend, but the aforementioned ones all are developed inhouse by very dedicated teams and gamedesigners and are definitely worthwhile checking out. Last winters big OGame Facelift for instance had a crew of 10 working almost 2 years to pimp the UI with JavaScript - don't try to run in on an iPhone though :-)

You can register a single cross-game account at MMOGame.com ...
Thus endeth my Plug for a very cool employer I happen to work for. :-)
Have fun!

You can play Quake II in your browser

[Anonymous Coward]

... if you own Quake II and set this up for yourself: http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/

Another Shameless Plug

[combez]

I recreated the classic 8-bit arcade game 'Thrust' (predecessor of Gravitar) in this way: http://joncom.be/experiments/thrust/

What about *new* games?

[Tei]

We know that full flash websites are inferior to html websites. If you want to sell dogs online, and you want to hire a webmaster and you want to make the shop a full flash website, if you have luck, the webmaster that you will hire, will tell you to drop that idea and make a html shop instead. You can ignore that advice, drop the webmaster, and get another merce.. webmaster, that will make a website for you, and only for you, completely in flash.

What make sense for normal websites may make sort of sense for website games. Not everything, of course, but some things.

So the real question is, by doing a full game in flash, what are you limiting yourself? well.. flash is expensive to make, is not flexible to add content. Is also designed (mostly) for the fullscreen thing, read... most flash websites avoid the scroll bar.

So a HTML5 website could exploit these strong points of HTML. And make a webgame with lots of text and images, a integrated wiki, a game that you can browse to get different information that is updated often (as oposed with "often outdated" that you get with flash websites). We have already lots of games like that, OGame, eRepublik, and the like.
New type of games can be invented, but using the strong points of html, result on strategy games. Using the strong points of flash, you make casual puzzle and platform games.

I don't think HTML5 will change this much. It can create new type of games, but the existing games seems to work already in flash and html4.

Re:What about *new* games?

[Canazza]

So the real question is, by doing a full game in flash, what are you limiting yourself?

well.. flash is expensive to make

I agree, it's around £400 for the full CS4 and £550 for CS5. You can however buy CS3 for under £100, which is good enough to make flash games (I've been using it for years before we upgraded to CS4). However, £100 for a better dev environment is better than hand rolling your own in dreamweaver or the like.

is not flexible to add content.

What? If you know what you're doing you can make some decently modular engines. Content is simple and easy to update, you can load in external files and use them as configs. You can load in other .SWFs into a parent one and seperated loading, content and engine.

Is also designed (mostly) for the fullscreen thing, read... most flash websites avoid the scroll bar.

Again what? Have you ever been to newgrounds? Okay, I admit there's alot of tripe on there but little or none of it forces you fullscreen, and what's all this nonsense about a scrollbar?

Re:What about *new* games?

[Tei]

1) I said websites, flash websites are more expensive than normal websites.

2) HTML can be ugly, but to add content you only need a text editor. Even the most ugly website can be edited and added content with a simple text editor. I can't say that for flash websites, most of then have the .fla files lost, and where designed statically. To change these, you probably need a hex editor...

3) "scrollbar what?". You sure know what is a scrollbar. Flash designers know what a scrollbar, even re-invent it. Most flash websites seems designed to work like frames websited to avoid the scrollbar. Embrace the scrollbar!, is great, and your mouse have a mouse whell for it!.

Re:What about *new* games?

[Canazza]

In that sentence you said specifically you were talking about flash games, and not websites.

Re:What about *new* games?

[Anonymous Coward]

My two button HP mouse doesn't HAVE a "mouse whell", you insensitive clod!

Paddlewars!

[binkzz]

This game has been up for a while. Sound was disabled due to cross browser (un)support for the new audio tag.

http://canvas.xieke.com/paddlewar.html

Bonus points if you know what game it's from, and a medal if you can beat the CPU with 21-0.

Check this..

[Anonymous Coward]

http://verydeep.byethost22.com/game/game.html

Html5 in Boing Boing Arcade

[TheAncientGoat]

Boing Boing recently had a game competition, quite a few are written with JS: http://www.boingboing.net/arcade/

Re:No

[FyRE666]

I used to write a lot of Javascript games - way back when NS4 and IE4 were the browsers of choice. e.g. Donkey Kong, with all 4 levels of the original (plays a bit too fast on modern browsers) http://www.smashcat.org/arcade/dkong/ . Also wrote versions of Tempest (for IE4 using VML), Frogger, Pengo, Pole Position, etc.

Re:No

[hellop2]

As mentioned on my favorite site, slashdot.org, there's an MMOG that uses HTML5ish stuff. Well, at least Javascript:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1706968&cid=32783638

Goodbye Galaxy!

[fredrickleo]

Commander Keen in Goodbye Galaxy!

HTML 5 versus others

[Robotron23]

What previous commenters have been saying is true; there's relatively little by way of gaming on the Java platform despite its long prolificacy compared to HTML 5. HTML 5 is obviously still emergent; it could be over a decade until all its potential for gaming is realized. I was actually thinking of this the other week...a HTML 5 short RPG game of say, 3-5 hours worth of character-driven plotted content. It'd be novel to say the least and could be with us soon.

Another thing that's got me wondering is how Flash-based game sites such as Newgrounds.com are going to adapt if (when?) Flash becomes less relevant for the Internet wholesale. I think the idea of Java being expanded to fit the myriad creations of that site's community is less than realistic in the face of the progression of HTML 5. One thing that Flash has over HTML is a program which simplifies the whole shebang of making an animation without having to write much code (Actionscript). Though it is pretty awful in this day and age, almost 30 years after the C64, for people to consider Actionscript's (a mostly Flash-native language) advantagious to their own productive capacity when it comes to games it nevertheless is a factor in Flash remaining at the top of the games market for so long.

Looking at it that way, were people interested in creating games to switch over to HTML5 they'd obviously have a lot of skill to apply in other areas which are discussed regularly on Slashdot. Actionscript doesn't offer this, and is inferior as a result.

Re:HTML 5 versus others

[LordVader717]

Another thing that's got me wondering is how Flash-based game sites such as Newgrounds.com are going to adapt if (when?) Flash becomes less relevant for the Internet wholesale.

They don't have to. People won't stop what they do just because Steve Jobs tells them Flash is slow. As long as there is still a community and a market for web games, they will continue to use the tools which work best.

Re:HTML 5 versus others

[biovoid]

Though it is pretty awful in this day and age, almost 30 years after the C64...

You do know that the C64 has been 100% emulated in Flash don't you? Let me know when HTML5 can do that and I'll consider switching over from my "inferior" platform.

Lemmings

[Gumshoe]

This Lemmings clone dates back to 2004 so it's not HTML 5 but it's pretty good all the same.

http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/

Re:Lemmings

[__aapspi39]

believe it or not html5 has been around since 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5#W3C_standardization_process

it just hasn't progressed as quickly as you might have expected.

They're coming...

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeCiv looks good.
http://www.freeciv.net/

JSNES, not a game (it's a NES emulator) but still impressive.
http://benfirshman.com/projects/jsnes/

DHTML Lemmings

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out DHTML Lemmings, AFAIK this is pure java script, and it's been around for years http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/

Re:No

[HappyHead]

And another one, this one with sound even: http://29a.ch/jswars/

Games

[physburn]

Nicely rendered, main ship (was it blender), but well the hell is the fire button, (z who uses z). C64 level games on 2010 computer, except the C64 could scroll smoothly, so could a spectrum, why does a browser have a problem, netscape 3 had layers and a timer event didn't it. Bring back Java applets for this sort of stuff. Oh, and have those enemy waves move a bit. Defender was so much better. Remind me, what was the amiga Defender clone, with the giant skull, now that was a game.

LD HL,16384 LD C,192 LAB0: LD B,32 SUB A,A LAB1: RR (HL) INC HL DJNZ LAB1 DEC C JR NZ,LAB0

---

HTML5 Games Feed Just added at Feed Distiller

Target?

[Eirenarch]

Why should this games even exist? What is the target group? I doubt there are that many people that really want to play browser games but do not have Flash.

Re:Target?

[Fantastic Lad]

Why should this games even exist? What is the target group? I doubt there are that many people that really want to play browser games but do not have Flash.

I think was a proof of concept and general, "Hey, I wonder if I could. . ?"

That is, it wasn't made for a target audience. It was made for the creator because he wanted to create, and anybody who wanted to experience that with him is welcome.

I am curious about Javascript; it's sort of like the new BASIC. It's everywhere and anybody with a browser and an editor can use it. New browsers just takes it all a few steps further so that it is able to do pretty much anything at a good rate of speed.

-FL

HylZee

[roguegramma]

A javascript non HTML5 puzzle game(just DHTML):
http://hylzee.sourceforge.net/hylZee/

One button games

[16Chapel]

Hardly the same, but I always liked these: http://kisrael.com/features/gb.html

Entanglement

[zolf13]

Entanglement

Re:Entanglement

[IAmGarethAdams]

Just replying to give this game more of a mention than the parent poster gave it.

It's the first HTML5 example I've tried which *feels* like a game rather than a proof-of-concept.

HTML 4 & Javascript

[ironicsky]

A Buddy of mine did this using HTML 4 and Javascript. In fact, he rewrote Mario Bro's, Monopoly and a few others are proof of concepts.

http://www.googin.getproxied.com/games/

This guy's scrolling shooter is of course better, but the tech has been around for a while.

JavaScript and HTML5 are about idiot accessibility

[Anonymous Coward]

JavaScript and HTML5 are all about bringing computing to the stupidest people within the entire human population. I'm not talking about end-users. "Developers" fall into this category, as well. That's the essence of Web 2.0.

When it comes to end-users, most don't know that most browsers have a full-screen mode. They'd end up bitching and moaning to the developer about how the JavaScript/HTML5 game isn't like other games. Even if they were explicitly told to press F11 or whatever key makes their browser go full-screen, they probably still have trouble doing it.

Of course, it's not limited to just the stupid end-users, too. Anyone who wants to actively develop for the shitfest that's JavaScript and HTML5 development is probably quite dumb, too. Why the hell would anyone want to subject themselves to that, when they can write portable, cross-platform games using libraries like SDL and ClanLib? Sure, the user has to download and run the application, but that's really not a big deal. In fact, it's a good way to filter out the idiots. Oh, and when you use real libraries and real languages, you can even give your game audio capabilities! Imagine that!

Vimperator users note

[deek]

Make sure you enable pass through mode, otherwise the javascript keyboard event handler will not receive your keystrokes. It's rather frustrating playing a game where your plane does not move. Would have been amusing if I made it through the level anyway.

Cities of Apocalypse

[UPi]

I created a HTML5 game using canvas and some other technologies. Naturally it requires a modern browser (meaning, anything but Internet Explorer).

The game is called Cities of Apocalypse and it is a relatively simple game that is somewhere between turn-based and real-time. You can have a look and try it out at http://citiesofap.game-host.org/ (please be gentle with my server :)

I hit a few snags while developing the game, such as Firefox 3.0 not having text rendering for canvas, or Opera having a surprisingly slow javascript engine (don't flame me, route calculations take 5x as long with Opera!). All in all, it was an interesting project that I might get back to someday.

Great javascript game

[Anonymous Coward]

I found a great javascript game, it's called "The hunt for lost memory"

1) go to any website that make heavy use of javascript
2) leave your browser up overnight come back in the morning and try to figure out why the hell your browser is sucking up half the system resources
3) ....
4) profit

But Why?

[popo]

Are these games more cross-platform than Flash games? Than Java games? Will they run on the iPhone? iPad? (Not that either platform represents a remotely significant percentage of web users)

Are Canvas games better than Flash games? Are they better than Java games?

Is the development environment better than existing Flash/Java development environments?

Is HTML5/Canvas less CPU intensive?

I've played with HTML5 and Canvas a few times, and I always come away scratching my head and wondering "why all the fuss"?

Re:But Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are these games more cross-platform than Flash games? Than Java games? Will they run on the iPhone? iPad? (Not that either platform represents a remotely significant percentage of web users)

Are Canvas games better than Flash games? Are they better than Java games?

Is the development environment better than existing Flash/Java development environments?

Is HTML5/Canvas less CPU intensive?

I've played with HTML5 and Canvas a few times, and I always come away scratching my head and wondering "why all the fuss"?

100% agree ... most of people here seems to be completely missing that they try to use wrong tools for good purpose. Try to brush your teeth with screwdriver.

To all Flash haters: do you know what HTML acronym stands for? what's it's purpose? Have you ever been developing anything else but your home/pet project? Go and make living out of that! You people are so narrow minded .. do you think that Flash is inferior to HTML? to follow this logic .. 4wheel drive is inferior to diesel engine as well?

Re:No

[hellop2]

Hi Overlord. I appreciate your effort searching google and posting these links, but did you bother to click on them?

Your first link is not a games library. At least not in the sense of your 3rd link.

But your 3rd link is 2 years old and the project it mentions doesn't appear to exist anymore.

Re:No

[pinkushun]

And in addition, to see what other awesomely cool things are possible with HTML5 and Canvas, and hence possible in games, check out http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

WebGL Quake II

[Anonymous Coward]

The best attempt I've seen so far is the WebGL Quake II port by Google: http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/

Re:Total Shameless Plug: We've got some very neat

[Spliffster]

I have played some of these browser games. Because Parent didn't mention: none of the mentioned games have anything to do with SVG/Canvas/HTML5.

Kind regards,
-S

Re:No

[TheViciousOverWind]

Hi Hellop,
Thanks for your corrections!

It was actually from my bookmarks. I've played quite a bit around with the canvas element myself, and that's why I've got a lot of bookmarks.
Sorry about the confusion about "library". English is not my first language, and in my language library can also mean "collection of", so that's why I used that word.

The 3rd link was actually not the link I intended to post, I intended to post a link to this HTML 5 Game engine (More info in this article) which looks pretty good. It's in beta though, and I've got no hands on experience with it, but it looks promising.

The link I posted is still valid though, and can be found here: http://tommysmind.com/ It might not be updated any more but it's still a nice resource, if you've just started using the canvas element.

Google Pacman

[gdesignrr]

It isn't flash, although I'm not sure if it is HTML5, or just heavy javascript http://www.google.com/pacman/

desired games...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for a HTML5 Lemmings (or lemmings clone). I mean, it's already been done in DHTML: http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/

Re:No

[hellop2]

4 levels? Wow. TFA only has 1.

I declare Scott Porter the winner. hahaha "Porter"

Teris on canvas

[N0t4v41l4bl3]

I was very impressed with this one: http://www.benjoffe.com/code/games/torus/

SVGcave

[gringer]

[Shameless Plug] SVGcave isn't particularly wonderful, but it does demonstrate a few things that can be done with html5 (SVG, not canvas).

Snackman

[VortexCortex]

I created SnackMan (pacman clone with multiple levels and variable ghosts) in DHTML+JS with sound & music back on IE6.
Over the years I gave up on JS+DOM because of the number of <object> tags I had to support for sound.

HTML5 sparked my interest in using JS for games again, so I reworked the sound system.
The latest version only works in HTML5 aware browsers (eg: FF 3.5).
For some reason the music stutters and cuts out.
Downloading it and running the game locally solves the issue.

Also: To have multiple sounds of the same effect playing at once I had to create 10 identical <audio> audio tags for each effect.

I can't wait until the HTML5 implementations are more stable so that I can seriously use it for games.

Re:Snackman

[VortexCortex]

Doh! Sorry; Link had one to many dots... Here's a working link.

Game i created for private use

[Anonymous Coward]

has the old dungeons and dragons basic edition soft cover books
-mass combat
-dominion rulership
-events system
-hex mapping to move armies
-system for characters
-uses javascript/dhtml and mysql for importing "modules" aka the games

next phases are to try (UGH) and do up the immortal rules

Arkanoid

[raphael75]

Scott Schiller has remade Arkanoid, complete with sound: http://www.schillmania.com/arkanoid/

3D Shooter - http://raphaeljs.com/scape/

[Anonymous Coward]

http://raphaeljs.com/scape/

Its pretty impressive

Awful sound that can't be muted

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I certainly am glad that the audio for "Galactic Plunder" can't be muted at all, which is excellent since I tend to have music or a television program playing while looking at pages such as Slashdot.

I really don't know why people think others want to listen to terrible sound effects or music with no option to disable them.

GAme library ONLY for ipad

[Anonymous Coward]

DUMB very DUMB

Tempest Game Engine

[Anonymous Coward]

I am working on something similar, called Tempest Game Engine. I'm targeting 2D tile-based games, the technology is really promising. It's intended to be a fully-fledged game authoring library, with audio, map management, authoring tools, and client/server interoperability. http://tge.stormwarestudios.com

i may redo the hex map stuff in html5

[Anonymous Coward]

looks actually easier to use then what i had been

Answer:

[VortexCortex]

They don't require a browser plugin (like java or flash) to play.

I agree that it's not that big of a deal if your target audience is using Windows PCs...
If you want Android and iP*d, and many Linux users to be able to play as well HTML5 + JS is a decent alternative.

I already use Flash's ActionScript, so why not use the almost identical JavaScript to make the game and target a wider audience?

1. Flash is made specifically for animation, so it's generally easier to get a game up and running with in than in JS+DHTML/Canvas.
Game authoring frameworks for JS may fix this.

2. JS animation is sometimes jerky and slow. SVG is very slow too.
Hardware acceleration will fix this.

3. The audience without flash or java is too small to worry about.
This audience is growing, much the same as when Firefox was new.
It's silly to not test websites in FF, Chrome, Safari and Opera now.

In short: Why? Because it's the future. HTML was originally for static content. Now web pages have rich multimedia content.
In the future HTML will likely incorporate standard effects like animated style transitions, and even 3D.

You can ignore the future, but soon the future will be very relevant.

Re:Answer:

[Anonymous Coward]

you are rather good at spouting meaningless platitudes (forward with the future time and suchlike) but you don't provide any kind of a response to the question as to why people should be interested in html5. it keeps cropping up on this website and its getting tiresome.

the results are always so poor and there really isn't any need for it, other than on a small number of apple devices that cannot display flash (ok, so it takes business from the appstore - fair enough)

html is great for text and embedding images, i can see that, but it is simply laughable to suggest that it is the future for animation, video and the rest.

without any kind of cross browser compatibility in prospect and without any sort of real need, html5 represents a step back in time to a period that no one wants to revisit - apart from a few hopeful and persistent souls (its been on the cards since 2004 apparently)

Re:Answer:

[VortexCortex]

you don't provide any kind of a response to the question as to why people should be interested in html5.

I did say:

They don't require a browser plugin (like java or flash) to play.

If you want Android and iP*d, and many Linux users to be able to play...

Perhaps your definition of "any" is not the same as mine.

Also note: The numbered sentences in my first post are valid reasons NOT to use HTML5 + JS.

I was pointing out my position: Games with HTML5+JS are possible (thats what I used to make a pacman clone), but performance is poor. I choose to keep my eye on it (and test it by using it) rather than completely ignore HTML5.

I see that a richer web is where we are heading, and suggest to others that they stay in touch with the technologies that will takes us to our destination (HTML5+JS).

----

without any kind of cross browser compatibility in prospect

Standardized audio and video tags and the API to control them via JS is a huge "cross browser compatibility" win!

I can call audioElement.play() on it and trust that the element will have the .play() method/function. That is "cross browser" enough for me.

I don't care what plugin or built in system plays the audio (neither does HTML5) as long as my code can access it via a standard API.

HTML5 is not concerned with which audio/video formats websites and browsers adopt.
It's a weakness in the web, but that's between browsers (HTML5 implementations) and
the sites they display -- not the markup language.

Re:No

[mcvos]

The HTML5 canvas element and Java's AWT "Graphics" element are very alike. I wonder how long it takes for someone to program a converter, so all java applet/mobile games are available as HTML5 games?

Hasn't Google already done something like that?

Tempest Game Engine

[stormwarestudios]

My game engine, Tempest Game Engine, is intended to be a feature-rich tile-based games engine, with pluggable modules that enable developers to add their own code segments as its development progresses. Right now it's got tile based rendering, integrates with the OSS Tiled editor, a decent tile management system, and a few other bells and whistles. I'd love feedback, feel free to check out http://tge.stormwarestudios.com/.

Re:No

[dbialac]

I wrote the underpinnings of an SVG Javascript game years ago at while at a previous job. The frame rate was horrible but the project proved it could be done even then.

Full screen ads

[DrYak]

They have got used to just clicking the "full screen" button in their YouTube player.

This kind of function should be under the control of the browser. Not something called from within the Javascript on some random page.

Otherwise the day when a "goFullScreen()" method is made available on canvases and video object, is the day when you have über-annoying ads (or shock sites) that completely hijack the whole screen. (You know as some of the flash ads already do. Have you recently tried surfing with your AdBlock+ deactivated ?) Making the web slightly more convenient for the few who don't even have the necessary brain cells to use a computer to begin with, at the cost of making a much worse experience for almost everyone else, is *not* a good strategy.

Re:Full screen ads

[Simetrical]

This kind of function should be under the control of the browser. Not something called from within the Javascript on some random page.

Otherwise the day when a "goFullScreen()" method is made available on canvases and video object, is the day when you have über-annoying ads (or shock sites) that completely hijack the whole screen.

You mean like window.open(), which has allowed web pages to open new windows from JavaScript for more than a decade? Except, right, browsers all integrated popup blockers, so it can only be called when you click a button. Works fine. Flash does pretty much the same thing for full-screen, and HTML5 will too when (not if) that's added to the language.

(You know as some of the flash ads already do. Have you recently tried surfing with your AdBlock+ deactivated ?)

Flash ads can't full-screen until you click on them, and when they do there's a pop-up that tells you to hit escape to leave full-screen mode. So, no, they don't do this. They can take over the page, of course, but not the whole screen (i.e., they leave the browser UI alone).

Bastion

[Winterborne]

We're developing a multiplayer RPG over at http://playbastion.com that eschews Flash entirely, in favor of the Javascript approach. Helps a lot in terms of being friendly to mobile web browsers. The first playtest just concluded, but if you are interested in trying the game, head over to the site and sign up for the next test.

I have, and it's a real pain

[American AC in Paris]

I started writing a little space-trader game called iAye in HTML5/JS called for the iPhone back before the dev kit was public. I'll readily admit that my code is quite far from perfect and follows the "write-as-you-go" school of design, but even having said that, it was a royal pain in the tuckus to write this game.

For one, Canvas (at least on the iPhone) is godawful slow. For another thing, mobile Webkit has a tendency to crash. The client-side DB was particularly suspect, and has a habit of crashing the browser in a light breeze. The dev tools for HTML5 development are nonexistent beyond your classic HTML toolkit; when you're trying to manipulate SVG files with script, this can be a major, major headache.

Note that many of these gripes are specific to Webkit. The dev tools, however, are not. I work primarily in Flash these days because a) it's what my work pays me to do, and b) for all my quibbles with it, Flash's development environment is the only dev environment that even comes close to being good for this kind of work.

I would absolutely -love- to target HTML5 instead of Flash, but until the tools are there, it isn't going to happen. The real kicker is that in another few years, HTML5 will likely simply be a publish setting in Flash CS(n+1), and all this chest-thumping about HTML5 versus Flash will be completely moot, as the actual -content- being made will be -exactly the same for both-.

In the end, HTML5 will likely supplant Flash, as it should; plugins are generally a bad way to go about enabling core content. That said, everything is going to look pretty much exactly alike, and virtually all rich HTML5 content will be created with the exact same set of proprietary tools as Flash. What's more, that proprietary toolset is going to generate code which is essentially unreadable to humans, anyhow.

Javascript card games

[Anonymous Coward]

Solitaire games written in Javascript at http://worldofsolitaire.com/ Does anyone have links to trick-taking card games written in Javasript?

Development environments are for pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't trust any programmer that needs a "development environment" but I suppose that's beside that point. What isn't beside the point, though, is that a shitload of development, both professional and amateur, can happen without it. An industry doesn't need it, and explodes into action long before any fancy-pants tools like that ever appear. By the time your "decent development environment" comes along, HTML5 will last year's news and you'll be a small-timer in a market already dominated by serious developers.

I suppose there was point when certain compilers/assemblers forced (or at least strongly encouraged) programmers to use substandard tools. My first assembler (Merlin on C64/ Big Mac on Apple -- essentially the same product) consisted of a line editor and an assembler that only assembled the code from the editor's memory, and was organized in such a way that it just wasn't convenient to use $YOUR_FAVORITE_EDITOR to work on the source code; you really were herded into using a lame editor (though it was good enough to get the job done, and for a line editor it wasn't bad). But those days are just plain over, and no HTML/javascript dude has to deal with that. Everyone can use the same editor that they're used to using for everything, so in a sense, HTML/javascript already has some of the very best editors in the world. Whether you're a vi guy or an emacs guy, you're covered.

Re:Development environments are for pussies

[rxan]

You complain about some developers preferring to use a development environment. But then you go on to complain that you couldn't use your favorite text editor back in the day and were forced to use a lame one.

I don't trust any programmer that needs "their favorite editor" but I suppose that's beside the point. See how ridiculous that sounds? Hypocrite.

Different people prefer different environments. Hell, you can even get vim or emacs to do autocomplete, syntax checking, even compilation triggers. That's a development environment right there. I love vim, but get off your high horse and stop thinking that using the command line or a shitty editor makes you any better than someone who doesn't.

Re:Development environments are for pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful not to break your neck falling down the sarchasm. If you bother to try a bit of comprehension, he said there are lots of "development environments" already available - whether IDE, vim, or notepad and a command prompt to mingw - and many of them will do just fine with Javascript and HTML.

I don't see any high horse except yours. If you like pretty and useless buttons wasting screen area so there's less space for editing code, that just means you're inferior. There's no reason to start a fight over it.

Container

[Anonymous Coward]

It needs a container :)

Boing Boing Arcade

[hdon]

About eight hours ago I noticed Boing Boing has been running a gamedev contest that has attracted several Javascript/Canvas games. They seem to have sound using the "Sound" element that works in Firefox.

http://www.boingboing.net/arcade/

Re:Boing Boing Arcade

[richtaur]

It's actually the audio tag: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html

That was a fun contest. I entered a game called Onslaught!, check it out :)

Re:Boing Boing Arcade

[hellop2]

Great link!

Re:No

[molecular]

Another thought: The HTML5 canvas element and Java's AWT "Graphics" element are very alike. I wonder how long it takes for someone to program a converter, so all java applet/mobile games are available as HTML5 games?

What's the showstopper for java-applets anyway?

Re:No

[ZeRu]

Non-Flash based browser games have been around for years.
I have personally played Utopia and Travian.

Mine

[LBArrettAnderson]

I made a canvas remake of 3D Pong... it's mostly a demo and proof of concept, so it doesn't really satisfy your request, but it's playable and somewhat fun... http://lbarrettanderson.com/

Re:Mine

[nullchar]

Looks cool, and once started the paddle tracks my mouse, but the ball never bounces back.

Firefox 3.6 on linux.

Re:Mine

[LBArrettAnderson]

It is pretty glitchy in certain browsers. Chrome seems to work great. Last time I checked, Opera wouldn't display anything properly. The last time I checked Firefox it worked great as well, but that must have been an older version. I've kind of lost interest in it (made an android app out of it which is much more playable and entertaining).

Re:Mine

[some_guy_88]

Just tried the android app on my N1 while bored at work. Very nice.

The javascript version didn't very well for me (Chrome 5.0.375.99, Windows)

Re:Mine

[LBArrettAnderson]

Thanks
 
One of these days I might touch up the web version once HTML5 becomes more standardized. Getting the "ping"s to play was miserable, and still doesn't work in all browsers. Not sure what you're experiencing with Chrome 5 on Windows (that's what I'm on as well), but maybe one day I'll address the issue. It's actually a (relatively) easy game to implement with canvas, at least for being 3D. I'm not aware of any easy way to create 3D objects in it, so everything there is just done with some math and projected onto the 2D canvas (the spacing in the walls, however, is not proportionally correct... but that's just a static image). I don't plan on perfecting it (or even working on it at all) in the immediate future, so if someone wants to make a better one, go for it.
 
Now knowing that it works in even fewer browsers than I originally thought, it might be a good idea to move it off the front page of the site where I refer professional contacts :)

Re:Mine

[LBArrettAnderson]

Now that I think about it, the issue you're having with it not bouncing back is probably due to the audio it's trying to play. I can probably make it so it doesn't crash, but this does demonstrate one of the annoyances with HTML5... audio and video formats... I wish there would just be one format that worked in every browser. I'm pretty sure I set my game up to have several different options of formats (where it chooses automatically), so simply lacking the options probably isn't what's happening, but I'm sure it's related to the audio.

Re:Mine

[some_guy_88]

Sorry for the useless bug report. The exact problem is that when the ball hit's either the opponent's paddle or yours a message box appears reading "INVALID_STATE_ERR: DOM Exception 11". That's probably not very helpful but whatever. I've never done any serious Javascript programming, just the odd bits here and there to fancy up a website. I'm .NET to pay the bills.

Re:Mine

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, no that's fine... I mean, more specific is better, but I likely won't do anything about it until well after I forget about this thread :)

World of Solitaire

[Sembiance]

I made World of Solitaire (http://worldofsolitaire.com) and I think it's pretty awesome.
100% HTML/JavaScript, no flash. Over 50 different solitaire games, multiple decks, undo support, customizable backgrounds, statistics and more.

Re:No

[Tacvek]

Actually, "library" can and does mean "collection of" in English. Indeed that is the exact meaning of "library" in a "code library". Alone "library" implies a collection of books, but "music library" and similar terms are definitely in use.

"Library" when used alone may imply a lending library. Context is necessary to determine if lending library or book collection was intended. When used with modifiers, lending library is usually not implied, with a few exceptions, like "public library".

The only issue with your post is that because this is Slashdot, people may assume that "library" means code library in such a context, rather than "collection of". Thus it may be clearer to explicitly say collection.

Javascript card games?

[soupman55]

I am looking for Javascript card games. I want to learn how to program them. I found solitaire games written in Javascript at http://worldofsolitaire.com/ But what I would really like is examples of trick-taking card games written in Javascript. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Re:No

[Tacvek]

Java applets work, but the language is somewhat clunky[1], at least compared to flash, and for the longest time there were no good libraries for creating Java applet games. On the other hand, Flash was designed for animations and interactive animations, meaning it came by default with many of the necessary tools for building a game.

Indeed to this day, most flash games are developed from scratch, rather than using a pre-existing game library, even though several exist.

Java is also not as widely installed on home systems as Flash is.

Footnotes:

[1] In this context by clunky I mean that it does not permit many quick and dirty hacks that many scripting languages permit, tending to enforce at least some elements of proper OO design (although admittedly not all of them). In some contexts this is a good thing, as it discourages the quick and dirty hacks. However for game development, permitting the hacks can allow a developer to quickly try out an idea, and implement it properly only once it has been shown to be workable.

As long as the developer is disciplined enough to replace the hack with proper code, this can speed up testing out ideas without causing the code quality to suffer. If the hack is not replaced, this

Freeciv

[Anonymous Coward]

What about In-Browser Multiplayer FreeCiv?

The Game of Life

[quiddity]

http://sixfoottallrabbit.co.uk/gameoflife/ The Game of Life in html5.

Re:No

[Sethumme]

I'm a fan of Triglav , which is a Diablo-style RPG with surprising quality and game length. It's coded in JavaScript, but designed for IE6 (wtf?), but appears to work with IE8 (and doesn't appear to work with Firefox). There's a instant-play mode, or a registration mode that lets you save your progress. Check it out.

Here are two more HTML5/Javascript games

[Aggrav8d]

http://www.marginallyclever.com/samples/
I would gladly write more if I had the freedom to do so.
I'm trying to figure out this websockets thing so I can start making turn-based games.

Two more - asteroids and bubble bobble (?)

[Aggrav8d]

I wrote these several months ago. http://www.marginallyclever.com/samples/

Here's a bunch of good stuff for you

[richtaur]

I posted an article a while back about a DHTML engine I put on GitHub. I included an example game called Bombada that's also on GitHub. Note: the engine isn't "HTML5" per se (which is becoming more of a buzzword than makes sense) and I've moved on to a canvas engine (which will someday also be open source).

Even better, there was recently a game development contest on Boing Boing which saw 9 pretty cool entires. Ours was called Onslaught! and was written in JavaScript using canvas (though it does fall back to flash for audio).

I've got some substantial experience writing games in JavaScript and HTML5. To me, the biggest hurdle right now is audio. Somebody mentioned the inability to go fullscreen, and while I've seen that handled by the video tag, to me it's not as big a problem as the audio tag being basically unusable for gaming purposes.

These ARE HTML5 games ..

[mavs179]

The link posted up top, http://www.html5games.com/ is full of html5 games- they seem to be written in js but are being powered by the html5 canvas element. Not sure why some people think there is no html5 being used. Effectgames.com, on the other hand, does NOT use html5. The thread starters game also uses tr HTML5 canvas element.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Definition FAIL: Library = collection, compilation, etc.

Orbium

[Anonymous Coward]

http://jsway.se/m/ The most advanced JavaScript game I have seen. It is also an iPhone app (using the same code?)

freeciv.net

[Xtifr]

I'm a little surprised that nobody has mentioned Freeciv.net. It's a freeciv (.org) client that runs on a web server, and communicates with the user's browser using HTML5 elements like canvas.

Lack of sound

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, this one is easy. Currently sound is very buggy. Short clips (which are typically used in games) only work fine in Opera. They also work fine in the new Firefox 4 betas, but not in the stable builds. And Chrome, well even the dev channel version fails in obscure ways if the audio files are somewhat short.

This issue will be solved in a few months though.

Re:No

[hellop2]

Overlord, it's funny, I have the same bookmarks.

What we need is a really fundamental (robust, orthogonal?) graphics library for HTML5. Something that handles text, music, sprites, and collision detection, AJAX (web sockets?), even event handling, etc.. in a cross browser way. So that when we make games, we don't have to worry about cross browser issues, so that we can be confident that however it renders in different browsers is the state of the art.

The "HTML 5 Game engine" called Aves looks like it's only for creating 2.5D games like The Sims and therefore not a general purpose game/graphics API. And the second one, while it looks like a good start is only in version 0.1 and doesn't seem to have been updated since 2008. Plus, by the author's own admission, it is not really usable for games because "coding games in JavaScript requires other methods to get games running smoothly" and is just about "about fun and experimenting."

Well hopefully you and I will keep looking, and eventually the community will come together to create an HTML 5 graphics API. Lets keep each other posted!

Re:No

[hellop2]

Wait wait, what?! Java is great for creating games. If you check out the state-of-the-art 3D accelerated stuff, you'll find games that are the equivalent of Quake, TeamFortress2, Doom3, etc..

The problem is, people don't want to download a 50MB browser plugin.

Even better: In python!

[Kludge]

http://pyjs.org/examples/asteroids/output/Space.html
using pyjamas http://pyjs.org/

javascript, what about java?

[gbelteshazzar]

what ever happened to Java games? there are bindings to 3d acceleration and its installed pretty much every where. so where are all the java games?

Re:javascript, what about java?

[magloca]

[...] where are all the java games?

In cell phones.

Re:javascript, what about java?

[nullchar]

Java has great 3D support. Java Monkey Engine is a popular library.

List of samples/games: (go up to the main wiki page for details about the library; docs are amazing)
    http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/wiki/doku.php/showcase

BattleCell - http://battlecell.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out http://battlecell.com if you haven't already. It'a a global warfare massive multiplayer that's all based on grids on a global map. Very cool.

great game

[RobPowell]

http://battlecell.com

Re:No

[Tacvek]

Java can be used for games, no doubt about it, but those type of games you are mentioning can have most of the code written before you even decide on the specifics of the game.

They are not as experimental as most flash games.

Flash lets you through together a game quickly to test a game-play mechanic, while the java game will probably be more technically solid, but would take more time to develop. Most of my favorite flash games would be many times harder to write in Java.

On the other hand, Java can definitely handle more than flash. Flash's 3D handling is rather primitive (but has been improving in the latest releases), and Flash does have slower code execution than Java, so code-heavy games (chess games, flight sims, etc) would also benefit from Java over Flash.

Re:No

[Minwee]

The only issue with your post is that because this is Slashdot, people may assume that "library" means code library in such a context, rather than "collection of".

To be more accurate, because this is Slashdot people will misinterpret anything that you say in whatever way is possible just so that they can disagree with you.

And everything that you said about ducks is completely and totally wrong. Stupid git.

Its similar...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm having some memories of a game similar to this, except it was platform based (Nintendo, or something). Anyone possibly remember any older games like this? I remember playing a really good one as a kid where your ship obviously got upgrades, but certain upgrades added new parts to your ship and it got pretty big, to the point where you were firing like 12 shots at once in some cases.

Anyone help a brother out? I'm going nuts trying to figure out what it was called!

Flash Player 3D Future GPU

[Anonymous Coward]

Adobe Flash Player 11, will have 3D gpu acceleration, i think the gaming crowd has not gotten a good wiff yet, but on July 11th they announced that they will be showing off the new 3D API for the next flash player, http://www.bytearray.org/?p=1836 , they state that the there will be GPU Hardware acceleration, shaders and they are asking you to forget everything youve seen before, including past 3d flash api's from papervision3d and away3d. this is an all new 3d api for the next flash player. (also, adobe has made a commitment for google's VP8 Video Codec support 1 year from its announcement this past may 2010, which means the next flash player will be released in may 2011, the conference is in october, so expect beta versions of next years software to go out, leaving just 7 months for develop 3d flash games before the plugin is available.... Farmville3D ? =X probably.

Flash Player 3D Future, http://max.adobe.com/schedule/by-session/ae6f2190-c17a-4411-9e20-44a135e340b0 official information

Re:Flash Player 3D Future GPU

[Anonymous Coward]

July 8th 2010 was the announcement, im sorry for the mistake above.

What about Quake 2 ?

[JeromeEnki]

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/google-html5-quake/

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody who uses the word "fail" in that manner is a fucking idiot. Do you also still go around saying "all your base are belong to us" and chuckle over how "witty" you are every time you post a link to a Rick Astley video?

Re:No

[molecular]

so flash is the visual basic of the web?

Re:No

[Tacvek]

Honestly, yes. It allows for rapid development, the end code is all too often unmaintainable, and it is among the easier Turing-complete web technologies to learn. (Granted the programing languge itself is a superset of ECMAscript, so Javascript experience transfers partially, but browser DOM experience, and cross-browser coding experience does not really help.)

Unlike VB, the underlying language is actually reasonably good. It is an ECMAscript superset, as I already mentioned, so it is a prototype-based language. Like all decent dynamic languages ECMAscript (and thus both Javascript and Actionscript) permits procedural, object-oriented, and even functional programming paradigms. However, the extensions to ECMAscript include more traditional OO support than ECMAscript alone provides, making it possible to avoid many of the unusual idioms javascript OO design requires.

One interesting feature of Actionscript is the optional static typing. While the language is fundamentally dynamically typed, it provides the option of specifying static types on variables and function/method arguments. This primarily allows for better optimization, but also allows for better static analysis, including "compile-time" checking for certain kinds of type errors.

Thus a program can initially be designed using dynamicly typed variables for ease and speed of initial development, and later be slowly migrated to static typing during maintenance, providing the benefits of "compile-time" type-checking, as well as performance benefits. Even then, it is not necessary to commit to being fully statically typed, letting one leave dynamic those parts of the code that would benefit from that.

Thus the language itself is not one that an experienced developer would feel constrained in, nor would it be one they would feel embarrassed to use (which is very different to VB).

freeciv.net

[stickystyle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeciv.net

That's all HTML5, and I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned here on /.

Galactic Blunder

[Anonymous Coward]

Just tried Galactic Plunder in my Opera 10.60 on Ubuntu. It crashed the first two times. The third it hanged Opera so bad I have had to kill it.

There will be no fourth...

Re:No

[Ellie K]

Thank you, that's a really good reply. I'd also been wondering if Flash were a Visual Basic of the web, but without the shame, if you know what I mean. But I was sort of too shy to ask because it might've been a stupid question. And you all ARE a rough crowd at times!

This is actually one of slashdot's better threads.

Re:No

[badkarmadayaccount]

Related question, are there any JS libs that permit IE6 app forward compatibility with other browsers?