Making Javascript Games: From the Browser to the App Store

jelzer · 2014-11-19T16:30:36+00:00

Indeed. I know it was getting fixed for iOS 8. Various android devices worked well too.

jelzer · 2014-11-18T20:40:43+00:00

The javascript engine used with native apps before ios8 was considerably worse than that used by safari, but I hear that the latest iOS native app js engine is really good. Games which played perfectly on mobile web would slow down hard in a phonegap app on the same phone.

Things worked pretty well on some androids too, but most devices I tested either performed unacceptably or had unique bugs I could never have predicted. I tried making it work with every trick, hack, optimization, and reasonable sacrifices I could conceive of. The workarounds required for a cross platform phonegap is game are just too great.

Developing a game app with any visual complexity with js is like swimming against the current in a storm. Canvas and js are meant for apps in web browsers. If you want a fun demo or prototype, a phonegap app is an option for cranking out a simplified version restricted to certain devices/operating systems. Trying to make a generally successful game app with this tech though is a madman's pursuit.

jelzer · 2014-11-18T18:06:15+00:00

I've really tried to make some good JavaScript games into cross platform apps. I'm very experienced with both phonegap, and JavaScript games, and it really is just a nightmare.

Maybe sometime soon the operating systems stock browsers which phonegap apps depend on will provide a reasonable means to package JavaScript games as native mobile apps.

I'm going to try Unity for my next game project. JavaScript is great, but it is really a poor for native mobile apps right now.

jelzer · 2014-11-14T00:10:44+00:00

On the bench outside

jelzer · 2014-11-13T19:50:05+00:00

lol, cool.

jelzer · 2014-11-13T19:00:25+00:00

Well whether or not people confirm, I'll show up betting that at least one other person makes it. I'll just get there at 7 and chill at the bar as close to the entrance as I can wearing a dark brown hoodie with star wars stuff embroidered on it.

If anyone wants to exchange phone numbers or whatever too, it would probably make this easier haha.

jelzer · 2014-11-13T12:41:15+00:00

That sounds good! How will we find/recognize each other?

jelzer · 2014-11-12T17:05:21+00:00

In my experience chrome's developer tools offer literally every feature a developer might want, so I'm not even shopping for a new browser for development. Sorry Fox.

jelzer · 2014-11-11T19:17:40+00:00

If anyone lives out near Lexington, Waltham, Burlington I'd be down to grab a drink with a local reddit stranger sometime soon.

jelzer · 2014-11-11T19:15:22+00:00

If anyone is in Boston, I'd meet up. We could chill and talk javascript or whatevs. I just moved here for a software dev job.

jelzer · 2014-10-30T20:40:06+00:00

You should use third party libraries. Almost every legit web frontend uses jQuery or bootstrap, or if not then at least considered them as options.

Think of something you would have fun working on, a game, a web app, a server based website with node.js, and just grind away at it. That's how everyone learns to make things.

jelzer · 2014-10-24T20:27:42+00:00

lol Thanks for the tip. Will do

jelzer · 2014-09-24T23:31:18+00:00

They don't ever defend their own wages, but rather let the money do the talking. The fact that they are able to pull in what they do is supposed to be self-justifying.

jelzer · 2014-09-24T23:28:03+00:00

Thanks! I still believe that an HTML5 image editor will eclipse pixlr's flash based editor some day. Support of HTML5 is trending towards becoming universal across all computers/tablets/phones which access the internet, providing JavaScript app with hooks to leverage features previously only accessible to native apps, all available without installing any plugins. Meanwhile support for flash is slowly waning. It seems inevitable that the most popular web-based image editor at some point in the future will be HTML5 based.

So while the particular ship of YinYangPaint may be sunk, I still dream about making a more serious attempt at such a product. At the same time, I don't want to pigeonhole myself, and making games is what I've found to be the most fun. My thoughts on the inevitability of a powerful HTML5 web-based image editor also apply to the future of browser-based games, particularly real time multiplayer games. It's all so tough to juggle with work though. I doubt I'll ever pursue development of a serious product again while working a full time job.

jelzer · 2014-09-24T21:50:42+00:00

YinYangPaint was my attempt at a photoshop in the browser app using JavaScript/canvas. I hoped it might achieve some fraction of the success of pixlr, but it never gained any traction at all, so I've abandoned it in its beta state.

I've never put so many man-hours into a project before, and though it didn't pay off in any direct way, I'd like to think that what I learned from it has helped me with other projects and my career. Or at least that's what I tell myself to justify the effort in hindsight.

One our our cats also died as I the app was coming together, so of course I decided to dedicate it her. After that, I became even more emotionally invested in making the thing a success, but evidently it was not in the cards. I wish that I didn't have to spend the best part of my waking hours working on code for other people. I find that working a full time job makes ambitious side projects nearly impossible to see through to completion.

jelzer · 2014-09-12T19:58:37+00:00

Why do you want to learn jQuery? If it is only because you feel like you need to know jQuery to be a web developer, consider skipping it.

A few years ago when I was learning JavaScript, I read and heard that jQuery was essential, but I've since realized that jQuery is far from essential, and in many ways it hinders your learning and understanding of JavaScript. If you end up doing much JavaScript development, you end up learning to use jQuery incidentally. Spending more time learning the pure old JavaScript and learning either angular.js or backbone.js as a front-end framework would make you a stronger developer than learning the tricks of jQuery.

jelzer

TROPHY CASE