Video: Building browser-based games using HTML5

[Note: To access chapter selection, click the fullscreen button or check out the video on the GDC Vault website] Now that HTML5 is ubiquitous across desktops, tablets, and smartphones, it seems reasonable to assume that it would be a great solution for launching easily accessible games that don't require installs or third party plugins. It's a nice idea in theory, but Swrve programmer Marc O'Morain claims that learning to use HTML5 for game development is more difficult than it sounds. Luckily, he already has plenty of experience working with HTML5, and at GDC 2012 he shared his knowledge to help other developers understand and adopt this emerging web standard. During his session, O'Morain explained that if you really want to create multiplatform games with a single code base, HTML5 is going to be your best bet, as no other technology offers the same functionality. "[18 months ago], we wanted to see if we could make a game that would work across browsers, and in tablets and phones, so Flash was out of the question for us, and HTML5 was really the technology there. We wanted not to be writing native code, we wanted to write a cross platform code base that would work across devices," he said. "But when I started working with the technology, I found it very difficult to find information about how to build a game in HTML5, and I want this talk to be the talk that I would have liked to have gone to 18 months ago so I could have learned this stuff." To see O'Morain's presentation for yourself and to learn how to make your very own HTML5 browser game, simply click the Play button on the above video, courtesy of the GDC Vault.

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