What to use for simple cross-platform games instead of Flash?
- by jmh_gr
In short, for simple games:
Is Flash still a good option for browser-based PC clients? It still has 90%+ penetration.
What is a good alternative for mobile devices? It HTML5 + JavaScript the choice for mobile? Or does one have to learn a new native language for each target platform? (Android, Apple, Windows Phone)...
If you desire further background: There are more blogs about the official demise of mobile Flash than I can count, along with endless useless and vitriolic comments. I'm actually trying to do something practical: build simple games that can be served accross multiple platforms. Several months ago I plopped down $1100 for CS5.5 Web and am wading into Flash. Bummer. My question to people who actually develop simple games and apps: What platform should I use instead? Is Flash still a sensible platform for web-served PC users?
For example, let's say I build a simple arcade game that I would like to serve as an app to mobile users and as a browser-based game to PC users. Should I still invest the time and effort to learn and develop in Flash for the PC users, while building a parallel code set in some other language for mobile users? My games are simple enough that it would be annoying but not inconceivable to maintain parallel code sets.