Making Javascript and HTML5 games
- by Jeff Meatball Yang
A long time ago (Netscape 4-era), I wrote Javascript-based games: Pong, Minesweeper, and John Conway's Life among them. I'm getting back into it, and want to get my hands even dirtier.
I have a few games in mind:
Axis & Allies clone, with rugged maps and complex rules.
Tetris clone, possibly with real-time player-vs-player or player-vs-computer mode
Breakout clone, with a couple weapons and particle velocities
In all of these, I have only a few objectives:
Use JavaScript and HTML 5 - it should run on Chrome, Safari, or maybe an iPad.
Start small and simple, then build-up features.
Learn something new about game design and implementation.
So my questions are:
How would you implement these games?
Do you have any technology recommendations?
If you've written these games, what was the hardest part?
N.B.
I also want to start from first-principles - if you recommend a framework/library, I would appreciate some theory or implementation details behind it. These games are different enough that I should learn something new from each one.