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For slightly more complex creations, the developer might require a specic
web browser, but that is increasingly becoming the only limit on what is
needed to get someone up and running with an interactive web-based
project. This same limit applies to the creator—nothing more is needed to
get up and running and making things beyond having a text editor and a
web browser with the chops to make the code run.
Along with this easy-to-use environment comes a great community of other
creators who are committed to making tools, tutorials, and inspirational
media for the world to see and use. This community is excited about what
they are making, quick to help a newcomer, and always looking for ways to
make the creation of fun and interesting things easier and more enjoyable.
While community is not often talked about when technologies are discussed,
it is worth noting simply because as solitary as they may be, programmers
and developers love company, and the better the community, the more
enjoyable an associated technology tends to be.
The major web browser manufacturers—Mozilla, Microsoft, and Google—are
astoundingly dedicated to bringing their users (and thus the developers who
rely on these browsers for their capabilities) the latest and greatest features. It
is getting quite easy to access some of the most powerful features of a device
through easy-to-use APIs (application programming interfaces) made by the
hardworking people who make our web browsers. Today we have access to
things like geolocation, accelerometers, advanced audio, the canvas tag, and
WebGL to make advanced interactions with (relative) ease. Additionally the
browser manufacturers continue to improve JavaScript, the “glue” of the web.
Each year brings new features to the language, making it more manageable
to work with and easier to understand.
The aforementioned development community has not stopped with just
what the browser manufacturers provided to them. Instead the community
goes out of its way to build toolkits and frameworks that supply what the
browser manufacturers could not make or decided was not within the scope
of a browser API. While this book will be talking about building games
using one of these frameworks, there are more available that can be used
for games, business applications, or even artistic expression. There is the
ubiquitous jQuery that makes web coding life easier in general. Angular
JS and other frameworks are appearing to help make the production of
interaction sites faster and more manageable. Each day oers something
new in the JS world that shows just how powerful the simple scripting
language really can be.
1.2 Important Advancements
The wealth of new, creative JS games would not be possible without several
advances in web technology, notably the introduction of the canvas element and
a general increase in JS performance. Along with the canvas element came two
drawing contexts: two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D). Both enable
JavaScript to draw into a HTML element, but they rely on dierent technology
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An Introduction to HTML5 Game Development with Phaser.js