With the growing mobile market it's easy to miss out on html5 game development opportunities without a proper process and business model. In this talk I give some tips how to stay organised and achieve your goals.

1. Mobile HTML5 Game Development
Design for
performance

2. PERFORMANCE
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN MAKING A GAME
And this little text no one will read, but it looks nice.
THE IDEA THE MARKET TECHNICAL
CONSTRAINTS
CAN I MAKE A
WORKING
POC?
CODING

3. BUSINESS
THE THINGS I TRY TO FOCUS ON
A white bird is only white when it’s white - dojo yoga pants.
THE IDEA THE MARKET TECHNICAL
CONSTRAINTS
CAN I MAKE A
WORKING
POC?
CODING

4. I’M A BUBBLE!
2 DIFFERENT COMPANIES
Such similar data, so mobile!
COMPANY X
COMPANY X makes casual
games for the Dutch market.
COMPANY Y
COMPANY Y is a multiplier game
dev platform and game provider
in France with over 1M players
each month.
68% DESKTOP
32% MOBILE
62% DESKTOP
38% MOBILE
Mobile is not only gaining
traction in HTML5 gaming -
it’s becoming an important
part of the revenue.
HTML5 Gaming companies
have problems finding
developers.

5. THE BIG MIGRATION
Bye, bye flashy.
Migrating from Flash
Multiple job offers for html5
gamers are about migrating flash
games - so that they work on
mobile devices from the browsers.
A sometimes tedious job - but
digging into AS3 and see how
some problems are solved can be
a knowledge gold mine for a
HTML5 Game Dev.
FLASH KILLA!
PLUGIN?

6. IS HTML5 READY FOR THIS?
“No, you’re a towel!” - Towelie
Phones Small desktop / tablets The (big) desktop
By far the most fragmented
market - you’ll find most
challenges here.
Things are starting to get edgy
here - there’s a big portion of the
market that handles really well
(Surface/iPad).
And there’s Android and Galaxy
Tab 3 and GPU blacklisting :)
This is the place where most
people make their games /
experiment on - it’s easy because
having a computer for 1.5K-2K
PLN can give you a pretty smooth
ride.
Are you?

7. TECHNICAL HICCUPS
TEXTURE MEMORY
Still thinking export for web is good
enough? Think again.
GOT SOME OF THAT 3D?
There are still devices with no proper
hardware acceleration for the browser.
LOOK UNDER THE CANVAS
You need to understand the how
canvas backing store works.
A SCRIPTING LANGUAGE
JavaScript interpretation can be a pain
when you start doing things like physics
(even on native wrappers).
DON’T GET DISCOURAGED
Writing games is hard - it’s normal. Luckily we now write for powerful devices
No sleeping

8. Test execution performance on different devices
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Do small iterations
When designing for performance
always test in small steps -
otherwise the system can get to
complex to do anything without
frustration.
ALWAYS TRY
TO THINK
BIG
Invest money
Abstract common
solutions
After you’ve figured something
out - write a reusable
implementation.
This will allow you to increase
your delivery speed.
Be a designer
Remember graceful degradation /
progressive enhancement?
Design your implementation and
talk to your market / customers.

9. Really, really
TEXTURES ARE SO MUCH MORE
Well maybe except pixel art, pixel art has few pixels in it’s art.
Be creative
Use good
tools
Work closely
with you’r
designer
Check device
specs
Snapshot
different
versions
Compressions saves memory
Compressing from RGBA8888 to
RGBA4444 reduces memory usage
by half.
First of all I always segment my textures
by the degree they can be compressed
and then I pack those segments into
separate sprite-sheets.
If you look under the hood of PNG you’ll
find: RGBA8888, RGBA4444, RGB888,
RGB565, RGBA5555, RGBA5551,…
You can also cheat
If you’re really low on GPU
performance on retina devices, try
scaling not x2 but somewhere
between x1.5-x2.

10. MATH IS THE KEY
You should also learn physics. It’s hard so I won’t talk about it.
You’ll find many
solutions to one
problem
You can pick solutions
optimal for the
computer
You can find solutions
faster if you know what
you’re looking for
You’ll be able to
communicate issues
better
It will help you make
game musics
You won’t get stuck with
a performance problem
You’r brain will store the
best solutions - so you
can work faster
You can make
games
Don’t write poems

11. POC THE WORLD - USING DIFFERENT TECH
“I didn’t think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows” - Bart Simpson on JavaScript
Pick you SDK
Try different JS frameworks,
write something yourself, try
Corona, try Swift.
Give yourself a deadline
I usually give myself 3 days to
check what tech use for the
project and then talk with the
customer about different
solutions.
Document
It’s hard and it’s boring but
documenting your endeavours
can save you a lot of time.
I’m still working on this part.
Code
Now you’re ready to do the
juicy stuff and just code. You
know that you’ve minimised
the risks of running into a wall
and you have a better chance
to complete your game :)
Proof of Cake

12. Clap, clap and questions
Łukasz Wójciak
@lukaszwojciak