Building JavaScript Games: for Phones, Tablets, and Desktop

Building JavaScript Games teaches game programming through a series of engaging, arcade-style games that quickly expand your JavaScript and HTML5 skills. JavaScript is in the top ten most-used programming languages world wide, and is the basis for applications that can run in any modern browser, on any device from smart phone to tablet to PC. Especial emphasis is given to touch-based interface, but all games also run using a regular mouse and keyboard setup.

The four games you’ll develop from reading this book are:

• Painter
• Jewel Jam
• Penguin Pairs
• Tick Tick

These four games are casual, arcade-style games representing the aim-and-shoot, puzzle, maze, and platform styles of game play.

The approach in Building JavaScript Games follows the basic structure of a game rather than the syntax of a language. From almost the very first chapter you are building games to run on your phone or other device and show to your friends. Successive projects teach about handling player input, manipulating game objects, designing game worlds, managing levels, and realism through physics. All told, you’ll develop four well-designed games, making Building JavaScript Games one of the most enjoyable ways there is to learn about programming browser-based games.

The final chapters in the book contain a very nice bonus of sorts. In them you will find excerpts from interviews with two prominent people from the game industry: Mark Overmars, who is CTO of Tingly Games and creator of GameMaker, and Peter Vesterbacka, the CMO of Rovio Entertainment – the creators of the Angry Birds franchise. Their insight and perspective round off what is already a fun and valuable book.

What you’ll learn

• Create games to run on phones and tablets
• Manage sprites and other game objects
• React to player input through touch and button presses
• Allow game players to progress through different levels
• Achieve realistic movement through applied physics
• Prepare your games properly for commercial deployment

Who this book is for

Building JavaScript Games is for technology enthusiasts interested in learning about programming, and especially about game programming on their mobile devices. The book is also ideal for programmers in other languages wanting to make the move to mobile development using the cross-platform environment of JavaScript and HTML5. If you’re interested in browser-based development, especially the development of mobile games, then Building JavaScript Games is the perfect choice.

Table of Contents

Part I: Getting Started
Chapter 1: Programming
Chapter 2: Game Programming Basics
Chapter 3: Creating a Game World
Chapter 4: Game Assets

Part II: Creating Colorful Games
Chapter 5: Knowing What the Player Is Doing
Chapter 6: Reacting to Player Input
Chapter 7: Basic Game Objects
Chapter 8: Game Object Types
Chapter 9: Colors and Collisions
Chapter 10: Limited Lives
Chapter 11: Organizing Game Objects
Chapter 12: Finishing the Painter Game

Part III: Jewel Jam
Chapter 13: Adapting to Different Devices
Chapter 14: Game Objects in a Structure
Chapter 15: Gameplay Programming
Chapter 16: Game States
Chapter 17: Finishing the Jewel Jam Game

Part IV: Penguin Pairs
Chapter 18: Sprite Sheets
Chapter 19: Menus and Settings
Chapter 20: Game State Management
Chapter 21: Storing and Recalling Game Data
Chapter 22: Pairing the Penguins
Chapter 23: Finishing the Penguin Pairs Game

Part V: Tick Tick
Chapter 24: The Main Game Structure
Chapter 25: Animation
Chapter 26: Game Physics
Chapter 27: Intelligent Enemies
Chapter 28: Adding Player Interaction
Chapter 29: Finishing the Tick Tick Game

Part VI: Into the Great Wide Open
Chapter 30: Producing Games
Chapter 31: Publishing Games