The document discusses the near future of the web platform for game development. It outlines improvements to mobile browsers like Chrome for Android and Firefox for Android that will enhance performance. It also discusses increasing support for WebGL across browsers. Other emerging technologies mentioned that could impact game development include Chrome splitting from WebKit, rumors of a Chromium-powered Android web view, WebRTC for real-time networking, the Web Audio API, and ambient light reading. The document advocates for the web as a powerful gaming platform.

1. THE NEAR FUTURE OF
THE WEB PLATFORM
2013.5.15 동국대학교 이창환
• yich@dongguk.edu
• http://html5gamers.wordpress.com

2. Overview
• The Near Future of the Web Platform
• https://www.scirra.com/blog/110/the-near-future-of-the-web-
platform
• Scirra's Construct 2
• http://www.scirra.com/contruct2
• HTML5 2D Game Tool/Engine
• Multiplatform Export
• Feature support depends on what the browser provides (or in some
cases what the wrapper supports)
• “native" apps using wrappers like node-webkit or CocoonJS
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3. Improving mobile browsers
• Chrome for Android
• Android 4+, Better than the Android stock browser
• Firefox for Android
• WebGL performance Slow Issue
• Safari for iOS (iOS 6)
• The Web Audio API for Safari
• Faster Javascript performance
• Hardware accelerated rendering
• The latest Safari iOS and Chrome for Android
• Browser gaming on mobile
• Good, but the weaker GPUs and limited memory, especially on old devices.
• Mobile browsers vs. Desktop browsers
• A little behind desktop browsers
• steadily improving and catching up
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4. Increasing WebGL support
• A WebGL renderer for Construct 2 games
• about twice as fast as canvas 2D - or more, depending on the benchmark - even on mobile.
• some really awesome effects.
• no widely supported, only working on desktop Chrome and Firefox.
• Internet Explorer 11(Desktop) may support WebGL
• Be supported in all major desktop browsers.
• Scirra’s criticism of IE10
• Mobile Browser
• Chrome for Android
• can enable it from chrome://flags
• Firefox for Android, Firefox OS and Blackberry 10
• Hopefully Windows Phone 8
• Safari
• Already support it but have disabled it
• Ludei
• support for WebGL in CocoonJS
• WebGL support in iOS and Android native apps regardless of the browser
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5. Chrome splits from WebKit
• Chromium (the engine behind Chrome) and Safari
• WebKit: Shared the same open-source rendering engine
• Blink: Split off from WebKit and create their own independent
engine
• In the short term,
• very little effect; virtually identical to WebKit
• In the long term
• Google has more freedom to experi5ment with their browser engine.
• More features and better performance, all delivered more quickly
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6. Rumour of Chromium-powered Android
web view
• Technical point: publishing a game with PhoneGap
• The performance very poor on both Android and iOS.
• The native app's browser (the Web View control): very slow on these
platforms.
• Not actually a full browser, and lacks the things that make browsers fast, like
hardware-accelerated rendering.
• CocoonJS
• Solve this problem
• Rumour from Google
• Android might use Chromium for the web view.
• Making it more like a real browser
• all the performance benefits
• let's hope it turns up in Android 5! (Scirra)
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7. asm.js
• asm.js: Mozilla’s fascinating project
• Aimed at making it possible to get native performance from browser
apps.
• Not be taking advantage of it for Construct 2. I've explained why in more
detail in this forum reply I made about asm.js.
• C/C++ -> javascript
• Not javascript
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8. WebRTC
• The User Media object
• Access a video feed from the user's camera
• Microphone input
• Requres Chrome Canary (and a microphone!)
• Real-time peer-to-peer communication.
• The possibility of low-latency multiplayer networking
• much more efficient than WebSockets
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9. Web Audio API
• For all kinds of advanced audio effects
• including positioned sounds.
• Supported in desktop Chrome and iOS Safari.
• Firefox: actively working on it
• Chrome for Android: soon
• audio effects
• a great way to make games more immersive
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10. Web MIDI API
• For musical games
• being able to use MIDI input and output
• not supported anywhere yet
• on the standardisation track.
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11. Ambient light reading
• Unusual one
• a lot of phones and tablets: ambient light sensors built in.
• Mozilla
• working on a way to make this accessible to web content.
• Imagine a game with a level you can only play in a dark room, or in
bright sunshine.
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12. Speech recognition & synthesis
• Voice-controlled games
• An interesting avenue to explore
• the game automatically talk back.
• Chrome: actively working on
• Firefox: interested.
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13. ScirraMark
• ScirraMark
• A test page: several
browser technologies
• Report which of them your
browser supports,
• An overall score.
• Useful for testing a range of
browsers and platforms for
their gaming capability.
• Plan: extend this to test for
new upcoming features
once they get implemented
in at least one browser.
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14. The Web is the Platform
• A View of Writer
• How the web is advancing quickly
• Showing lots of promise as a deeply capable platform for your
games to run on
• Their aim
• To make sure as many of them as possible are exposed through plugins
in Construct 2
• Game developer can play with them and find cool ways to integrate
them in to your projects.
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