Web gaming technologies: Angry Birds’ cross-compiled Java versus native JavaScript

After it became clear that Angry Birds was basically a true webapp with only a little Flash to overcome the limitations of web-based audio [1], more information came to light regarding the technology it is based on [2].

Why the Angry Birds webapp needs Flash

Update 2011-05-21: Web gaming technologies: Angry Birds’ cross-compiled Java versus native JavaScript

Shortly after the Angry Birds webapp came out on 2011-05-11 [1], people were disappointed that it needed Flash. This post examines why that is.

Kijjaa: a webapp remotely controlled by an iPhone

When you buy the iOS game Kijjaa, you are actually buying the remote control. The real game is Flash-based and started via a web browser, usually on a desktop or notebook computer with a large screen. I like the idea. Clearly, they are managing everything via their web server and this makes sense, because it is convenient and allows them to easily upgrade the game. I can also imagine the iPhone itself serving this kind of game (mirroring some of the ideas in my post on cloud computing).

[Source: Engadget]
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A computer game that can actually scare you?

“Amnesia: The Dark Descent” seems to be such a game:

How many games have you played that were so spooky you actually had to stop playing them at one point to catch a breather? Usually when the game tells you “hey, you have to go back to the scary area™” you go “bring it on – I know where the monsters are now, so I’m no longer afraid”. When Amnesia told me I had to go back to the Choir area I said fuck that shit, and went to browse reddit for a bit, because I was totally not ready to re-experience it after the first time. [Terminal Incoherency]

Great idea: it’s a monster game, but you are just Joe Normal running away from them – no heavy guns or magic shields. That means you will relate to your game persona, which seems to make the game scary.

Web game: type words to shoot

In Z-Type you type words to shoot. It all works without Flash, even the sound. [Source: munichjs]

Swarmation: a multi-player web game

Swamation is a multi-player browser game where all participating players appear as movable squares on a grid and must work together to from shapes. I wonder how well it scales to many players.

Web game: Torus

Torus is a 3D Tetris that looks great and is pure JavaScript (drawn on Canvas).

Web game “Biolab Disaster” and its engine

Fun game. It is “pure” (no Flash) and thus works on many mobile devices and desktop operating systems. The Game’s author is also selling the engine to developers.

A cheap bundle of cross-platform games

It is called the “Humble Indie Bundle” and contains several small games that run on Linux, Mac, Windows and don’t have DRM. You pay what you feel they are worth and can donate part of it to charity or the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Given how the EFF defends citizens against big business in copyright cases, the latter is also a good cause. Interesting fact: The web site lists how much money users pay on average and the people who give the most are not Mac users:

• Linux: $13.61
• Mac: $8.41
• Windows: $6.31

[Source: Ludwig Adam]

Sudoku: a sproutcore web application

This Sudoku is a web application that has been implemented using Sproutcore. It looks really good. It works well on the iPad. Alas, on the iPhone, the application disables scrolling and zooming, so there is no way to play it.

Can gaming make a better world?

Jane McGonigal certainly seems to think so. She argues that gaming is becoming increasingly wide-spread and that gamers exhibit the following positive traits while gaming:

Canvas-based game: Ajax has come far

The online game “Berts Breakdown” is fun and there is no Flash involved! It is all done via JavaScript and the HTML5 canvas tag. Quite impressive. Warning: Canvas means that this game won’t run on Internet Explorer, only on Firefox and Safari (and possibly on Opera). [Source: Ajaxian]
[Update 2009-12-13] More pure JavaScript games are shown at EffectGames.