Ten top tips for developing HTML5 games

A HTML5 game doesn’t need to mean ‘web game’; it is a great way to deliver games to browsers without a plug-in, but browsers are not the only target. We have found success by wrapping HTML5 games for native distribution in mobile app stores. There are technologies available for this, including Apache Cordova, Intel Crosswalk, and Amazon’s HTML5 wrapping for Kindle. There can be some performance implications though, so developers should explore and understand these options and take advantage of these extremely popular channels for distribution.
Craig Robinson, CEO, Absolute Hero

Participate in community and join forums and groups about HTML5 games development. It provides feedback and tips about development and publishers. www.html5gamedev.com is the central place for any HMTL5 developer to go right now.
Vladislav Forsh, CTO, Liquid Rainbow

To leverage the true power of HTML5, make sure that games can run on the widest range of devices and systems out there without sacrificing too much production value. Code optimisation can only go so far; the core framework should be adaptive, able to deal with different asset resolutions dynamically and provide graceful degradation on various systems. The more time spent on these details, the more freedom you get creatively.
Frederic Rezeau, Director, Okijin Games

Create small and fun games; development should take no more than a month, otherwise recouping costs may be tough. We stick to a rule of no bigger than 6MB with simple and fun mechanics optimised for the platforms we are aiming at.
Konstanin Boronenkov, CEO, Hypnocat Studio

Use modern game engines and frameworks; there are great HTML5 engines that are supported by big communities, like Phaser and CreateJS. These frameworks will handle the most difficult parts of HTML5 development, so you won’t be spending time on this instead of developing your game.
Vladislav Forsh, CTO, Liquid Rainbow

There is a big difference between the performance of old and new devices. The bottleneck is in the rendering of graphics. It is important to determine a reasonable limit for the sprites displayed on the screen and abide by it. We find this number is about 100 to 150, depending on the game.
Alexey Testov, Artist and Game Designer, Hidden Layer Games

Theoretically any HTML5-capable browser or native wrapped web view control is a target for an HTML5 game. Unfortunately, due to differences in browser APIs, device performance and capabilities, screen size and input modalities, extra diligence on the part of developers is required. It is important to design the game for both mobile and desktop browsers and to deal with differences in browser APIs straight away. Up-front testing across a variety of desktop and mobile OSes and browsers early on in your development cycle will save valuable time.
Craig Robinson, CEO, Absolute Hero

Collaborate with others and find a great publishing partner. It is great if you are able to make the whole game by yourself but I suggest you don’t. Specialise on something and find partners who will be doing other parts. Different perspectives can be the making of a great game and publishing clout the making of a successful one.
Vladislav Forsh, CTO, Liquid Rainbow

What is really great about HTML5 is the ease it offers for prototyping and experimenting. JavaScript is a very expressive language: no compilation time, no installation – a simple URL to share and see your game running on various platforms. So prototype a lot, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
Frederic Rezeau, Director, Okijin Games

Think about game size, especially for the web version of the game. You need to think about reducing the game size as much as possible so frame-by-frame animation should not be used. Procedural animation and skeletal animation are two possible alternatives. We actually use Flash for piece animation.
Andriy Vinchkovskiy, Programmer, Hidden Layer Games