Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Apress
Book cover

Building JavaScript Games

for Phones, Tablets, and Desktop

  • Book
  • © 2014

Overview

Authors:
  1. Arjan Egges
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Script Games teaches game programming through a series of arcade-style games that help expand your HTML and Java.

  • Script skills into the realm of game design and development for phones, tablets, and even desktop platforms.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (31 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxxii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Getting Started

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Programming

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 3-18

    3. Game Programming Basics

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 19-28

    4. Creating a Game World

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 29-43

    5. Game Assets

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 45-54

  3. Creating Colorful Games

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 55-56
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Knowing What the Player Is Doing

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 57-66

    3. Reacting to Player Input

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 67-82

    4. Basic Game Objects

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 83-101

    5. Game Object Types

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 103-119

    6. Colors and Collisions

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 121-129

    7. Limited Lives

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 131-142

    8. Organizing Game Objects

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 143-158

    9. Finishing the Painter Game

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 159-168

  4. Jewel Jam

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 169-170
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Adapting to Different Devices

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 171-185

    3. Game Objects in a Structure

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 187-208

    4. Gameplay Programming

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 209-223

    5. Game States

      • Arjan Egges
      Pages 225-233
Back to top

About this book

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.

About the author

Arjan Egges is an associate professor in Computer Science at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He is responsible there for research in the area of computer animation, and he heads the university s motion capture lab in the animation department. Arjan has written over 30 research papers on animation. He is the founder of the highly successful, annual ACM SIGGRAPH conference on Motion in Games, of which the proceedings have been published by Springer-Verlag. Arjan is responsible for having designed Utrecht University s computer animation course offerings in the Game and Media Technology master s program, and he is currently the leader of that master s program. In 2011 he designed the introductory programming course for the university s bachelor s degree offering in Game Technology. He is coauthor of the book Learn C# by Programming Games, published in 2013 by Springer.

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation