A Clarification Request Please

[VirtuallyQuinn]

Hi game devs I've been scouring the web researching the game dev industry because I want to incorporate light web/phone app style games in my business, and while I am a skilled web design/dev, and game *designer* the games are real world, live games. 

 

I've downloaded a number of engines to try out and see how they work (and whether or not I can work them at all). I'm knowledgeable with HTML, js, css in web work and learning C#.

 

My question is this: am I missing a memo here on the whole concept of HTML5/CSS3/JS in game dev basically being games made out of web pages? I keep looking for the "meat" of it and all the games I am finding that were done with H5 are in fact web pages with js scripts to make stuff happen. There are a few H5 codes I'm not real familiar with but generally I use it all the time. I work with wordpress too and sometimes have to tweak it to incorporate some old school js. There was even a time when I was learning html, I was a huge fan of dynamic drive...and that's the impression I'm getting about game dev with H5/CSS3/JS - that it's just evolved dhtml and js, with some css to make it look sweet.

 

Surely that can't be all there is to the heart of html5 game development? 

 

That brings me to webgl...is this specifically included to make 3d style games? I'm not as familiar with webgl so not sure how it fits into the h5 scheme. 

 

I have one more question but will put it in a separate topic since it's not quite covered in this one.

 

Thanks for any feedback. 

[rich]

HTML5 games literally nothing more than the combination of WEB based technologies: JavaScript, Canvas, WebGL, Web Audio, HTML and a little CSS.

 

WebGL doesn't mean 3D, it just means GPU powered - which can include 2D. In most articles you'll see it used to show-off 3D however, but it's not restricted to it.

[Rezoner]

> that it's just evolved dhtml 

 

Yes this is what it is. However - at the time of DHTML the only viable option for rendering a game was through the use of HTML components that were designed to make complex GUIs (websites) - not games. This lead to bad performance, bad code structure, complexity and counter intuitive solutions regarding rendering a game.

Paradoxically the fuss HTML5 caused in gamedev is about allowing us to make games with very little interaction with HTML/DOM. It now serves as a runtime environment and an interface for more specialized APIs rather than the first class display library it used to be.

 

Richard already said everything that should be said regarding webgl.