3 Review(s)

Anyone familiar with Zynga's Farmville understands how fun and addictive real-time social games can be. This hands-on guide shows you how to design and build one of these games from start to finish, with nothing but open source tools. You'll learn how to render graphics, animate with sprites, add sound, validate scores to prevent cheating, and more, using detailed examples and code samples. By the end of the book, you’ll complete a project called Tourist Resort that combines all of the techniques you’ve learned. You’ll also learn how to integrate your game with Facebook. If you’re familiar with JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3, you’re ready to get started. Use HTML5’s canvas element to build smooth animations with sprites Create an isometric grid pattern for high-performance graphics Design a GUI that works equally well on mobile devices and PCs Add sound to your game with HTML5’s audio element Implement the game’s path-finding function with WebWorkers Build a client data model on the server with PHP and MySQL Make your game come alive with dynamic CSS3 objects About the Author Mario Andres Pagella is an accomplished software developer with more than 10 years of professional experience living in Capital Federal, Argentina. He has worked on the design and the implementation of several high traffic websites in Argentina. He currently works as the Chief Technical Officer of Minor Studios Argentina S.R.L. developing a social game design tool called Atmosphir. Table of Contents Chapter 1 Graphics Foundations: Canvas and Sprites Working with the canvas Object Creating Smooth Animations Working with Sprites What’s at that Pixel? Choosing a Rendering Method for Our Graphics Chapter 2 Making It Isometric Chapter 3 Interface Considerations GUI Design and Interaction in Web Games Implementing the GUI Chapter 4 HTML5 Sound and Processing Optimization Adding Sound with the Audio Element Managing Computationally Expensive Work with the Web Workers API Local Storage and Session Storage Chapter 5 Connecting the Game to People Cheat Prevention and Server-Side Operations The Path to the Final Game Polishing the Game Adding a Social Networking Layer Using Facebook