What is safest technology to implement a web-based game

Question

I am trying to develop a web-based (and could work on portable devices like tablets) game which 2 players can play and I want to know the safest technology.

Being safe means performance would be ok on different platform.

I know about flash/actionscript but I feel flash could die very soon (will not be supported on Windows 8, IPad)

HTML5 seems to be the choice for cross-platform but the performance I have experienced with games in HTML5 is not good eg Angry Birds slows my system down. I have these specifications:

Windows 7
Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N450
1.66GHZ
2GB Memory
Browser: Chrome, Firefox

Note: Most of my audience could have a lesser specifications.

I have tried some painting (squares of 10 x 10) too in HTML5 using Canvas and g2d and I get the same bad performance

• Is there a way I can improve my HTML5 to perform better
• what of pure jQuery/Ajax?
• or there are other tools I can use.

Update:

Indication that Flash will still be supported by Internet Explorer: but IE8 didn't support Flash either. Nor did IE7, IE6 and so on. Flash support has always been provided via an Adobe plug-in, and I can't see any reason why this wouldn't continue with IE9. Details in links below:

• http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/1983302/microsoft-clarifies-position-ie9-flash-support
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/apr/30/microsoft-ie9-html5-video

Answer 1

Usually when people say flash is dying they mean that flash is a dying platform for videos on the internet.

I don't feel that HTML5 or browser-based javascript are fast enough to compete with compiled-into-bytecode in advance flash for game development, and won't be any time soon.

It will hopefully get there some-day but it's nowhere nearly as rapid, or feasable to develop games in it yet.

1. Flash games are faster at this point
2. They are more easily shared across sites, if you want to 'steal' a flash game unless it is specifically protected, it's a matter of grabbing a single file. This is usually desirable in the 'sponsorship' or 'ad based' revenue models and is a major source of income.

However, flash is getting clumsier and clumsier and less and less attractive. I seriously doubt it is the future of web-based game development, flash will probably die, just not very soon..

EDIT: So in general since flash has a very short learning curve in comparison to other platforms, and that migrating from it to javascript based game development will be really easy since flash actionscript and javascript are very similar, I would still suggest it as a game development technology at this point.

Also, full disclosure, I was a flash game developer for several years, I did write a lot of javascript but I've never built a full game in it (although I tried several times but it was not fast enough at the time).

Answer 2

Use Flash.

I think you're getting the wrong impression about Flash through over exaggerated and poorly informed sources telling you that Flash is going to 'die'.

What they mean to say is; Flash is become less useful for web-based applications, video and even basic animation content. Flash still has a huge hold over web-based games.

There are massive websites making tonnes of money through hosting Flash Game content, here are a few:

• Kongregate
• Armorgames
• Newgrounds
• Crazy Monkey Games
• Mochi Media

Companies like these aren't just going to die off overnight, or even over quite an extended period.

There are also tonnes and tonnes of resources for Flash game developers, combined with a very low learning curve. This means that even as a newcomer you're able to create games within a short period. Adobe and plenty of other places offers mountains of articles and tools for game development, such as:

• Adobe Gaming
• Adobe Flash Player Premium Features for Gaming
• Adobe Introduces Premium Features for Gaming
• AS3 Game Engines - Both 2D and 3D
• Starling Framework
• Flixel - Flash Game Library

There's also big incentive for Flash game development which is that many websites such as those listed above (Kongretate, Armorgames, etc) offer large amounts of cash to sponsor your Flash games . You can also win awards for your games as additional cash. Many websites even offer you a cut of the revenue they make from advertising that appears on the same page as your game.

Flash is going to continue thriving in the gaming space and I don't think you need to concern yourself with it suddenly becoming redundant for that purpose anytime soon.

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There are only a handful of advantages I can see to using HTML5/JavaScript:

• It's free - you don't need specialised software to create HTML5/JavaScript applications.
• It's supported on mobile - that said, you're going to have to redevelop parts of your game to support touch controls etc anyway which is annoying and more often than not leads to abandoning mobile versions. Additionally, JavaScript rendering performance on mobile is really poor (you'll have low frame rates).

Answer 3

Checkout WebGL, Although its not supported on all tablets yet, it looks like it might be eventually (recently on iPad I believe but only for advertisements, works on android through Firefox)

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/webgl

A possible alternative to Flash though its not quite there yet :)