Request for Speakers for New Game, Conf for HTML5 Game Devs

Aloha!

We want YOU to speak at the newly announced New Game, the conference for HTML5 game developers, held Nov 1-2, 2011 in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Who can speak?

Anyone building HTML5 games today, or who is connected in some way with making the web the best game platform out there.  If you are passionate about browser based gaming, we want to hear your story!

How do I submit my proposal?

Simply fill out http://goo.gl/iWA2J

What's the deadline?

All proposals must be submitted by August 1 at midnight PDT.

What are potential topics?

* debriefs from HTML5 game projects and launches * feature detection (gauging performance of underlying client machine in order to scale application experience) * commerce and issues around billing/DRM/protecting source assets from theft/modding/cheating * debugging/performance profiling tools and how to navigate this new space (anything from JS profiling to things like measuring GPU counters to analyze WebGL shaders) * state of HTML5 support within walled gardens and how that will play out * how HTML5 standards can evolve to support game development (e.g. "DrawImageList" in canvas or equivalent) * the state of WebGL * HTML5 games for Mobile * HTML5 Canvas performance * Web Sockets and networking * Web Audio API * business models (how to make money building HTML5 games) * game frameworks (like Impact) * asset pipelines (e.g. for WebGL, SVG, or in general)

Who is putting on the event?

Bocoup, a JavaScript agency from Boston, is directing the event. Google is sponsoring the event.

What is the theme of the conference?

HTML5 games are here today. I've found the future of gaming, it's in my browser.

Tell me more!

2 days, awesome venue in the heart of San Francisco, 300 passionate game developers, intimate setting, professionally produced conference. New Game is all about building great games in the browser.

How do I get more info?

Visit http://newgameconf.com or follow @newgameconf

See you are New Game!

14 HTML5 Game Developers to Follow

I asked the question "Who (not what) do you think of when I say HTML5 Games?"  Here's what I heard, and here's who you should follow and watch.  This group is leading the way for HTML5 games.

• @robhawkes - now works at Mozilla, developer of Rawkets, a multi-player HTML5 game; author of HTML5 Canvas book
• @phoboslab - developer of the Impact game engine for JavaScript and HTML5
• @LostDecadeGames - developers of Onslaught
• @hiive - ported his iOS game Creatures and Castles over to HTML5, now in the Chrome Web Store
• @SubsonicGames - building a full WebGL game; great developer diary blog
• @Vincent_Scheib - Chrome engineer, working on adding features to the platform like Mouse Lock
• @lillithompson - Chrome Developer Advocate for Games
• @hakimel - general awesome HTML5 engineer, wrote Sinuous, an early and very popular HTML5 game
• @ggoodale - developer on Word2, an HTML5 massively multiplayer tile based word forming game
• @erikjmoller - Opera core developer, porting Emberwind to HTML5
• @gopherwood - developers of Entanglement and Thwack!!
• @jgw - one of the lead developers for ForPlay, the library behind Angry Birds for the Web
• @gskinner - Flash dev behind the hit HTML5 game Pirates Love Daisies
• @html5grind - HTML5 games blog

Did I miss anyone?  Let me know in the comments!

Seth

14 Tips for a Successful HTML5 Game Jams and Hackathons

We love HTML5 games, and we love helping developers build HTML5 games.  One popular and fun format for learning HTML5 games is the Game Jam.  A Game Jam is like a hackathon for game developers.  Think food, laptops, snacks, and lots and lots of hacking.  In the end, each team will demo their game and there are usually prizes for "crowd favorite" or "technical achievement".

After running a few Game Jams, we've collected some best practices and tips to make your next Game Jam a success.  Big props to Vince Scheib and Mike Mahemoff for providing these tips.


- Publicize frameworks in advance and encourage attendees to come with 'hello world' games already under their belt so they can hit the ground running. Possibly include a super simple template of our own that isn't a 'framework', but just a tiny simple example.

- Publicize easy / free tools for e.g. audio & 2D drawing.

- Publicize source control and encourage teams to already know how to use it.

- Publicize game hosting tech (appengine, nodeJS) and point to relevant examples.

- Hold something back until the Jam - usually the theme. Generate a surprise theme that balances creative license and enough constraint to remove the 'blank page' effect.

- Have art resources ready. Some contests have run in two phases of 'prepare art' and then 'make games using only prepared art'. We probably can't do that, but we could get some of our designers to whip up material for contestants to draw from.

- Encourage rapid prototyping development practices! Games should be functional at 1/2 way point!!! They'll need the second half to polish. People always always always blow this and mis-estimate. Encourage frequent re-prioritization of what people are working on.

- Don't just have 'office hours', actively move around to help.

- Consider not doing, or doing in parallel, the tech presentations. Or, at a minimum, do them in a way to not distract people who are working.

- Run several wildly different categories for the contest. e.g. most original, best use of new tech, most hilarious. Don't have just "the best", or don't have "the best" at all.

- Plan for games to have more work done after the Jam, and how they will be publicized. Can teams update links, images, YT videos, etc?

- If the main aim is to prove the technology with some awesome demos, you're mostly concerned about the top 3 apps, so structure things to make those things great. (e.g. allow larger teams, make sure people can find each other before the event and in initial pitch session, run it over the whole weekend).

- Sponsorship is good. Bring prizes.

- The final demo is often the last time you will ever see an app running. People are just too busy. So (a) film it (b) encourage people to stick it on a URL.