This guest post was written by Makzan, Founder of 42games. Their latest game Chicken Rain, is available for download for iOS. Makzan also authored HTML5 Games Development By Example: A Beginner’s Guide, a book about building games on the latest HTML5 and CSS3 web standards.

Makzan's Disclaimer: I am using the term HTML5 as an umbrella term. It not only means the HTML5 specification itself but also includes the CSS3, JavaScript API, and other latest open web standards that are often used in an HTML5 games.

HTML5 games gain much attentions these days. Despite the fact that there are tons of mobile games and Flash games in the market, HTML5 games are standing out with the platform’s unique and flexible, yet powerful features.HTML5 games are essentially cross-platform because at the end of the day, they are running on browsers. Theoretically, you can play the game wherever there is a modern browser, with no plugins to install.  Your HTML5 games will also run well in mobile with some mobile browser tweaks. This is one way that they are flexible, but I believe there’s much more to HTML5’s potential than that.

HTML5 games are flexible because they can break the rules that constrain other types of games, such as the boundary of the game on your screen. We often use a fixed size and solid boundary to define a game. With Flash games, the size is normally the dimension of the Flash document, and often significantly smaller than the user’s screen. For iOS and Android games, the game is limited to the constraints of the app and cannot effectively bring in outside elements via the browser. With HTML5 games, we can build a game that is truly borderless, both in size and scope. Take the following two HTML5 games as examples:

Pong seems a popular early testing game for developers trying to get familiar with a new platform. I saw people build Pong when learning Flash game development; I saw students built Pong game on their LED hardware controller; I even used Pong as the first game example in my book, HTML5 Games Development by Example: Beginner’s Guide.

Stewart Smith shows us how HTML5 games can break out of the boundaries of traditional games. It is called Browser Pong, and in it Stewart Smith demonstrates a pong game that uses an entire browser window as the paddles and the ball. Instead of controlling a graphic sprite or a movie clip, we are controlling the position of a browser window to play against a computer controlled window. (Go ahead and give it a try, I’ll wait here). Now, let’s look at another example.

Thought it was cool to play a game where the pieces were separated browser windows? Well, how about get some fun from the URL bar? The URL Hunteris another game that uses the URL bar in your browser creatively. Instead of controlling a character inside the content area in browser, we are now controlling a little “O” character in the browser URL bar and moving it left or right. The aim of the game is to capture all the “a” characters to kill them.These two examples show how we can create games in creative and unexpected way with HTML5. Another thing that HTML5 games will excel at is a high level of polish across multiple platforms with much less effort than before. Let’s take a look at the following example of a high quality published HTML5 game:

Onslaught! Arena is a game from Lost Decade Gamesthat shows us how an HTML5 games can be beautiful, polished, and cross platform. It was first developed for playing in browser with keyboard and mouse and then adopted to other platforms including iPad, Android tablets and Mac App Store. The game features different waves of enemies creatures in pixel art styles graphics. The performance is solid and with some minor tweaks, the input fits in each device. All aspects of this game are polished and this game can clearly complete against other native mobile and web games.These examples show both power and flexibility of HTML5 games. I am looking forward to playing HTML games that break the rules with unique gameplay, a boundless environment, and cross platform functionality.

I think this trend is so important that my game studio now focused on HTML5 as our game development platform of choice. Our experience building Flash games, real-time multiplayer games, and iOS games will all be valuable, but it’s important to get your feet wet in a new platform as early as possible to start learning. Chicken Rain is our latest title on the App Store and we are now porting it into HTML5. Since HTML5 is now becoming a live standard without version number, I believe the open web standard will continue to evolve in the future. We may see a brand lose popularity, or we may see a plug-in platform disappear, but the web browser will always be an integral part of a user’s web experience. The web will continue to exist and evolve to enable new flexibility and powerful features in HTML5 games.

Are you ready for the HTML5 games revolution?

If you’re interested in learning more about HTML5 game development, check out his book here. Follow Makzan on Twitter, and download his game Chicken Rain on iOS.