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HTML5 game devs excel in web design & coding!

I guess most game devs are obsessed about speed, which is great due to (according to Google) web users love fast web sites. Just bragging, but my new HTML5 Gaming Website is now faster than 100% of tested websites on Pingdom :) 

speed.jpg

Fast website is good but I know there's much more to learn from game design & coding. Please share your best works to showcase some tricks for GAMING WEBSITES.

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Mattstyles, your points are well taken and yes, it's all about what makes your website 'good' or more specifically what makes a great gaming website. After that if you think that speed, for example, is a major feature then you can find lot's of tips how to optimize by searching for "website speed test" and then see e.g. GTMetrix for optimization tips.

I also agree that it could be useful to share some tips. I optimized for SPEED and because website's content is mostly constant I was able to bundle all the content just to three files: index.html has all HTML/CSS/Javascript codes and images are bundled into just two files using CSS sprites.

Ozdy, web hosting is important for speed (naturally), but in order to make around 100 ms page loading you also need to optimize count and size of downloaded files.

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Ok, I have another tip, related to creating some sort of brochure site to showcase your work (presuming you don't just off-the-shelf a catalog page):

Render only what you need to on first load and throw it into the HTML, the browser will parse that immediately and render it as quick as it can, then it can wait for additional, perhaps, dynamic content and by wait, I mean, download and parse your JS that renders the rest of the page, although, having said that, if your site is all static no need for JS rendered stuff at all just throw it into HTML and have the browser render it. If you're after performance, don't get clever.

By throwing it all into HTML your only bottleneck is the network, consider a simple CDN and aggressive caching to help out there. If you're willing to pay a little bit for it, I'll bet you could find some good hosting that would apply this all for you to a static site.

If you're worried about the order of image downloads then there isn't much you can do except restrict the images you load, deferring the rest until later. The simple method of deferring is to not have them there at all, if you're showing one image per project on your homepage then consider only showing a few of your best work so those images load, the rest could be on an additional page or rendered into your page using JS, this way your initial load and render will be speedy and your additional, secondary content will come later.

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You have good points about optimization. In my website this simple solution was fast enough because I have only some content and even that is mostly static. Also note that your cached content is good only for returning users but you really want to impress your first time visitors too, see for example why you need fast website. Briefly, if your webpage loading takes more than 2 seconds you may lose half of your players.

I would like to hear more about your idea about showing only a few of your best work. What would that mean from HTML5 game hobbyist/indie point of view.

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2 hours ago, GameQuack.com said:

but you really want to impress your first time visitors too

Yep thats what the CDN is for, unless its cached already its restricted by the speed of light (if you eliminate every other source of network congestion, which is impossible) so moving your content 100 miles from your client rather than 1000 miles will drastically improve your load performance (I'd say 10x but its more complex than that).

2 hours ago, GameQuack.com said:

showing only a few of your best work. What would that mean from HTML5 game hobbyist/indie point of view.

Show your best stuff first, then your next best stuff. How you gauge your best stuff is harder. If you run a catalog site where people actually come to play your games (rather than a showcase that directs to somewhere else to play your stuff) then you probably want to rank by popularity rather than perceived quality.

If its a showcase for a game hobbyist or indie then you want people seeing your best work, and you'll probably want them seeing your most graphically rich content first, purely because it'll make more of an impact. If you have created a deep engaging gameplay for your new game, but its an ascii game, you're going to have to generate some hype as ascii games are niche, this might be sad but you just have to live with it.

Not to say that there is no place for your really interesting but less visually appealing games, just that it takes more marketing effort.

Showing only your best at first also helps users to digest your content is easier to swallow chunks. By all have a mechanism for viewers to see more content, or even 'archive' or 'experimental' content, but just make sure they are delivered to your most stellar content first. This is super important for a brochure site highlighting your skills.

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Quote

run a catalog site where people actually come to play your games (rather than a showcase that directs to somewhere else to play your stuff)

That's an interesting topic if you really should prefer hosting your own games or to use popular web game portals (or Facebook). I mean it's really a long shot to try to get players (and make some money) on your own domain. In practice it could mean that you really should not make a website at all, but instead try to build your games' presence completely somewhere where people are already hanging around. I hope there are some non-AAA examples to prove that incorrect :)

Yes, it seems that nowadays all successful games are good looking. That's a shame because I'm very bad at graphics.

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20 hours ago, GameQuack.com said:

Yes, it seems that nowadays all successful games are good looking

I think this has always been the case, but its not so much success as it is getting noticed and most web games (and mobile gaming) are short lived affairs so getting noticed is key to getting some play. I wouldn't say its pre-requisite for overall success, obviously Dwarf Fortress is a big name exception (not that its really a modern game!) but there are many hit iOS games with pretty poor graphics (and by hits, I mean, lots of purchases, which might not be your key metric for success but its certainly a compelling metric).

If anything I think there is a bit of shift recently, retro gaming is very popular, not that the graphics are poor per se but some designers have done a superb job at matching a lo-fi aesthetic with their gameplay. I'd also argue that the playability of a game is now far more at the fore-front of gamers, maybe more so than it has done for many many years. I'm basing this on reviews, I see many reviews (from punters) extolling the games playability or addictiveness above praising its graphics, infact, many game reviews I see mention that the graphics are crap but it doesn't matter because the game is so great anyway.

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