A look inside Rawkets - onGameStart 2011

I’ve spent the past few days in Poland attending onGameStart, the first large-scale HTML5 gaming conference. On the second day of the event I was invited to talk about Rawkets and some of the issues that I encountered during its development. In this entry I will share the materials and resources related to that talk.

I've spent the past few days in Poland attending onGameStart, the first large-scale HTML5 gaming conference. On the second day of the event I was invited to talk about Rawkets and some of the issues that I encountered during its development. In this entry I will share the materials and resources related to that talk.

In general, I thought onGameStart was a fantastic event considering that it is one of the first of its kind. I also found it refreshing to attend an event like this outside of the US and UK.

My favourite part of the 2-days was meeting the other speakers and attendees and the resulting discussions surrounding gaming techniques and the problems that we need to solve together.

I can safely say that if you're into HTML5 and JavaScript gaming then I highly recommend attending next year's onGameStart event.

Video

The talk was recorded and I'll update this entry when the video is published online by the organisers.

Slides

My feedback

Large audience (at least 250, perhaps over 300)
Round seminar room gave an intimate feeling
Audience were comfortable asking questions during and after the talk
Only issues with AV were a slightly blurry projector and no sound
- Audio and video were recorded
- Audio was clear and problem-free, although speakers had to hold a microphone as there were no lapel mics available
Great discussion with attendees about the talk and related issues
General feeling of inspiration as a result of the 2-day event

Resources

Rawkets - my multiplayer space shooter
Technologies
- Canvas for 2D graphics
- WebSockets for network communication
- Node.js for JavaScript on the server
  - Socket.IO WebSockets module
- MongoDB & Redis for server-side storage
Using BISON as a binary version of JSON
Sending Volatile messages with Socket.IO
Creating a custom namespace using the JavaScript Patterns book by Stoyan Stefanov
Glen Fiedler's implementation of client prediction
Valve's documentation about client prediction
Using Monit and Forever to keep your game server up and running after a crash
Using hook.io to docouple your game logic and increase stability
JavaScript touch-based control system for iOS by Seb Lee-Delisle