Gamedev.js Weekly #115

Articles

WebGL matures into a commercial-ready technology
This article discusses how our WebGL version of Heroes of Paragon turned out to be a commercial success.
Vincent Vergonjeanne at Medium

Yahoo Games is shutting down
Yahoo Games, the once-hopping online game hub best known for its simulacrum of classic board and card games, is shutting down.
Jake Muncy at Wired

Subverting player expectation
I will discuss how in games we can alter mechanics and gameplay to make the game engaging and to keep it from becoming predictable.
Pete Ellis at Gamasutra

The top 5 ways mobile developers are chasing away their own players
Taking the stage at GDC 2016's jam-packed Smartphone and Tablet Games Summit, UserTesting's VP of Product Marketing Michael Mace's talk is a cautionary one.
Matt Suckley at Pocket Gamer

Mozilla pushes the web to new levels as a platform for games
Powerful new capabilities continue to emerge and gain mindshare with developers and gamers alike as the open Web games stack reaches ubiquity.
David Bryant at The Mozilla Blog

Crytek unveils CryEngine V at GDC 2016
Crytek has now announced a new version of its videogame development engine, CryEngine V at GDC 2016.
Peter Graham at VR Focus

What not to do when promoting your game on Twitch
The stream was not a failure by any means, but there were a lot of things we wish we knew ahead of time.
Ryan Sligh at Gamasutra

The logistics of world building: algebra for fantasy writers
There are days—horrible, dark days—when I end up doing more algebra than writing. You remember those word problems from high school?
Brian Staveley at Tor

John Carmack told us what makes Minecraft VR so special
Minecraft for Samsung’s Gear VR is happening, and here’s the weird part: there’s no official announcement.
Matt Peckham at Time

Tutorials

How to procedurally generate a dungeon in Phaser – part 1
You can procedurally generate levels using an algorithm instead of a level designer. This results in a virtually infinite number of levels.
Renan Oliveira at GameDev Academy

Manage leaderboards in your HTML5 game with App42 Cloud API
When it comes to engage users to keep playing your game, there’s nothing better than leaderboards and achievements.
Emanuele Feronato's blog

Events

Games and 3D in JavaScript - Israel meetup

Competitions

AirConsole HTML5 Game Contest 2016 - ends this weekend

Tools

RasterizeHTML.js - draw a page, HTML string or document to the Canvas

Phaser Input plugin - add input boxes to Phaser

Resources

Braid graphics briefcase

16GB of high quality sound effects from Sonniss

Games

VEmpire - The Kings of Darkness on Greenlight