What counts as a HTML5 game?
Monday, June 4, 2012 - 18:41
For the purposes of the competition (which has a specific HTML5 category) what counts as a HTML5 game?
Does it have to run entirely from the browser or can it be comprised of server-side components as well (e.g. PHP scripts or cgi-bin executables for the purposes of providing data to the javascript that makes up the game)
Short answer: It can be comrpised of server-side parts too, but in order for the entry to be legal, those parts also have to be entered into the contest.
Long answer: We really only addressed HTML5 games specifically because we got a lot of questions about them. HTML5 games are legal because a true HTML5 game can be run on Free and Open Source software from the ground up. If you write a game in HTML5 (that is, HTML and modern Javascript) and do it correctly, you don't need any proprietary software to run it. For instance, you could run an HTML5 game on Firefox, running on top of a purely free and open source GNU/Linux distribution. Point is, HTML5 isn't a special exception fo the contest rules -- it fits the contest perfectly and people are interested in using it. If you have server side code, that's fine, as long as you adhere to the rules of the contest. :)
Bart
Actually I was more referring to the special category listed under the 'Prizes' section: "$1500 USD: HTML5 game prize" Not that the prize is my only reason for looking to create a HTML5 game, it's just that I felt it would be a good excuse to try out HTML5 and JavaScript since I've never used it before.
So yeah, basically; would a Javascript game that calls CGI scripts on a server count as a HTML5 game for those purposes providing all the general rules of the competition are followed (CGI script sources are GPL, runs on Apache etc.)?
I'm not sure I'll necessarily end up doing this at all, it might be easier just to pull down data as I need it, but I figured that small bits of processor-intensive stuff (e.g. random level generation) might be more suited to run on the server.
That is correct, so long as every part is released as open source and it all runs without propritary software you can have an HTML5 game talk to some php scripts that has a C backend that does some crazy calculations or whatnot. For the HTML5 only catagory the part the user interfaces with ie the GUI needs to be all in a browser window however.
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Full Steam Ahead! o/ <-- little ascii fist in the air holding a debugging hammer.
Does the game have to be written in javascript or can it be written in a language that compiles to javascript such as Coffeescript or Google Dart?
If you can take the original source code and compile and run the game without using any non-Free software, then it's legal. I don't offhand know enough about Coffeescript or Google Dart to answer that for those two cases, but maybe someone else can.