About the Authors
Colt McAnlis is a Developer Advocate at Google, focusing on games and performance. Before that, he was a systems and graphics programmer in the games industry working at Blizzard, Microsoft (Ensemble), and Petroglyph. He’s a UDACITY course professor for HTML5 games, and he also spent four years as an Adjunct Professor at SMU Guildhall’s school for game development. When he’s not working with developers, Colt spends his time preparing for an invasion of giant ants from outer space.
Peter Lubbers is a Program Manager in the Google Developer Relations team, focused on scalable developer programs. He is the author of Pro HTML5 Programming (2nd Ed. Apress, 2011) and the founder of the San Francisco HTML5 User Group (SFHTML5), the largest HTML5 User Group in the world with over 10,000 members. Prior to joining Google, Peter headed up the HTML5 training division at Kaazing. A native of the Netherlands, Peter served as a Special Forces commando in the Royal Dutch Green Berets. Peter lives on the edge of the Tahoe National Forest and in his spare time he loves to run around Lake Tahoe. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterlubbers.
Brandon Jones works on Chrome’s WebGL implementation at Google, and he is a big advocate of WebGL in any form. After taking a web development job ten years ago before eagerly moving on to “real programming,” he came to his senses and now gleefully spends any time that he’s not hacking on Chrome or building 3D things in JavaScript or Dart.
Duncan Tebbs is a Senior Software Engineer at Turbulenz Limited, developing technology to allow developers to bring high quality game content to the Web. He has previously held roles at Electronic Arts, NaturalMotion, and Square-Enix, where he has worked on various games technology and research projects.
Andrzej Manzur is an HTML5 game developer; founder of the Enclave Games indie development studio, which is focused on mobile HTML5 games; creator of the js13kGames competition; and Gamedev.js Meetups organizer. He’s a front-end developer and JavaScript programmer, active blogger and conference speaker, HTML5 games evangelist, and a huge fan of the Firefox OS. In his free time, he loves playing Neuroshima Hex, eating sushi, running around with a paintball marker, and driving go-karts, plus everything SciFi/post-apo/cyberpunk related.
Sean Bennett is a Software Engineer at Crowdtilt, and he is passionate about using the Web as a platform for awesome, immersive experiences. Sean’s background is in web development and developer education. When he isn’t working on building a better Web, Sean likes running, hiking, and preparing for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
Florian d’Erfurth is a new game developer who’s been doing freelance web development for the last five years. In early 2013, he won the Udacity HTML5 Game Development contest, and ever since he’s been obsessed with JavaScript and its performance so that he can deliver ubiquitous gaming experiences. Florian is currently working on Foxes and Shotguns, a video game featuring wererabbits.
Bruno Garcia is co-founder at 2DKit, helping developers build cross-platform games. Before that, he engineered browser and mobile games at Three Rings and Zynga. He is a member of the Haxe compiler team, contributes to the Flump open source project, and writes the occasional game on the side. His favorite color is #202020.
Shun Lin is the founder of the Cocos2d-HTML5 open source game engine and a Senior Technical Director at ChuKong, where he focuses on creating a cross-browser and cross-platform game engine. He spends most of his time on improving the performance and compatibility of mobile web games. Shun is also the co-founder of the Cocos2d-x game engine, working alongside the “x-men” to bring JavaScript Binding to Cocos2d-x, which provides developers an easy way to publish their HTML5 games as native apps with very little or no change to their existing code.
Ivan Popelyshev is an MMO game developer and founder of Matroid Games, a company that focuses on real-time and massively multiplayer games. He’s passionate about HTML5 cutting edge technologies, building game servers and sports programming. During his career, he won the ACM as well as other contests, and he participated in many well-known competition finals, including TopCoder 2013. Previously, he worked at Wargaming and Yandex, where he supported the Russian sports programming community.
Jason Gauci is a Research Scientist at Apple. Prior to joining Apple, Jason worked in the labs of Google Research and Lockheed Martin Applied Research, focusing on behavior prediction and predictive analytics. Jason is the lead developer for several netplay-enabled emulators, including MAMEHub, NES Together, and SNES Together. He also co-hosts the Programming Throwdown podcast.
Jon Howard is the Executive Product Manager for Future Development at the BBC (CBBC & CBeebies). In this role, he works closely with interactive/TV producers, user experience designers, the BBC Research and Development department, and many of the world’s best digital agencies to promote innovation and set strategy for the games portfolio on the UK’s most successful children’s web sites. Over the years, Jon has designed, developed, and served as tech lead on many hugely successful games for major UK and international childrens’ brands, including Tree Fu Tom, Scooby Doo, Rastamouse, Shaun the Sheep, Charlie & Lola, Dick & Dom, Horrible Histories, Sarah Jane Adventures, Scorpion Island, and many more. Jon takes a keen interest in game design developments. He is a creative coder, a prolific game prototyper, and an enthusiastic mathematician/statistician with a great passion for BBC Children, rich media, innovation, and technology.
Ian Ballantyne is a Software Engineer at Turbulenz, developing HTML5 games, tools, and technology. He is responsible for managing the Turbulenz Engine and SDK. He is all too aware of the complex details of delivering high-fidelity 3D games to the web platform. Having worked with indie developers, small studios, and large publishers, he knows a thing or two about helping game developers make the best use of new technologies. When he’s not giving talks on high performance HTML5 games, he’s involved in their creation, making them run on anything from desktops to mobile devices. By day he is a mild-mannered software engineer; by night he is a rogue coder, hacking away at secret projects and game jams. Prior to Turbulenz, he worked at Philips Electronics on a gaming/lighting technology known as amBX. A graduate of Imperial College London, Ian is still glad to be putting his Masters of Engineering in Computing to practical use.
Jesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. He is an active leader in New York’s developer community. For more than 13 years, Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development, focused on the web and mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy, and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in Art with a Masters in Interactive Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts. He can be found on Twitter at @jessefreeman. Jesse also speaks at conferences and does workshops, which you can learn about on his web site, http://jessefreeman.com.
Takuo Kihira is the HTML5 Manager and Chief Engineer at DeNA, and he specializes in JavaScript and HTML5 development for mobile platforms. Takuo created the HTML5 Flash Player Pex, which is distributed by DeNA free of charge. Takuo is a serial entrepreneur who has started two companies.
Tyler Smith is the HTML5 Game Evangelist at Intel, focusing on helping the HTML5 game developer community grow. He has participated in numerous app and game development hackathons, both as a speaker and facilitator. Tyler was also the project manager and lead developer of Boom Town, an HTML5 game that was deployed on more than seven platforms with a single code base. He is also the founder and CTO of LocalGhost Media, a small HTML5 development studio. All opinions expressed in the chapter he wrote for this book are his and his alone. They do not reflect the opinion of his employers.
Don Olmstead is a Senior Software Engineer at Sony Network Entertainment, working on the underlying web platform for PlayStation hardware. On the native side, he advances the browser, supporting the rendering bits. For the application side, he develops the rendering engine, built using WebGL, which provides the backbone for the Playstation Store, and portions of the UX on the PS4. He is interested in how the Web can be leveraged by game developers as a target platform.
John McCutchan is a Software Engineer at Google working on the Dart Virtual Machine. While an undergraduate, John created inotify, the Linux kernel filesystem event notification system used in every Linux distribution and Android phone. After receiving a M.Sc. in Computer Science from McMaster University, John joined Sony Computer Entertainment of America, where he optimized the Bullet Physics library for the PlayStation 3. In 2013, John created a highly-performant SIMD programming model for dynamically compiled languages, such as Dart and JavaScript.
Chad Austin is a Senior Technical Director at IMVU, where he focuses on client application structure and the web platform. When he’s not in meetings or evangelizing technical strategy, he likes to get his hands dirty—demonstrating what is possible and shaving milliseconds off critical execution paths as well. In a previous life, he wrote a 2D RPG game engine still in use today.
Mario Andrés Pagella is the founder of Warsteed Studios, an independent HTML5 game development studio, and he is also a Technical Project Leader at R/GA. He has authored Making Isometric Social Real-Time Games with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript and HTML5 Transition and Animation, and he advocates the use of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for game development through his web site, Twitter account, and in meetups and events.