Plan for Josh Ritter
by Prairie Games · 11/17/2004 (11:55 pm) · 0 comments
I created a thread for this, though it's in a forum that many may not be subscribed to... I figured it was interesting enough to merit a .plan... I turned off comments here to centralize the actual discussion in the thread...
... a continuation of this .plan
Holy crap!!!
Over the past few days, I have been increasingly blown away by the Mozilla Project. Especially the Gecko Runtime Environment, which is the minimum set of files required for embedding the Gecko browsing engine. This is the same rendering engine as used in Firefox and Mozilla... Gecko is cross platform and 100% legal to redistribute.
A couple important points about embedding Gecko:
1) You don't need to install/upgrade a browser/extensions on the user's box... it's integrated with your application.... and as you KNOW you're using Gecko, you can play specifically to Gecko's tremendous strengths... (XUL, etc)
2) Ignoring web technology could leave you in the dust... we're counting on the web to distribute our games... there's a ton of tech and tools to use in actually making your (cross-platform) product too!!!
I have been doing work with embedded Gecko and I'll say this: It's extremely solid. We are talking grade AAA web technology here folks... HTML rendering, Javascript, XML, DOM, XUL, etc, etc, etc... it comes fully loaded...
Macromedia Flash and Shockwave
One thing I have been EXTREMELY keen on for many years is using Flash/Shockwave for game menus and HUDS... I've done some fullscreen tests with this and I am completely 100% sold that this is the way to go... for anyone living under a rock, here's a nice example of some flash stuff http://www.terminator3.com... the movie sucked, the flash site is pretty cool... You can pack a whole lot of interactive goodness in Flash/Shockwave files... Great for download sizes too!
This is a snip from an email I just received from Macromedia:
... and here's a little more information:
Prairie Games, Inc is investing heavily in solid Gecko support for our games... this brings a host of wonderful technology and layout tools for us to use... the key is to make your application talk with all this stuff... well, check out XPCom and friends...
I have so much more to say, but I really have to get back to work...
-Josh Ritter
Technical Director
Prairie Games, Inc
... a continuation of this .plan
Holy crap!!!
Over the past few days, I have been increasingly blown away by the Mozilla Project. Especially the Gecko Runtime Environment, which is the minimum set of files required for embedding the Gecko browsing engine. This is the same rendering engine as used in Firefox and Mozilla... Gecko is cross platform and 100% legal to redistribute.
A couple important points about embedding Gecko:
1) You don't need to install/upgrade a browser/extensions on the user's box... it's integrated with your application.... and as you KNOW you're using Gecko, you can play specifically to Gecko's tremendous strengths... (XUL, etc)
2) Ignoring web technology could leave you in the dust... we're counting on the web to distribute our games... there's a ton of tech and tools to use in actually making your (cross-platform) product too!!!
I have been doing work with embedded Gecko and I'll say this: It's extremely solid. We are talking grade AAA web technology here folks... HTML rendering, Javascript, XML, DOM, XUL, etc, etc, etc... it comes fully loaded...
Macromedia Flash and Shockwave
One thing I have been EXTREMELY keen on for many years is using Flash/Shockwave for game menus and HUDS... I've done some fullscreen tests with this and I am completely 100% sold that this is the way to go... for anyone living under a rock, here's a nice example of some flash stuff http://www.terminator3.com... the movie sucked, the flash site is pretty cool... You can pack a whole lot of interactive goodness in Flash/Shockwave files... Great for download sizes too!
This is a snip from an email I just received from Macromedia:
Quote:Congratulations! We have received and approved your licensing request to
distribute the Macromedia Shockwave Player (includes the Macromedia Flash
Player).
... and here's a little more information:
Quote:Both Macromedia Flash Player and Shockwave Player are also free to software developers who wish to distribute them on CD-ROM. In addition, software developers may distribute Macromedia web players through the Internet to end users (only if the web player is embedded in the licensee's installer which, in turn, is downloaded from the Internet). Macromedia requires specific marketing consideration in exchange for either of these methods of distribution, described more fully in the Macromedia Flash Player and Shockwave Player License and Distribution Agreement.
Prairie Games, Inc is investing heavily in solid Gecko support for our games... this brings a host of wonderful technology and layout tools for us to use... the key is to make your application talk with all this stuff... well, check out XPCom and friends...
I have so much more to say, but I really have to get back to work...
-Josh Ritter
Technical Director
Prairie Games, Inc
