The internet has become extremely commonplace today, with more and more people being connected online everyday. The beginning of the internet experience for most people involves the use of a browser, and thus you will often see them playing browser games as they stumble upon these sites, or by specifically searching for games to play on their computers and mobile devices. There is a huge variety of browser games available, across every possible genre, from sports to action to puzzles to strategy to adventure and even online versions of regular games such as online poker, online roulette, online chess and so on. It is therefore quite interesting to understand how these games work, since the programs and code that goes into these is very often used elsewhere as well.

Most, if not all browser games, run on HTML, CSS and JavaScript, while WebGL is used for more sophisticated graphics. One of the advantages of browser-based games is that the game does not have to be installed on the device, which makes it quicker and easier to run. However, this also means that these games are usually simpler and have much inferior graphics to dedicated games, since they are downloaded by the browser for use through temporary files, which cannot be too large, otherwise they would defeat the purpose of the game. The early to mid 1990s saw the emergence of various websites for dedicated browser gaming, which hosted multiple games across categories and genres, as the popularity of the Internet exploded and it became more commonplace. Java began to be used as the software of choice to write these games, while Macromedia Flash, which later became Adobe Flash when Adobe bought Macromedia in 2005, soon became extremely popular as well. Flash-based games were extremely common by the mid-2000s, but then declined, with Flash Player having been discontinued by Adobe in December 2020.

In general, browser games today largely operate on HTML due to the discontinuation of Flash. The use of WebGL is important for games that want to have better graphics, as it allows them to use the client’s graphics processing unit (GPU). For example, if I am playing a game that is using WebGL on my browser, that game will use my computer’s GPU to load and render its graphics, which will allow it to be much more detailed than other browser games, as even the most basic GPU will support better graphics than those seen in standard browser games. The gaming industry has also benefited from this, as the early movement towards independent games, or indie games in the late 2000s took place on browsers, which was a huge step away from the standard approach where huge studios made the best games with multi-million dollar budgets. Flash and HTML games gave a lot of indie game makers their start in the industry, while now we see several examples of excellent browser games that are also being monetized for their creators.

The biggest advantage of browser games is that they can be played anywhere and at any time, regardless of your device’s operating system and specifications. Obviously there are many tools to choose from when working with HTML5 games, so there is no true linear path. For the most part, web games are rendered on PlayCanvas for 3D games or Phaser for 2D. Browser vendors are now working on fast rendering engines, but Unity has quickly become a huge staple for web game developers. Both Unity and Unreal now offer the ability to export games for the web. Other than engines, there are some interesting editors and plugins that make it possible to speed up the development process. For instance, with tools like CocoonJS, developers can package the game and publish it on the AppStore or Google Play. One code base can be reused to make builds for all types of platforms and marketplaces.