That's cool. Looks like it's using Flambe as well. [0]<p>Myself and a friend worked for Nick a few years back helping build out some of the HTML5 game concepts. We prototyped different games using various engines (PlayN, etc) and ended up along with some other contractors on Haxe-based Flambe as the best choice for HTML5. We actually launched a couple of games [1][2], though a lot of our work ended up internal-only.<p>When we started, the iPad 1 was still considered a current browser. The performance on that device was abysmal. When the iPad 2 and newer versions of iOS came around, we finally had access to accelerated <canvas> and could really start making things work.<p>The other things we prototyped for Nick were in-game video and multiplayer gaming. The in-game video was pretty bad for cross-browser support. In the end, Flambe gave us a tool (Flump) that had the ability to import from Flash animations that was significantly better than trying to force iPads and Android devices to play video reliably and consistently.<p>Multiplayer support was the least painful new ground we worked on -- using engine.io and Redis on the backend we were able to scale to tens of thousands of simultaneous users without spending too much on EC2. For the most part it "just worked".<p>If there's one lesson I learned from this experience, it's that developing games for existing properties is tough work. There are so many stakeholders that things take forever to get done. Considering the value of the properties, this isn't surprising.<p>The second lesson would be that HTML5 is moving so fast that you'll probably have to rebuild your games every few months to support all of the changes that are happening in the space. Most of the games we launched a little more than a year ago are already starting to bitrot.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/aduros/flambe" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/aduros/flambe</a><p>[1] <a href="http://www.nick.com/games/spongebob-squarepants-spongebob-squared-multiplayer.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nick.com/games/spongebob-squarepants-spongebob-sq...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.nick.com/games/data/korra/korra-pai-sho/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nick.com/games/data/korra/korra-pai-sho/</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.nick.com/games/kca-2013-multiplayer-trivia.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nick.com/games/kca-2013-multiplayer-trivia.html</a> (no longer there -- probably our most polished release)
I really don't understand why it's so critically important we teach our children how to write the next generation of photosharing apps for cats, to the point that we're urging them to do it in all forms of mass media and culture. I can understand trying to get children interested in STEM fields in general, but why does our society direly need mass quantities of programmers in particular? Executives like to talk of "shortages" when they have to pay their workers more than they like, but in reality this meme, <i>and it is a meme</i>, makes no sense whatsoever.
Geraldine Laybourne, who built/ran Nickelodeon for 15+ years, recently joined BetaWorks' board [1]. She also started Kandu, which is an iPad app that helps students learn to make games [2].<p>Not sure if there's a direction connection to the Nick.co.uk efforts, but definitely interesting.<p>[1] <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/media-queen-gerry-laybourne-joins-betaworks-board/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/media-queen-gerry-laybourne...</a>
[2] <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/18/kandu-is-an-ipad-app-that-teaches-kids-how-to-make-ipad-apps-no-coding-required/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/18/kandu-is-an-ipad-app-that-t...</a>
Shouldn't there be more of a narrative to this?<p>What is the goal? I could see kids clicking on stuff for a few minutes, lose interest and close it.