Forget the PS5, I’ve got a PDF 2.0

Creating PDF-based video games

Remember when you used to get manuals with video games? We all lament the loss of those manuals (at least I do), but imagine if the manual was the game? After decades of dominating the document and printing industry, it is time for PDF to branch out into the gaming industry. I want to introduce you to the world's first PDF-based video games. Am I just embedding flash files? Nope! I'm using PDF constructs and syntax to create a truly interactive and immersive document.

In this talk I'll go through the iterative process of creating games in PDF. As you might expect, there are many technical hurdles to overcome and game development specific issues to solve; for example, how would you capture and process user input? The solutions to these issues might seem unorthodox, but they get the job done.

The result of this exercise is the "official release" of 2 PDF games which will make you think again about what you can do with PDF.

Slides download: https://pdfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/GameDev-in-PDF.pptx