Got some more sound effects; got some more levels; a pretty new level display and 11 out of 13 levels complete!
BUT am currently sitting at 12.7kb / 13kb - very close to the limits! I've got to create two more levels and have a few details to fill in but here is a demo 3 days before the deadline.
Finally getting to a form of the game that has some substance and overcome most of my most serious technical hurdles:
a) WebXR interface: Made all this work although I had a little trouble with the emulators. You can enter the game as an XR session with appropriate hardware - I have look to select so that if you look at an object for a bit it gets clicked with a sweet little torus as UI. I also implemented some rotation controls for the puzzle in the VR world (look down a bit to find them) - they could use some work aesthetically but they're functional. Also you can fast select using triggers or buttons (if your hardware has buttons) and rotate the world using the joysticks (if your hardware has joysticks). I've played through the game with my 'cardboard' headset so I know it can be played with the oldest hardware!
b) Level selection and switching between levels.
So it's beginning to look like a game - here is a demo with 5 levels implemented. I'm not sure these levels will be my final versions we'll see how we go.
Lots of work going on on the game:
Did a bit of late night vibe coding for sound effects - interesting and successful. I had to refactor the chatGPT code to make i) better and ii) more js13k compatible but most of the basic ideas and sound engineering stuff (filters / distortion etc) was new to me - so it helped me make good progress in very little time.
Here is a little demo of some sound effects for the game.
Been a busy weekend - lots of new work.
On the windchimes side I'm really getting somewhere - this demo has easy working access to all kinds of windchimes tuned by culture and soundscape - I think it's pretty cool and the general topic of culture and musical keys is really interesting. I'm happy for this as a background soundscape solution for different levels.
On the game side I made a couple of extra pieces: a rotational ring thing that goes round and round; a static cat platform; the ability to draw text in the world on signs ; and I finally made a cat!
I'm not really happy with the cat shape (bull-terrier-shape?) nor the implementation and I hope I'll have time to do it again. However I am pleased with the generated fur textures, the eyes and ears, and the ability to make different cat-coats (although the tabby pattern is a bit weird still).
The system can also generate different levels from a level factory and has a 'wake the cat' success outcome (which just logs to console so far). So I'm getting there, but it's day 16 so I'd better be!
So here is a demo of the latest 'test level' with a whole whack of different objects.
The big outstanding technical hurdles are: VR hardware integration (I've got a pretty good idea how to do this but there is time, technicality and work here); design for another 10+ levels (long, hard, detailed work); sound FX for moving bits and the cat (no idea; but hope to mostly vibe code it with the Web Audio API); and setting up a tool chain for compression (I've done it before how hard can it be?).
So far so good but my other life is looking busy!
Got the movement and some mechanical pieces for my new game.
This demo shows my piston like piece (three state expansion), a simple moving needle and an static cat basket.
The pistons demo how pieces can be attached to each other; and the needles are set up to test the detection of collisions between objects (which causes them to 'bounce back'), finally the system of passing through clicks allows the basket to activate the needle beneath it. All important bits for my game.
Still no cat though!
Have been getting some work done on basic elements for my puzzle game - here is a demo showing a cat basket and some pointy knitting needles - all textures generated using canvases at run time and the bump textures looking pretty good.
So no actual games yet but a working camera, lighting and world.
All my previous attempts at js13k have been pretty weak in the audio department - I rarely play games with sound on and it's always a problem with the 13kb limit (no samples so everything sounds a bit chip-tuney).
This year in order to break this streak I thought I spend some time on it early. My game 'O' had a beautiful, haunting soundtrack (not made by me) which might best be described as ambient, dreamy piano - just the sort of thing I love.
For my new abstract game I was hoping for something in the same spirit; but generated by algorithm. I had in mind the quiet ambient sounds that a large, well tuned windchime might make (if you hate windchimes you've probably only heard the small, tinkling badly tuned type). With that in mind I set up a little demo of a set of Pentatonic chimes here. I'm kinda liking it and think it might take me a long way towards background sound. You can play with it here if you like.
The time has rolled around for a new js13k games - it started while I wasn't watching a couple of days ago but I had planned to enter this year.
The theme is Black Cat which appeals to me - I've entered almost every category over the years but never their 3D webVR section so I thought that is what I'll do this year.
It has been more than a decade since I used Three.js which it a tribute to flexibility and maintainability of that project.
But the last time I did use it I made one of my favourite games ever called 'O' - this non-verbal non-text puzzle games was a really cute and efficient piece of programming and I'd like to set up a similair abstract puzzle games for js13k this year - I think I'll call it 'Wake the Cat'.
