js13k - Release Day

The js13k contest finishes tomorrow at 2pm and I have a busy day so I have just submitted my final version of which I am very proud.

I have used 12 400 bytes of the 13 416 available and a lot of programming time.

You can play the game here.

This is the original list of features I wanted in my first post with my comments about how it went in bold

• old-school arcade game feel - I am really happy with the moon patrol vibes; not so close to the old games as to be called a copy but very reminiscent.
• subtle narrative - This part worked out really well for me - I like the use of the generated but structured levels and the techno-babble text to tell the story. This is the first game I've made with a proper narrative and I'm very satisfied with the way it came out.
• over and under the sea - both looks very cool as I hoped it would and adds a lot more game play because of the different handling of the avatar
• ascii art -  This worked out well - I especially love the cows.
• chip-tunes - Never got to this, I seriously doubt given more time I could have packed it into the 13k - but I'm still so keen to write a chip tunes generator.
• sound effects  - Got engine noises and lots of cool retro jump and explosion noises. Also the sound on the ticker tape text console is really cool.
• type out mission control texty stuff with good copy  - This feature turned into almost all the interface; inter-level screens; title screens and its use during game play. Similarly the techy language worked really well.
• analytics - I wrote this feature (and got it to repress browser console errors if offline) but after querying it with the contest organisers I had to take it out as they consider this an external dependency (and thus illegal).

As ever source is available and free in both senses here.

js13k - a week to go..

More or less now is a week before the js13k deadline. My cargo-72 is coming along looking along.
I currently have the first 5 levels working pretty well - it has cows and jellyfish; and some rolling hills. I have also implemented touch screen controls which although currently not working well enough to play with are a good start and enough to at least let me test that the game is playable on my mid-range phone and low-powered tablet.

So excepting sound and music the game is mostly feature complete, mostly it needs levels and narrative content - the current zipped size is ~8500 bytes so I'm still doing okay.

Here is my latest demo. it isn't really mobile device ready yet but it kind of works.

js13k - Day 20 - Is it a game?

I've been working hard on my creation and at the moment the to do list looks very long but at least I have something sort of playable with an interface that I am pretty happy with (for desktop anyway).

You can play the first two levels of cargo-72 here.

js13k - half way today - Getting Prettier

Today is the mid-point of the js13k contest time. I have been adding features and generally prettying my idea up.

I had hoped to have a fully playable level of the game by this point but I am still a day or two away from that - so a bit late but not very late. My current zip file size if 5296 bytes.

I have added a slew of new features

• Base buildings and towers
• New cargo-72 avatar - more robotic; more bright; more solid
• New transparent gradient fill to change the tone of the ocean water with altitude
• Ability to load cargo and carry cargo on the buggy

So here my latest demo - you can drive with A,D and space - you can go all the way right and load up the standard weight cargo and then return in reverse.

js13K - Day 13 - More Cargo-72!

A few more days, a few more features:

• Parallax background layer with it's own styling
• independantly rotating wheels
• curves and slopes; hillocks and dells
• The buggy can jump
•  All new text console which displays messages to the user

It's slowly coming along then - currently it's not very pretty but the hard parts are falling into place. After closure and zip the count is at 4,026 bytes - so far so good.

My latest demo can be played here - use A and D to move and <space> to jump.

js13K - Day 11 - Cargo-72

Suddenly my js13k project seems to be coming on a little better - I seem to have the beginnings of a little game:

• Terrain generation that gives me more or less randomness/control in different sections
• regex styling functionality that makes the text art look cool by styling some characters differently
• A buggy with independently rotating wheels controlled by keyboard, with different dynamics forwards and backwards
• Physics for bouncing and ramping on the uneven terrain
• Collision detection

After you google closure and then zip all of this you get 3.14kb - that seems pretty good to me at this point.

You can play the demo here  - use A and D to control the buggy.

js13K Day 8 - A Name and a Bit of a Demo

I haven't had an easy week (or perhaps it was too easy) and so haven;t put a lot of time into the game.

I rapidly established that very wide (4000+ characters) spans were never going to work on mobile devices - so I've developed a system that breaks the levels into vertical panels so that I can add and remove then from the DOM dynamically to keep the bits the browser has to render to a minimum.

I also decided on a name 'CARGO-72' of which I am very fond.

Here is a demo of the terrain modelling of a typical long level.

js13kgames Day 3 - Design Docs

I've got other priorities this weekend but I promised to post the design docs I've been working on. I played Moon Patrol a lot when I was less than 12 years old - these designs and the general aesthetic I wish to invoke owe a direct debt to that game.

On paper...

And some details copied from my documentation:

Game consists of 10+ short missions. Each mission involves going over the terrain twice once forwards in the buggy’s best mode then backwards in the buggy’s weaker mode.

Ascii art to generate stuff - only the ‘solid world’ will have a strict Scale and orientation - everything else will use a rectilinear bounding box but be free to use altered scales and changing rotation.

The game is 2D with parrellax backgrounds.

Missions will be randomly generated from mission decks.

Controls: faster/slower + jump + fire + weapon rotate

Features:

• old-school arcade game feel
• subtle narrative
• over and under the sea
• ascii art
• chip-tunes
• sound effects
• type out mission control texty stuff with good copy
• analytics

js13kGames Day 2 - Working on reversed

Yesterday was the start of the js13kgames.com contest; the theme for this year is 'Reversed'.

The idea for the contest is that you have 30 days to scratch write a HTML5 based game that ships in under 13kb total zipped size. For the non-technical that is a very small amount of stuff to organize into a game.

I completed last year with Strata; of which I am proud but had to write in under 10 days because of my own travel plans.

This year I have much higher ambitions. I want to make a complete if not particularly original game. For me complete means all of these: good game-play - playable for significant lengths of time, player development and skill, polished visual look, sound effects, chip-tune music and a sense of narrative progress.

All of that in 13kb - the text is this post is about 6% of 13kb.

I've got a pretty plan - will publish my sketches tomorrow.