Love the idea. Ever since I played Dreams on PS4, I’ve been curious about collaborative game development interfaces.
Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
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Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#12Looks very cool, just kinda hard getting started Maybe you could have a little walkthrough of how to build a mini game with it?
Thanks.
The current method of building a game is the same as the walkthrough for building an app[1], except you make a custom view and override its draw method. For higher performance, you can create an OffscreenCanvas and draw into it however you want. There's no API to wrap WebGL2 more conveniently than this yet.
I definitely should and will wirte a guide that takes you from nothing to a full fledged game. But right now, the guides are all geared towards making apps, since before we can make games, we need to make gamemaker tools, like spritemakers and mapmakers.
Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#13Congrats on shipping! Based on https://90s.dev/getting-started/hello-world.html , it seems like JSX meets pico8. Is that a decent description?
Thanks! Well, kind of. The JSX is mostly for making the apps that comprise gamemaker components, like pico8's spritemaker and mapmaker tabs. Once those apps are made, you can use them to make game assets. But those apps run in the same canvas that games would run in. A mapmaker and a game would use the same GUI for drawing into the canvas. But a game would probably create a single View and override its draw method to draw most of the game, though it could use JSX to build up the views that comprise game panels like Minecraft's inventory views.
Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#14I think it little bit hard to start getting started
Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#15I can't say I fully understand what this is / the capabilities, but man I love the aesthetic. It's interesting how an aesthetic can make an emotional impact and draw a lot more interest.
Thanks! Explaining stuff is so hard! In fact, this entire article is just me trying to explain what this is in the shortest way possible. Maybe the shortest version is: 90s.dev is an API around a 320x180 web canvas, designed specifically for making games and game maker tools, with sharing capabilities built-in, and an innovative GUI for making game maker tools quickly and easily. No, that's still too vague. I give up…
I would put your text under "Welcome to 90s.dev." If possible, I would further simplify it. I took a stab at it below but I am no marketer (or a game maker),
90s.dev simplifies making games and tooling for game creators via:
- an expressive API around a 320×180 web canvas,
- built-in sharing capabilities,
- an innovative GUI.
Each bullet would link to a relevant part of the documentation. I think you also need a page with examples.
Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#16I can't say I fully understand what this is / the capabilities, but man I love the aesthetic. It's interesting how an aesthetic can make an emotional impact and draw a lot more interest.
I like the aesthetic, but 16:9 and 90s computing together is just wrong.
The back breaking not quite square trinitron monsters were the best.
Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#17Love the idea. Ever since I played Dreams on PS4, I’ve been curious about collaborative game development interfaces.
Collaboration has always been one of my favorite things.
Shortly after starting this project, the focus began to center around making sure users could create first-class apps and libraries and easily find and use them in their own creations. Much of the API evolved around supporting this idea.
Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#18Love it, and congrats on shipping! I might be missing something but your pitch would be a 10x better launch if I could find some basic demo games developed with the engine, unless I just didn't look in the right place. Looking forward to the next update!
Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#19Do you have a video walkthrough of how this works?
Re: Show HN: 90s.dev – Game maker that runs on the web
#20I can't say I fully understand what this is / the capabilities, but man I love the aesthetic. It's interesting how an aesthetic can make an emotional impact and draw a lot more interest.
I like the aesthetic, but 16:9 and 90s computing together is just wrong. The back breaking not quite square trinitron monsters were the best.
I chose 320 x 180 because of Animal Well. In fact, the whole app was originally conceived as a way for me to make an Animal Well style game, but more conveniently than using Pico8 (Billy Basso implied once that he used Pico8 to prototype Animal Well before moving to C++). I still think 320 x 180 is the right size for both games and game makers.
For example, here's a very early (mostly broken) prototype of 90s.dev
Because of 320x180, it can fit the code editor and the mapmaker or spritemaker on the screen at once, and each tab is big enough to be usable.