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Show HN: I spent two years working on an HTML5 game. I finally released it

ektomarch.com

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Re: Show HN: I spent two years working on an HTML5 game. I finally released it

#11

Post by leephillips »

fiblye wrote: post #5
mgkimsal wrote: post #2

is it really B&W? was that a stylistic choice only, or are there some performance benefits? some of the artwork reminds me a lot of Yellow Submarine stuff.

Full black and white, yes. My original reason was that I'm not at all good at working with color, and especially not creating colored sprites. By sticking with black and white I could easily draw images with my tablet and modify them pixel by pixel to look sharp. I eventually came to like the look, so I suppose it's also stylistic. It wasn't intentionally done for any sort of performance reason, but oddly enough, it…

I think the B&W contributes to the intriguing visual style.

Re: Show HN: I spent two years working on an HTML5 game. I finally released it

#15

Post by Vekz »

fiblye wrote: post #5
mgkimsal wrote: post #2

is it really B&W? was that a stylistic choice only, or are there some performance benefits? some of the artwork reminds me a lot of Yellow Submarine stuff.

Full black and white, yes. My original reason was that I'm not at all good at working with color, and especially not creating colored sprites. By sticking with black and white I could easily draw images with my tablet and modify them pixel by pixel to look sharp. I eventually came to like the look, so I suppose it's also stylistic. It wasn't intentionally done for any sort of performance reason, but oddly enough, it…

I think the black and white is a great atmospheric choice. It reminds me of Frank Miller's Sin City. Also from the video I got a bit of feel of Metriod 2 on the GameBoy. Which was B&W and had a very creepy subterranean feel.

You could present color in a future sequel or expansion and even use it as a plot device.

Re: Show HN: I spent two years working on an HTML5 game. I finally released it

#17

Post by mikeknoop »

tayl0r wrote: post #12

Knowing what you do now, with the memories of the terrible bugs you had to work through due to Chrome / OSX, would you still choose HTML5 over other cross-platform game engines like Unity?

A recent blog post by OP: http://ektomarch.com/blog/?p=36

Re: Show HN: I spent two years working on an HTML5 game. I finally released it

#18

Post by fiblye »

tayl0r wrote: post #12

Knowing what you do now, with the memories of the terrible bugs you had to work through due to Chrome / OSX, would you still choose HTML5 over other cross-platform game engines like Unity?

If javascript could run outside of the browser, I'd use it for everything.

Javascript was nothing but pure bliss to work with, but the browsers were hell. Overall I know I'm definitely going to keep making short, simple games with javascript because it's a wonderful tool for the job. Long-term projects are a bit risky due to browser issues, so this'll probably be my last huge game with the language (sadly). If you're planning on doing a 2D game, javascript is a great language. Flash would still be "best" at this point in time due to all the support and speed at which you can create something, but, in a way, the problem solving and brain wracking is what makes development fun.

Unity's something I've been looking into for a while now, so it's a possibility for future projects.

The OS X issues have been screwing me over inside of outside of the browser. Performance dropped like a rock after Snow Leopard, so the real question is whether or not I'll continue using OS X.

Re: Show HN: I spent two years working on an HTML5 game. I finally released it

#19

Post by Alex3917 »

fiblye wrote: post #5
mgkimsal wrote: post #2

is it really B&W? was that a stylistic choice only, or are there some performance benefits? some of the artwork reminds me a lot of Yellow Submarine stuff.

Full black and white, yes. My original reason was that I'm not at all good at working with color, and especially not creating colored sprites. By sticking with black and white I could easily draw images with my tablet and modify them pixel by pixel to look sharp. I eventually came to like the look, so I suppose it's also stylistic. It wasn't intentionally done for any sort of performance reason, but oddly enough, it…

I like the black and white graphics. It reminds me of dark castle, which was arguably the best non-educational game for the original Macintosh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCkbp4wurW0

Re: Show HN: I spent two years working on an HTML5 game. I finally released it

#20

Post by mcmire »

That's pretty impressive. I know this because I spent a good nine months working on a clone of one of the Zelda games (I didn't make it very far, although granted, I went down a huge rabbit hole) and it is tough. So many things you have to think about if you are designing your own game engine. Mad kudos for sticking with it.
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