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

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

#21

Post by shardling »

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…

The B&W style plus the minimalist music in the demo remind me a lot of Metroid II.

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

#23

Post by fiblye »

Demo uploaded to mediafire because I don't want to completely kill my server: http://www.mediafire.com/?hh5x0jcvvkiwd5i

I tried to get it out fast and just barely tested it, but it should be stable. The demo has three bosses, ~25 areas, and a good taste of the gameplay.

My server seems to be intermittently dying, so Chrome Store link for anybody interested in purchasing (buying through my site would be preferable, though): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/subbania/epnejcjdg...

The demo now lets players skip cutscenes by hitting the Enter/Return key. Z/X/C (or 1/2/3 if you don't have a QWERTY keyboard) control actions and the arrow keys control movement.

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

#24

Post by shardling »

Did you use any existing js frameworks in making the game?

I've been writing a little puzzler/platformer using Crafty JS, and it seems to have a pretty flexible approach.

Fair amount of bugs/undocumented behavior, but hey, I can always go straight to the source. :)

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

#25

Post by epaik »

fiblye wrote: post #18
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…

I couldn't agree with you more. It's really fun to hack a game together in Javascript. I tried out JS + HTML5 two Ludum Dares ago and managed to create something fun within 72 hours[1]. The biggest issue I had at the time was dealing with cross-browser compatibility issues. Although my game would run flawlessly on Chrome, every other browser had at least one issue. I've been meaning to get around to fixing it up, but it's not much fun debugging browser compatibility weirdness...

I suspect most browsers have improved a lot in the time since then. I'd like to use Javascript for another game soon; I really like the language, despite its rough edges.

[1]http://ekun.nukenine.com/two/game.html

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

#26

Post by fiblye »

shardling wrote: post #24

Did you use any existing js frameworks in making the game? I've been writing a little puzzler/platformer using Crafty JS, and it seems to have a pretty flexible approach. Fair amount of bugs/undocumented behavior, but hey, I can always go straight to the source. :)

Absolutely none. Most of my fun comes from solving every problem myself and Subbania was started before such engines and libraries even existed.

However, I probably would recommend something like CraftyJS because it can help take some of the cross-platform troubles off of the developers' shoulders.

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

#28

Post by a1k0n »

fiblye wrote: post #18
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…

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

node.js?

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

#29

Post by abrichr »

fiblye wrote: post #23

Demo uploaded to mediafire because I don't want to completely kill my server: http://www.mediafire.com/?hh5x0jcvvkiwd5i I tried to get it out fast and just barely tested it, but it should be stable. The demo has three bosses, ~25 areas, and a good taste of the gameplay. My server seems to be intermittently dying, so Chrome Store link for anybody interested in purchasing (buying through my site would be preferable, th…

Maybe I'm just impatient, but after the third consecutive cut-scene I just closed the window and uninstalled it.

I think you should give the option to the user to skip the cut scenes altogether.

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

#30

Post by doublerebel »

fiblye wrote: post #18
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…

JS does run outside of the browser, many people are creating games on several platforms. Appcelerator's keynotes this morning at Codestrong included an OpenGL ES wrapper for Appcelerator. Exciting times for JS.
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