Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

ektomarch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–147 of 147 posts

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

#141

Post by kami8845 »

mstange wrote: post #132
kami8845 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how did you figure out that this LOC slowed things down?

Using the new Firefox profiler [0], which isn't quite ready for public consumption yet but already very helpful: 1. Download Firefox Nightly [1] 2. Install the profiler addon [2] 3. Play the game 4. Press Cmd+Shift+O to open a profile of the most recent few seconds 5. Wade through the tree until you find nsIDOMHTMLImageElement_SetSrc, which is called by () @ CompletedEnemies.js:2460. This function contains only one l…

I knew I was gonna get something good when I asked that question, thank you!

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

#142

Post by MartinCron »

jakejake wrote: post #118
MartinCron wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant javascript running client-side outside the browser. The closest analog I can think of is ActionScript in Adobe Flash/Air/Flex, but that's not a mast I would lash myself to right now.

As somebody who is stuck for the foreseeable future maintaining a huge AIR app I resemble that comment! It's kinda a drag though because AIR actually provides a fantastic cross-platform solution for desktop apps. Even thought they are in ActionScript, it's extremely similar writing Javascript apps that have model binding. I feel like I've tried every cross platform environment from AIR to Titanium to Java/QT to RealB…

The main problem with it right now is that it feels like it's gone out of favor and everybody is abandoning the platform

I totally agree. I actually dabbled in making AIR apps a few years ago and found it just great. It's really the lack of access to the iOS platform that killed AIR for me.

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

#143

Post by reedhedges »

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…

Would you use a library or framework that dealt with some of the browser issues? If so, what kinds of things would you be looking for in such a framework?

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

#144

Post by louisstow »

fiblye wrote: post #26
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.

Hey, I'm the developer of CraftyJS and now the lead SDK engineer for Game Closure. I would love to talk further about the tech and potentially working together. You can reach me via twitter (@louisstow) or my gmail louisstow AT gmail.

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

#145

Post by celer »

fiblye wrote: post #7
wpietri wrote: post #6

Neat! Please release a simple playable demo. The video is enough to intrigue me, but not enough to get me to buy. (I just bought Osmos for my Android tablet, and it was the playable demo that pushed me over the line.)

I'll do that. I'll try to have it done in a couple of hours.

Trying the demo, loving it so far, just broke it. At http://ektomarch.com/games/SubbaniaDemo/Subquest.html At large scale, pure black. At small scale, normal swaying white dots with small transfer point, upwards arrow. Happened after the "you don't have the clearence" cut-scene. I had gotten the extra armor. When I scale up, I see the white dots for a fraction of a second, swaying as always, before they are seemingly covered up by blackness.

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

#146

Post by Evbn »

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…

Hmm. Super Nintendo games fit in well under 10MB.

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

#147

Post by fiblye »

Evbn wrote: post #146
fiblye wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hmm. Super Nintendo games fit in well under 10MB.

They were also written in assembly and had their audio encoded in a midi-like format, so they're designed from the ground up to fit in tiny storage.
Post reply on HN