$12256 / $11500
Hello, everyone!
I've been following the pixel cup competition with some excitement, and I have noticed that there is a shortage of free libraries for HTML5 game development, particularly those that have good documentation. As I happened to have an HTML5 game I am working on (separately), I decided to document the engine I wrote for it, and release it for use in this contest by anybody who has their eyes on the $1500 HTML5 game bonus. I may or may not participate myself, but I would like my library to be available, because I do not think that the better part of designing a game should go into the engine. Those with less experience in Javascript, less time on their hands, or who are simply excited to start writing a game may find my engine to be a good starting point for their game concept.
One very important thing to mention is that my engine is optimized for Chrome, and therefore, for compliance with the contest's rule that games must run on software that is free-as-in-freedom from the ground up, your game should be tested in Chromium (for those who do not know, Chromium is the open source counterpart to Chrome. For the purposes of HTML5 game development, they should be identical) before you release it for judging.
In the coming couple of days, I will post a sample game that uses all of the aspects of the library here, to make learning the library easier. In addition, I will continue to update the documentation of the library, and may post updates to the library itself as well. In the meantime, I have provided a link to the library as it is right now for anybody who wants to look at it, and see if it suits their needs. If you are at all interested in a library like this, or if you have any comment at all to make about this, please either post something here or email me at timaster@gmail.com. I am interested in finding somebody to use my library who may not be as seasoned a programmer as some others in the contest, so if this looks too complicated for you, YOU are who I want to help! Please don't be shy! Even questions about HTML5 or Javascript development in general are welcome.
I am assuming that anyone who is using a Unix-based operating system is already fairly comfortable with their development environment and programming in general, and so to make life easier for Windows users, the source is in a .zip, the README has a .txt extension, and I will take this opportunity to recommend Notepad++ as the software to use to write your game in if you plan to work in Windows.
Here is a link to download the library: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~timaster/GameState/GameState.zip
Here is a link to a sample game made with my library: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~timaster/GameState/GameState_sample.zip
PS: To anyone wondering whether or not this library is posted too late to use in the contest - it is not. I have confirmed with an admin (Botanic) that using this library is ok, even though I've posted it after the 1st of July.
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Well, it's been a day or two and about a hundred people have viewed this, which leads me to believe that there may be some interest, even if nobody has said anything :)
I've created a sample game using my engine using resources from opengameart.org, and updated the engine a little bit. I've added the link to the sample game as a zip file, and updated the link to the engine. To play the game, simply open the index.html file in Chrome.
The sample game isn't polished, and the source isn't commented (yet), but I made it to demonstrate that in just a day or two, it's possible to use my engine to make a game (even if it's not much of a game). As always, post here or email me at timaster@gmail.com if you're interested or have any questions.
Hmm, I gave the engine a quick shot, but it won't work on Firefox 13 (It works on Chrome 20ish though).
Firefox yells:
Error: title.img.draw is not a function
Source File: GameState_sample/js/modes/title_mode.js
Line: 85
I checked it out and it might have been because title_mode.js was trying to getImage('title.png'); however the filename is actually Title.png. I renamed the image but it still refuses to work on Firefox.
Thanks for sharing the engine! I'll give it a try with some other project, but for this contets, i've already changed engines once :P
Thank you for your comment!
The engine only works in Chrome, currently, because it uses a couple of tricks that Firefox doesn't seem to support. The error in that case, actually, is that Firefox will not let me give my images a "draw()" function the way I am currently doing it, so title.image.draw is undefined.
I will fix it to work in Firefox, soon, because of course supporting only one browser won't get me very far. But, for the purposes of this contest, it fits the requirement of running on at least one free-as-in-freedom from the ground up set of software (in the form of Chromium).