I’ve always wanted to make videogames. I’ve been programming in one way or another for nearly half my life, so you’d think I would have created at least one so far, but usually my scope gets too big and I end grinding to a halt or getting distracted by something else. Today I’m trying something different. For the rest of the day I’ll be liveblogging, at this post, my development of a small game called `Death of the Corpse Wizard.` I’ll be using HTML5/Canvas, Javascript, an Oryx Tileset I bought, and a game design I thought of in the shower yesterday. Here is the inaugural image:
Very briefly the game intends to be an “Arena Roguelike”. Your character sits in the center of the screen and enemies approach from all sides. If an enemy bumps into you, you lose one vitality. If you bump into an enemy you take one vitality from it (most monsters have only one vitality). You may also choose, on your turn, to use a vitality to build or reinforce a wall, which costs one vitality. Monsters can attack walls and when the wall’s vitality is reduced to zero, it disappears. The goal of the game is to survive as long as possible.
For now, those are the only rules.
Watch this space for updates.
Update 11:30 am, Strasbourg Time
I’ve finished support for Tile Sheets and loaded the Oryx sheet. Named a few tiles.
I’m working on the visual aspects first because they provide pleasing feedback. I will now start the game engine.
161 LOC so far, not counting libraries.
Update 12:53 pm, Strasbourg Time
I’ve added the entities and systems required for drawing the player, set up the user controls, and implemented Tweening so that the player sprite moves smoothly. Since this is now “playable”, I also uploaded the game here, so you can play it.
Some tidbits about the development process: I’m using Kran, an awesome, lightweight entity-component system which deserves more attention. It is the same system I used to generate my clocks.
3:30 pm, Strasbourg Time
I have added turn-based timer logic, spawners, and the ability to create walls. Plus an HUD that shows the player’s vitality.
You can play the most recent version of the game here.
5:12 pm, Strasbourg Time
The game is now playable and you can even lose, sort of: monsters have AI and can attack you, you can kill them, and they can reduce your health to zero.
6:04 pm, Strasbourg Time
Added a death screen and death condition! It will probably be the start screen too, at some point.
6:53 pm, Strasbourg Time
Death of the Corpse Wizard is now entirely playable: it has a goal, challenged, and failure conditions. I’m going to declare my first ever single-day Game Jam a success!