Tag: js13k

One of the big advantages of JS13K game jam is there is plenty of time to finish the project, a month should be enough to elaborate an idea. If there is an idea. Surely I’m not alone in enjoying directionless coding, discovering tools meanwhile implementing random features. Turns out a competition might be not the right place to play like that to me. Let’s check out why.

Preconceived Idea

Way before the theme was published I was sure to do something with the Web Audio API, positioning sound sources in the 3D space promis great gameplay advantages. Recorded samples obviously out of the picture, a simple drum sample nearly ten times more than the compo size limit.

The plan is to create sounds using oscillators and filters. I started to make an audio graph editor and a simple sequencer to be able to save loops on a format I can play back. This could be an interesting project too, but when it started to do the job roughly I abandoned it, I want to make a game not a synthesizer. This is what I should realise earlier, I didn’t touch A-Frame or Three.js for two years and that time nearly scratched the surface. Knowing the tools properly instead of browsing manuals could save a lot of time.

Continue reading “Flow of Four – Intention Postmortem”

Somehow JS13K Games appeared on my Twitter feed. I’ve heard about similar JavaScript game jams before, but this one was new to me. I checked its homepage and it says there are multiple categories, one of them is to create a VR game using A-Frame framework. It caught my attention, I remember I have an online course with this topic but I never watched it, I was thinking it is a good opportunity to do it because participation is enough motivation.

I watched the course, it was pretty short because A-Frame is not a huge topic. It’s an overlay around Three.js with extra functions, add VR view by default, also easy to describe the virtual scene, one object is an HTML tag, pretty straightforward.

I didn’t really have any idea what to do, what I did is just throw some objects on the scene and try to move them. This is what I did in the entire jam, I wasn’t even sure I will finish something by the end. Luckily I managed to upload something, it’s a very simple experience. The player inside a tube made by moving rings to make the illusion of constantly moving forward. Objects are coming, look at them for a short period of time makes the player move forward, don’t look at them move the player backwards, the goal is to move forward to the end of the tube. The name becomes Whirled on the Spirit Spiral thanks for shower thoughts.

Continue reading “Whirled on the JS Game Jam Code”