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Making games with Javascript

Video Game Making


I liked video games as a kid; who didn't? My all-time favorite is Super Mario Bros. 3. I rarely play video games anymore.  However, I decided I wanted to learn to make a video game to impress my children and brush up on Javascript.

My daughters are too young to spend a lot of time in front of a screen or play video games. But sometimes they do. And when they do, the games are very simple and educational. I wanted to make a game they would like to play.  I also had some free time because of Covid, and I thought maybe making games could be in my future.  By the way, my daughter refers to COVID-19 as a mad germer named Covid, and he is the reason she can't play on the playground.

I am a beginner and wanted to make things simple.  I used a Javascript framework called Phaser 3 to make this game.  The first iteration started out as a circle floating upward from the bottom.  When it reaches the top, it magically appears at the bottom and continues upward.  Each time you touch a circle it splits in two, and so on until you have a very, very large number of circles.  This idea seemed simple and therefore a good starting point, but turned out to be no fun to play, and kind of pointless too.

An important part of almost every video game is some indication that you have made an accomplishment.  In Super Mario Bros, when you reach the flagpole, you know you finished the level and that's a good thing.  So the game kept morphing based on my own ideas and my daughters'.  After a few rounds of feedback, one of my daughters told me the game is 'a little fun', but that she also wanted to play ABCMouse.

This comment marked the end of my video game making venture.  It was something I had always wanted to try, and now that I have, I don't feel any strong desire to continue.  I am happy that I got to practice Javascript and play around with Github Pages to host the game for free.  Good job ABCMouse, I will never try to compete with you again.

Try it out below if you are curious.





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