Life in space - and how to get rid of it

I completed my #libGDXjam entry.

You can play the game here: jppresents.itch.io/space

While making the game I took a screenshot each minute, you can check out the commented timelapse video here:

It was really fun making this game with libGDX.

In a few days an android version should be available too.

Joining the #libGDXjam

On the 18th december last year the #libGDXjam started - and I joined.

You can check out my (so far 18 post) dev log here: http://itch.io/jam/libgdxjam/topic/12064/devlog-about-life-in-space-and-how-to-get-rid-of-it

And have a look at the game-page: http://itch.io/jam/libgdxjam/rate/50205

I also made some videos (all linked with more information in the dev log):

From old to new:

ludum dare #34

So I skipped one ludum dare, but with number 34 I was in again.

The week before I came across a spriter-runtime for phaser - perfect!

I prepared and tested that a little, and for the ludum dare weekend I came up this this:

The dog and the sheep are animated in phaser, the sheep have two alternative textures for variety.

As mentioned thanks to the runtime, this time the animations are not spritesheets exported form phaser (see last entry) but are animated "live". This way the animations look much more smooth:

Ludum dare page here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=34367

Directly play my entry here: http://jppresents.net/static/ld34/

And here is the short timelapse, that shows the work:

ludum dare #32

I joined ludum dare this weekend (again) and made a silly game about a monkey that really doesn't like butterflies.

I used the new Webstorm 11 with the integrated typescript compiler. It's not as smooth as it could be but it's already better than the filewatchers that were used before.

You can check out my ludum dare game and all the others here.

Android and Webview + Html5

Since I got my new android phone (a oneplus one) late last year I wanted to look into making an android game and I finally made good progress.

Since I am into javascript/typescript html5 games at the moment, I have looked into building an android app that basically consists of nothing but a fullscreen browser.

With Android Studio 1.0 (the new intellij based google android developement studio) this was (with some googlefu) pretty easy - but then came the harsh awakening - while webview is based on chrome, it is:
a) an older version
b) not webgl enabled
c) running under more restricted power conditions then the normal chrome

This makes it nearly unusable. The absolute same webpage displayed within a webview barely manages 20fps while the chrome version has steady 60fps.

The app only has one activity which consists of one component, a webview (from android 4.4 on the webview is using the chrome rendering engine). Stackoverflow helped me get the webview to fullscreen and then it's just a matter of one line to enabling javascript and another to line to load the index.html for the game.

The issue reports about the performance problems are from 2013, when 4.4. first came out. (The previous webview had slightly better(!) performance).

Android 5 is supposed to have a better webview - and since it is due within the next few month, I'll hold off on developing the android game and re focus myself on webgl and threejs for now.

website update and another small game

I finally updated the jppresents.net website to include some of the latest games.

The ludum dare tower defense, tank wars and a new small weekend project game "harvest: earthtongue" are now integrated in the site.

The "harvest: earthtongue" game was my "pay by art"-payment for earthtongue.
I thought it would be fun (and funny) to pay for a game with another game.

Erich (the creator) was cool about it and I received my free copy.

@JPDevelop Thank you!! Oh wowie, I love how bizarre it is to receive a game as payment for a game!! I'll email you a key in just a sec
— EricHermit (@Erichermit) January 11, 2015

ludum dare 31 - one more small distraction

The last weekend was a ludum dare weekend and I decided to join the fun.

I created a small tower defense game titled "Stop Christmas".

It's using phaser & html 5 and you can play it here.

Ludum dare is game jam / competition in which you have 48 hours to create a game matching a given theme. The theme this time was "whole game on one screen" - my tower defense matches this, but not in a creative way. You also have to create all the assets (graphics / sounds etc.) yourself in this 48 hour window.

I was using the "unofficial" theme (which lost in the last round of theme voting) which was the unicode character "☃". This is why the enemies are all snowmen.

You can build and upgrade towers and the remaining health of the player is visualized by "how cold" it is.