{"author_name":"Cosmologicon","cat":"LD #22","comments":[],"epoch":1325612640,"likes":1,"metadata":{"p_key":"59973","p_author":"Cosmologicon","p_authorkey":"1151","p_urlkey":"95725","p_title":"The Last Adventurer postmortem #2 \u2013 tech","p_cat":"LD #22","p_event":"LD22","p_time":"1325612640","p_likes":"1","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"1151","us_name":"Cosmologicon","us_username":"cosmologicon","event_start":"1323993600","event_key":"8","event_name":"LD22"},"text":"

[ postmortem #1<\/a> | Play the game<\/a> ]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thte Last Adventurer<\/em> is an HTML5 canvas game with Javascript<\/strong> and the GameJS library. My previous LD entries were in python, and I was told if I made a browser game<\/strong> then it would get more plays, but so far that’s not the case. I’ve only got 12 ratings so far, which seems pretty low for a web-based game. Oh well. \":(\"<\/p>\n

HTML5 gets used for a lot of demos, and it doesn’t have a good reputation for game making, so I wanted something way more graphically and computationally demanding<\/strong> than Tetris. My game is still a bit rough around the edges, but that’s completely due to the time constraints. I’m sure that HTML5 is more than capable of making an extremely polished game<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I had\u00a0 a lot of fun working with transformations and transparency<\/strong>. Transparency is used in many places in the game, including shadows, the selection region, the exit portal, and the boss of level 4. I used stretch transformations for anything circular that appears on the ground (shadows, selectors, portal), rotation transformations for the “knock” animation when a character gets hit, and scaling transformations for the level 4 boss and the “quake” spell casting sequence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance<\/em><\/em> is the circular gameplay area<\/strong>. An 854×854 square image is pre-rendered. Then, each frame, it’s rotated by the current angle, scaled to an isometric 1:2 ratio, and its drawing region is clipped to an ellipse using the canvas element’s clip method. No caching of transformed images is done, and I think performance holds up well. You can see the smoothness of the rotation<\/strong> when you press LEFT or RIGHT. I should have incorporated that into the gameplay more, but more about that next time!<\/p>","time":"January 3rd, 2012 12:44 pm","title":"The Last Adventurer postmortem #2 \u2013 tech"}