{"author_name":"Daniel X. Moore","cat":"MiniLD","comments":[{"author_name":"","time":"October 4, 2010 9:18 am","epoch":1286201880,"text":"Well… I looked and looked for the king and did not find him \":)\" I turned into a ghost and found this rewarding enough to try looking for the king again. I eventually gave up and finding meaning and started appreciating your game for what it is \":)\" I applaud that you tackled HMTL5 and for a short moment there, felt I was playing a game on my Apple IIc – Cheers!","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1285180440,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"69192","p_author":"Daniel X. Moore","p_authorkey":"2816","p_urlkey":"104995","p_title":"Quest for Meaning","p_cat":"MiniLD","p_event":"LD18","p_time":"1285180440","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"1","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"2816","us_name":"Daniel X. Moore","us_username":"strd6","event_start":"1282262400","event_key":"4","event_name":"LD18"},"text":"

This writeup is cross posted on my blog at STRd6.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Quest<\/a><\/p>\n

Sticking with the competition theme one of my biggest fears is a meaningless life. Not only that, but a meaningless eternity. Pictures for Sad Children<\/a> has a very similar theme at times and it helped inspire parts of this game (though I couldn’t find a good way to work in “monster most vulnerable when heaving with sobs”). The game is written in JavaScript and uses HTML5 canvas, so you’ll need a modern browser to play it (FF, Chrome, Safari, IE9). Click the image or find it here: Quest for Meaning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was my first 2 day competition and I’ve learned some things. First, two days is a long time. Second, having real tools would make me very, very happy. Third, I thought that doing all the art and all the programming for a game would be hard, but it seems to use different parts of the brain, so when working on art the programming part of my brain is relaxing and vice versa.<\/p>\n

This was the first moderately legit game that I’ve done all my own art on (title screen and chest graphics contributed by Lana). Also, my first game with a 4 color grayscale pallet. And additionally, my first major undertaking on the Pixie platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Working with the Pixie platform had some serious trade-offs. JavaScript is a surprisingly productive language with it’s functional and dynamic nature, but it has a harsh and brutal syntax. The platform libraries helped a lot to smooth some things out, and as they become more complete it will get better and better. Another advantage was the tight art and code integration. It was trivial to create an image and have it appear in the game seconds later. The biggest drawback of Pixie right now is that the code “editor” is pretty much just a text area. There are no tabs, no integrated source navigation, no auto-save, no version control, and all kinds of other terrible issues. Also, there is no real tile editor, though Noel Berry<\/a> pioneered the way by using the pixel editor as a tile editor before, and the surprising thing is that it’s actually not too bad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Using Pixie to make art is awesome, but the game “platform” is not fleshed out enough for me to recommend making an entire game in it to everyone yet.<\/p>\n

A special thanks to everyone who helped playtest and discuss various elements of the game throughout it’s stages: Boltz, McGrue, DavMo, Lan, MW… props.<\/p>\n

So check out the game<\/a> and let me know what you think. By making heavy use of Pixie, especially in time limited competitions, I hope to really iron out the core usage scenarios and make it amazing.<\/p>\n

The future is bright and full of meaning.<\/p>","time":"September 22nd, 2010 1:34 pm","title":"Quest for Meaning"}