AAiddennium » BLOG «

All of a sudden I will tell you about the latest updates of HalmaStar game website.

In the last half of a year I worked at the game about 10 days all in all. During that time I added user profiles, information about logged-in users, interplanetary ticket system, and some more. Also the style was tweaked. Unfortunately not everything has been tested.

The avatars of the game are aliens called insighters. As that is related to sights, I copied the idea of faces with four eyes from the internets.

I still have these tasks on my TODO list:

• Counting time for one move. After half minute of inactivity, the time goes down.
• Animation for increasing and decreasing of points.
• Player statistics when the cursor is moved above the player name.
• Robot opponent (at the moment it’s only possible to play against live opponents).
• Target positions marked with different colour.
• Facebook Connect for login.
• Viral video or video about the prehistory of the game.

If you have any ideas or critics, I accepts all that here in the comments, in the feedback section of the website, or at a cup of tea.

I did a tiny little research on nowadays game development using Javascript⁽¹⁾ and decided that when HalmaStar becomes beta, the game I will create next will be multiplayer tile-based action-puzzle-solving scroller with most of the levels developed by players themselves.

The game will consist of multiple objects of different types where each of them interacts with each other in a specific way. For example, there will be avatars of different players, solid blocks, collectibles, different types of dangerous objects, etc.

Some games to take inspiration from are Electric Box, Bomber Man, Load Runner, and especially Supaplex.

The main features:

• Level-based
• Level editing, drafts, publishing
• Voting for the best levels
• Attribution and Flattr button of a level-creator at each level
• Leaderboards: best players, best contributors
• Some levels are for single mode, can be played offline
• Some levels need collaboration to be solved
• Some levels are competitive and only one player of a group might finish them in one go
• Playable on mobile phones or other handheld devices
• Facebook app
• Django, Javascript, Ajax used
• Funny attractive minimalistic animation
• Developed no later than till July 2011 (having in mind that I will be doing that during my free time).

Maybe that will be the reincarnation of a game I started developing many years ago. I remember I couldn’t finish it then, because of some technical limitations of BASIC programming language or probably my incompetence in managing computer memory. Now as tools, technologies, and computers improved, and I have more than 8 years of experience in programming, I shouldn’t face any similar issues.

⁽¹⁾ I took the first glance at the possibilities of Javascript game engines: Akihabara, gameQuery, gamejs, and Javascript 2D game engine. I should review them in detail, analyze, and compare later. But that’s a theme for another post.

Have I already mentioned that all wishes become true? Just a day after my decision to decrease the number of my working hours, I talked to my bosses and here I am working just three work days per week developing web, whereas I can spend the rest two for my own game development⁽¹⁾ and education.

I started achieving progress in larger steps. I have already made a playable version which is being tested at the moment and looks like this:

There is still a lot to do till publishing, e.g. player joining and profile management, a list of people online, player avatars, help for newbies, etc. But it feels very good, because of obvious progress, especially after positive feedback from friends.

⁽¹⁾ Actually, I have a four-day weekend, where I code or party at nights and sleep at days.. occasionally.