Not so much a post mortem about the game, but about my goals: Same as last time (LD#27) i wanted to use this oportunity to learn, to get to know PHPStorm and to make my first Phaser.js game using TypeScript.

Well, i have to admit, i am very happy with the outcome. Not that my game Beneath the surface with Sir Walter Wuffington is so great and enjoyable that i am utterly sattisfied with it as a game per se, but i achieved my goal of finishing my first Phaser.js game and i got know PHPStorm a bit. On the TypeScript side i have to admit that i had a hard time to adapt the way i code JS to the TS style and paradigms, but these things can’t be achieved over night so to speak.

THE GOOD

Which JS Gameengine to use? After wrestling with my bare hands (i.e. without any game engine) last time around, i decided that it is time to try one of those nice geme engieenes everybody was talking about. After doing some research Phaser.js caught my eye for being relatively new (i.e. supposedly not filled with obsolete clutter and paradigms), which seemed to have a relatively active community and responsive developers (rich hangs around a lot over at the html5gamedev forums) and mobile performance is one of their main focal points. Now, after implementing my first game with it, i am a convert. Try it out for yourself, there are tons of examples and tutorials, and on top of all that it has TypeScript bindings too

Is TypeScript really that much better than CoffeScript or just plain JS? No idea! Looks good though. I have to admit that even with all my motivation, i simply lacked the time to really make use of TS’s advantages. I managed to write my game in TS (well, TS compliant) but it is basically plain JS with a coating of TS to make it compile. After all the time i spent setting up the whole TS / PHPStorm / Phaser.js shebang, there was not that much time left to worry about elegant coding, sth. that i normally value very highly (although i am more an average programmer solutions that are generally more interesting and than elegant).

I found my new personal favourite IDE: for everyone out there pondering the question of which IDE to use for all their JS / PHP / HTML5 coding, i can give you a warm recommendation: PHPStorm (or WebStorm if you don’t need the PHP part, PHPStorm is WebStorm + PHP) After using Texteditors, KDevelop, Eclipse, Aptana for over a decade for all my WebDevelopment, i have found my new IDE of choice. The code completion, existing templates (jQuery, Drupal, WordPress, …) JS Debugging, the ease with which it integrates with other libraries absolutely convinced me, after being disapointed with the slow improvements and overal buggyness of Aptana.

THE IMPROVABLE

Expectations: As i mentioned before, due to the time constraint and my high expectations i had to the game itself, it is not as good as it could have been, but that was to be expected. As i spent probably two thirds of my time figuring out how to do stuff in Phaser.js, TS and PHPStorm, there was not that much time i could invest into the actual game making. I am still pretty content with the result, this time i even have some sounds (two to be exact, but it is a start). If i continue at this pace and stay with the current toolchain, i might produce sth. halfway decent around LD#31

I was still expecting too much from my game i guess, as i wanted to learn all that stuff but at the same time couldn’t bring myself to tone down my ideas for the game, as it would have felt even emptier / more boring than without the second view. It might be worth to scrap that second part and add some juicyness instead, but who knows, next time around i’ll probably have enough time for both as i will be more proficient in using my current toolchain.

THE BEATUIFUL

As always it was amazing to see how much can be achieved in such a short time. For myself i am happy about the work / learning i did in just 48h, and it is always stunning to see what other ppl can come up with in just 48h / 72h.

The fact that there are others like me out there that just love making games, creating stuff, seeing their ideas come to life and being (more or less 😉 ) enjoyed by others warms my heart.

I can’t wait till next time, till then
goeth forth and codeth

p.s: But please, don’t let my ramblings keep you from trying my game :

Beneath the surface with Sir Walter Wuffington

Tags: phaser.js, post-mortem, postmortem, typescript