Closing the book on Volcano Run - I'm happy with how it's looking! The only game mechanic I didn't implement is the red boulder obstacle that can turn Glubgar red and slow him down. This doesn't seem too integral.. I'll file it under tech debt for now. I'll also need to add the instructions page, as well as sound effects eventually. In the meanwhile, I'm getting excited about a game that would be a great fit for online play. Faerie Cloud Racers :)
It's a good excuse to learn Django Channels and get more comfy with websockets. I did some initial Faerie Cloud Racers work this week like adding the game menu and controlling the player ship, but I've honestly spent more time learning how to get the client-server communication working. I had to redeploy the server using ASGI instead of WSGI and get set up with Redis. The idea is that previously, the web server was set up just to deliver static HTML files. With these changes, it'll be set up to broker messages to and from clients. Redis stores the information required for difference clients to communicate with each other. Without this, all player-to-player communication would have to work like it does on a Neopets game like Armada. Player 1 sends a move to the server. Server updates the game state. Player 2 refreshes their page and sees the updated game state. Django Channels allows this to all happen in real-time, within the same page.
This is new to me so I'm explaining it more for my benefit than for whoever is reading this π hopefully I'm in the right ballpark.
Anyways, here's my recent work:
Volcano Run
Finished game functionality (bonus gems, spacebar to slow)
Added high score table
Tuned game parameters against Flashpoint
Meepit Juice Break
Fixed a bug that was sometimes causing the game to freeze upon losing a life (more MJB bugs may be out there though)
Faerie Cloud Racers
Game menu
Player controls
Websockets proof-of-concept
Current to-do list:
Faerie Cloud Racers
Continue developing single-player mode
Plan/research/prototype online play for FCR