

Ask HN: I'm building one HTML5 game per week, need feedback - lessmilk

Hello,<p>As a developer and a gamer I always wanted to make games, but I never actually did it. To change that I threw myself a public challenge: build a new game every week in html5 using Phaser (a javascript framework).<p>The games are quite simple for now, but that&#x27;s because I&#x27;m still learning. Let me know if you have any feedback on the games or the website.<p>Link: www.lessmilk.com<p>Thanks!
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aaronetz
Just finished game #3, died 83 times (wasn't too hard after playing Super Meat
Boy :)). Some ideas: add two more controls for increasing vertical and
horizontal velocity (i.e. holding "shift" will make to box go faster and jump
farther, and holding jump longer will make it jump higher. And then add more
levels that exploit those controls!

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aaronetz
Nice games. I like the simple visuals. Played game #2 for a bit. One specific
comment: Holding "up" fires at the maximum rate (pressing up repeatedly
doesn't fire any faster). Also, there is no downside to constantly holding up.
So you probably should either (1) eliminate the up button and just auto-fire
all the time, (2) have a fuel mechanic that will force the player to conserve
shots, or (3) make it worthwhile to press up faster. And if doing so, move the
fire button to space or something similar, because it is hard to repeatedly
press up while moving with the side arrows.

~~~
lessmilk
That's some great feedback, thanks!

I don't want to edit my previous game to be true to the challenge, but I'll
definitely keep this in mind for my next games.

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drhayes9
Great games! Great start!

Here's a talk you might be interested in from one of the guys who made
"Ridiculous Fishing" on the Art of Screenshake:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U)

Basically, it's a bunch of interesting points on how to make action games feel
more responsive and fun.

~~~
lessmilk
Thanks for the video, it looks super interesting!

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lessmilk
Clickable: [http://www.lessmilk.com](http://www.lessmilk.com)

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Nevermark
Wow! Love your games. I got started programming by writing games like this on
a TRS-80 Model 3 in the early 80's, but we only had one "beep" sound then. I
went on to write parsers for text adventures, which got me into parsers for
programming languages, compilers and then machine learning.

Your games are fun, especially Jump Squares. I noticed that keeping the game
going without pause has an addicting effect. (In comparison to the "push up
button to restart" on games 1 and 2.) I had no intention of playing it all the
way through, but I couldn't stop until I did.

Nice clean design for such simple games. Fun sounds.

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notlisted
Game 3 is my fave... Awesome... brings back memories of my Commodore 64 days
where my favorite game was Galaga, crude pixels, smooth movement, great
action.

One small refinement suggestion: perhaps a few "tick marks" on the horizontal
axis so people can time it right (if not for all, at least for initial levels,
would lure players in a little more), eg see
[http://imgur.com/kDEgbTo](http://imgur.com/kDEgbTo)

Edit: here's a longplay video of that Galaga game.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSqk8t0Pxww](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSqk8t0Pxww)

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Jeremy1026
You'd probably enjoy the crap out of City Jumper (flash game) from way back
when.

[http://www.addictinggames.com/action-
games/cityjumper.jsp](http://www.addictinggames.com/action-
games/cityjumper.jsp)

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bonobo
Oh boy, these are awesome! :D

I'm especially fond of game #1. It reminded me of an old html game I played in
which I had to use the mouse to drag a rectagle around, avoiding collisions
with other rectangles that bounced around. I remember receiving this in an
email that said if I were able to stand for X seconds (I can't remember how
many) then it meant that my reflexes were above the threshold required for jet
pilots — and obviously, as every boy, I wanted to fly a jet.

The only critique I have for you is to have posted it during my work hours.

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japhyr
These are great! I love simple games like this.

They are fun, but it feels like they'd be a lot more fun with a bigger playing
field. Have you considered making a larger playing area?

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d0m
I like how you created real games instead of just demos. The third one is
really addictive, I've played one very similar on the iphone. (I think it was
called Impossible game or something similar). Maybe as a next game it could be
similar to the #3 but with this gameplay
"[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPgotLzzb-Q"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPgotLzzb-Q"),
i.e. one key to move higher but gravity then brings you down. You rock keep it
up.

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japhyr
Inspired by your sharing of simple games, I'll share the one html5 game I made
a couple years ago for fun:

[http://tapawaygame.com](http://tapawaygame.com)

It's meant for mobile devices, and it's unpolished, but it was fun and
satisfying to make. I was inspired to make it after I had an eye exam. I'm
always scared of "failing" that test where you have to tell the optometrist
every time you see a flash on a screen.

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mrfusion
How did you decide on Phaser? Would you recommend it?

How hard would you say it is to get started for someone with some JS
experience and some pyGame experience?

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lessmilk
I spent a lot of time trying multiple javascript 2D framework, and Phaser [0]
was the best for my needs: it works well on all modern browser, it's simple,
and powerful.

I never tried pyGame, so I don't know.

[0] - [http://www.phaser.io/](http://www.phaser.io/)

~~~
didsomeonesay
Based on pixi.js, should have good rendering performance.

Great, just the thing i was looking for!

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phaus
So far the one thing that all of your games have in common is that they are
very responsive. Don't ever change that for any reason. Without responsive
controls, you game will be terrible no matter much polished the rest of it is.

As your games become more complex, it will be easier to offer some
constructive criticism. Right now, however, you seem to be doing fine.

Keep up the good work.

~~~
phaus
>So far the one thing*

I meant that it's one of the things they have in common. Basically, the
responsiveness they share stands out in a positive way.

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d0m
Only played game #3. Really like it. Two suggestions: \- I'd put a small
countdown (2-1 go) or something when we die because otherwise you die and
already miss the right timing to do this level. So sometimes I had to
voluntary let it die 2-3 times to have a good start.

\- Would be way cooler to be able to jump on top of the boxes.. but you have
to land perfectly on it.

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eguneys
Would you like to work together, i am building a turn based board game, and
need some help on client side.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/devblogs/comments/1v6ivc/turn_based_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/devblogs/comments/1v6ivc/turn_based_board_game_developer_partner_needed/)

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tedajax
I'm doing a similar, but slightly less aggressive thing and trying to do a
game a month. Here's what I currently have, it's ok I guess.

[http://tedajax.net/Game/](http://tedajax.net/Game/)

I really like your third game, very simple but it works and is engaging.

~~~
Zisko
I played it for a little while. Love the Feel!

EDIT: green particles are meant to collide with the player, Sorry!

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jerle76
I would suggest building analytics in your games, to see how people are
playing them vs how you thought they would be played, and identify levels that
are too easy or difficult.

e.g. on Game 3, track an event on each level up along with the number of death
for that level.

Game 3 is really addictive. Good job

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mrkipling
I enjoyed them! I've been thinking about getting into HTML5 game development
recently but couldn't think of a good place to start. Creating lots of little
games like this (simple arcade games) seems like as good a place as any -
perhaps I'll attempt something similar. Thanks for the idea!

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joebo
It would be neat for someone to take one of the games and show how to build it
without any frameworks.

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lessmilk
I plan to write tutorials on how I build some of my games with Phaser. But
without any framework, I don't know how to do it.

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Taurenking
make sure to make a post about it...I'm interested! Keep up the good work!

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lessmilk
Thanks! To be notified when it's out, you should register to my newsletter
[http://www.lessmilk.com](http://www.lessmilk.com)

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blackdogie
really liked game number #3 , not so much a fan of the background music, but
definitely it was a cool game to pass away 4 or 5 minutes. Thanks.

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davidslv
Very cool, i like this one
[http://www.lessmilk.com/3/](http://www.lessmilk.com/3/)

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vezzy-fnord
I'd recommend you go for quality over quantity. Make a decent game every month
or some longer period of time, rather than a generic arcade game every week.

But, whatever keeps you motivated. Keep going.

~~~
blainesch
"The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class
into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be
graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right
solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he
would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group:
fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being
graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect
one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the
works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for
quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out
piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat
theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their
efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.The ceramics teacher
announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All
those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the
quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his
bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of
pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on
“quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one – to
get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of
highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It
seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work –
and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing
about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts
than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay." Art and Fear

~~~
apo
Write drunk, edit sober.

[http://ninjasandrobots.com/write-drunk-edit-
sober](http://ninjasandrobots.com/write-drunk-edit-sober)

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Keyframe
Excellent! I hope you progress well from this. One thing that bothers me here
is input lag. Is this inherent to phaser?

~~~
wtetzner
I'm not experiencing any input lag in Firefox. What browser are you using?

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maxbrown
Great project and fun games! How many are you planning to do? Do you have an
end-goal in mind?

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lessmilk
Thanks! I don't have any specific goal in mind, I'll try to do it for as long
as I can.

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stellar678
Number 3 is so simple but a really novel game mechanic. (For me at least.)
Nice job!

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tenpoundhammer
Love game 3, 1 and 2 seem like they a need a bigger playing area to be fun.

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pacofvf
who much time did you spend doing these games?

I actually worked doing some physics stuff in C for a game, never got to see
the finished product but I've always wanted to do a whole game.

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nashashmi
You must be a terrific game artist to combine tech and games like that.

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eliot_sykes
Thanks, enjoyed game #3.

Enhancement request: Fullscreen mode

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marigoldpicker
How about open sourcing the code so others can learn with you

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wtetzner
The code's not obfuscated or anything. Just view source.

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sideproject
Very awesome. Played each one of them for like... 5 minutes!

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stuaxo
Nice! Difficult, playable and addictive :)

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iterationx
Game 1 might be fun as multiplayer

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paugay
Exactly, Game 1 with multplayer, real time, start together, and the one who
stays the last gets a point, the first who get 10 points wins :)

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pawelkomarnicki
Very nice games :) Keep going! :)

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gargarplex
i enjoyed the square jump game. it could benefit from a leaderboard.

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sauravt
Awesome, keep at it. :D

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naeemnur
these are awesome!

