Canvas game map

The holidays ended and school began again this week. I started working on my game map using the HTML 5 canvas element again. I posted about a very simple example before, so I just extended that piece of code. I’ll keep you updated.

In the end I’ll probably just give you the code and some sort of tutorial to explain how I did it. For now you just need to know that you have to start with something very basic and just add functionality bit by bit. You’ll have to rewrite some stuff of course but it will be easier than you think.

Here is a temporary demo: http://janne.siera.be/

If you have any questions on game maps or using the canvas element please ask. I’ll try to answer them as good as I can.

Take care,
Janne

GM: Illustration, inspiration, motivation

When a friend showed me the anime “Fairy Tail” yesterday I was pleasantly surprised. The graphics style in the prologue is exactly what I was looking for as an example for General’s Map! When developing a browser based game all by yourself you need to pay attention to every aspect of the development. Asking others for help is key in making a successful PBBG, telling others what you want is the best way to ask.

Here is a nice screenshot from the anime to illustrate my map.

FairyTail

View the original screenshot

Update:

Here is another example, which will be very useful for my communication with illustrators. Source: The Settlers, rise of an empire.

General’s Map: Battle Engine

Intro

This post will explain some “game mechanics options” for General’s Map, the battle engine.

I hope to built GM so that I can – easily – enable and disable certain game mechanics. With the purpose of testing various mechanics, and combinations. Each option is labeled with one or more categories.

General’s Map: Design Document

Intro

Hello there. This post will hopefully give you a better sight on my new working title “General’s Map”. In an earlier post I procided a littler description of the game, now I will dig deeper into the design?

General’s Map: Isometric vs Top Down

Intro

I’m not sure which approach to take for the game map perspective. At first I wanted an isometric map, but now I’m starting to think that top down fits the theme more. But what is ‘isometric’ and ‘top down’?

Gamemap: Canvas Experiment

Intro

Since I needed a map for my new working title prototype: General’s Map, I decided I would try out something with the HTML 5 canvas element.

Using the canvas element meant I would be using a lot of javascript. Animations would be so much easier, though I had my doubts about other parts. Okay, animations would be easier, but could it do the ‘normal stuff’?

I decided the best way to test it was to make it. So I began on a simple script . The first step was to render the tiles to the screen, that was very easy. The next step was to render other ‘objects’ on top of it, like cities etc, that was even easier.