Building Aukera Part 1: An introduction to the project

As the final project of the school year is wrapping up, now is probably a good time to begin blogging about the process that went into building it. In fact, while I launched this blog because I’ve wanted to for a while, and because of the publish what you learn idea, I’ve launched it now (as opposed to later) just to blog about this project. So enough small talk: lets build a game.

The Blogging Plans

This entry in the blog won’t get into any code just yet. The intention is give an overview here, and then over the next few takes get into the nitty-gritty of how everything was put together. Instead of linearly walking through the project in the order I built things, I will go through it one component at a time. Entries will alternate between “Here’s what I was thinking and why that was stupid” posts, and How-to posts where I will walk you through building the component without all the distraction of my getting lost and finding my way again.

What is Aukera?

At the start of the school year, everyone in the program was tasked with coming up with a web app to conceive, design, and develop as out capstone project. Aukera is what I came up with. It’s a re-hashing of an idea I had back in high school of a game where the entire world is a compilation of maps built by the users. 2D top-down view, editing via in-game tools (shovels, etc.), and some semblance of a storyline. I’ve built A 2D javascript game before, so I was ready to jump in.

Project Goals

Aside from the gameplay features, I had in mind, I had a few goals to hit with the code:

  • Put it in GIT, preferably on GitHub
  • Linted Javascript. I used JSLint because Aptana can run it as I type.
  • Re-useable. I want to be able to release the game engine separate from the game
  • Modular, but all under one namespace. A few files would be considered “core” everything else is optional stuff that Aukera just happens to be using.

So with these ideas firmly in my mind, I contacted Github to ask for a student account, and set off on my way.

Next time

In the next post I’ll be talking about some of the game engine core, since everything builds out from there. For now you can see the demo of what’s working so far at Aukera’s teaser page. I try to publish the latest version of the game here every night, but you can follow @PlayAukera if you want to be the first to know when a new version comes out.