![\"NRJohnson](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/nrjohnson-cloud/image/upload/v1672326520/portfolio/projects/Thumbnail_n9zuff.png\")
I recently took Harvard's CS50 Introduction to Computer Science course. This was my final project. It's a simple platformer game with a single level. It contains three enemy types, projectiles, resource collection (arrows/health), parallax backgrounds and more. You can read more about how I structured the game on github.
The Builder:
Building the level layout was a particular challenge. I struggled to find a way that allowed me to add the elements needed, with the proper collision and images, in a way that allowed efficient editing.
My solution was to created a page where I could choose the scale of the level, draw/erase blocks with different attributes and place the player and NPCs where I wanted them. This sped the project up considerably as the system I created before relied on manually typing space-separated strings as a map for the game level. Now the builder generates that string for me based on the results of the builder.
You can view the builder on the game's site at /build. I included instructions on how to use it on github in the README.
Other Obstacles:
In my original attempt to make this game I used basic dom elements. This proved unwieldy.
Organizing the project became a challenge as it grew beyond what I had thought it would be.
Solutions:
I researched web based games and discovered the Canvas API. Using this tool made the whole project easier and I began to make real progress.
I ended up relying heavily on Javascript classes to organize the project. Everything within the game is a class object. Learning to code in this way really helped scale the project to the size it needed to be.