Games in less than 13kB of JavaScript | Hacker News Reader

Games in less than 13kB of JavaScript

blog.github.com

82 pointsfagnerbrack12 comments

I've participated in a couple of js31kgames jams, including the very first one. I didn't do it this year, but it's certainly a fun little challenge. My favorite creation was a color matching game; I actually wrote a small post on the Intel Developer Zone blog about all the stuff I learned about color matching, color formats, and perception over the course of making this (it was just beginner knowledge, but much of it was things I hadn't even considered before).

That sounds really cool. Do you have a link to that blog post?

Yup, here it is: https://software.intel.com/en-us/html5/hub/blogs/exploring-c...

(I want to reiterate that this is really just the very basics which I had learned over the course of the project; turns out I was completely clueless about color!)

After spending a few minutes on each of these, Re-wire really strikes me as being the most unlike anything I've ever played before. Really cool little puzzle mechanic.

I agree. this would make a nice mobile game.

Not JavaScript, but there was actually a 4kb version of Minecraft for a contest: https://archive.org/details/Minecraft4K

Do you know which contest?

That was for Java4k 2009. Notch was a regular participant in the competition, winning several years with 4k demakes of other popular games (though in that specific year I won :-)). He was experimenting with hand-writing JVM byte code assembly-style and wrote the core engine of a Minecraft-style game in just over 2000 bytes, then got bored with the project and wrote something else.

Due to the way Java4k works (your entry is measured by compressed jar size), every byte can fit a little more than the previous one, so 2000 bytes is actually less than half the allotted space.

Demakes are an interesting concept. For example, how little could you get away with doing for a demake of the first level of the original Crash Bandicoot? By that I mean, how little time could you get away with spending on code and graphics and still have it be recognizable by someone that had played said game in the past? How little and still have them identify it as a version of Crash rather than just being reminiscient of Crash? How little and still be visually pleasing? How little and still be enjoyable to play?

Notch actually participated in this year's js13kGames: https://twitter.com/notch/status/1035811278520872960.

He didn't finish his game in time though: https://twitter.com/notch/status/1039836244065378304 :)

This feels like highly relevant training for making responsive multiplayer games

The 1024-moves is very addictive.

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