Game Development with JavaScript for Beginners

Nowadays, JavaScript can be used to make games, it brings the question of how good it is to use it for such tasks?.

Yes Indeed! JavaScript is a great language for game development, depending on the type of game you want to create. JavaScript is best for web-based and mobile games. It’s also a great language for beginners to learn because it’s generally easy to understand and has plenty of libraries and modules available.

JavaScript games can be played in the browser or mobile phone, so, if that’s your goal, it’s an excellent option. Using platforms and tools can help create both 2D and 3D games that can run directly in your browser.  Aside from only web-based games, JavaScript has been increasing in popularity in mobile game development.

Many popular online games were built using JavaScript. Students who want to create JavaScript game coding can start building one taking examples from one of the following: 

• Tower Building:  is a great way to get started with JavaScript games.

• Bejeweled was created as an in-browser game in the early 2000s. It’s similar to Candy Crush where you have to match three jewels in a row to score points.

• 2048 is an addicting game that allows you to use your arrow keys to move tiles around in a grid. The idea is to merge tiles until they equal 2048.

• Polycraft is a 3D game that is playable in your browser. Polycraft is full of adventure, exploration, base-building, gathering, crafting, and even fighting. It’s an excellent example of how you can move past 2D games with Javascript.

• Words With Friends 2 is a mobile app game that uses React Native, a framework that utilizes JavaScript to create mobile applications. They chose to use React Native for its ability to create a game that can be played on multiple platforms using JavaScript with one code-base.

See, how fun and rewarding it can be using JavaScript for building games, Let us look at some projects we are going to build in this course:

1. Hill climbing game: Famous android game but its idea of making vehicle move in hills is never old when it comes to web. We uses different concepts such as webpack, and physics module from phaser library to make this game.

2. Platformer 2D: we will have detail idea about sprites and how to use them in our games. We will create map (environment) and players from scratch. Different levels will be made and triggers/colliders will be added to make player change from one level to another.

3. Basics of Phaser library: Different programs to load images, follow camera, loading animations will be created.

I really enjoyed creating this course. Hope you will also have fun learning. See you at the class!