I’m working on a video game, purely for fun.

Here is a work in progress build:

https://muffinman-io.itch.io/space-deck-x

It is a combination of a shoot-em-up and deck building. You fly and shoot until you get to the boss, when you get your deck out to fight them.

That genre combination is definitely too ambitious, but I think it is fun to play and I’m enjoying making it.

I have a bunch of ideas how to combine the two parts better. But over the years, I’ve learned to control scope creep and actually ship pet projects.

Right now I’m in a middle of changing how enemy waves are spawned. After that I want to make a short tutorial and add two more bosses as well as more enemies.

If you end up playing it, please share your feedback I’ll be glad to hear it.

The game is made using Kaplay, a game dec library which brings me joy to use. I can best describe it as my friend described Pico-8: “easy things are easy”. But compared to Pico-8, Kaplay doesn’t have virtual console limitations and comes with a big library of components. Try it out, the community is small, but the library itself is really fun and easy to use.

EDIT: For context, this is about two weeks of work, in the evenings when my kid is asleep.

I am obsessed with this - appreciating every tweak you've added! Keep up the good work - signed, JRM from the leaderboard.

Great art style, fun music.

I couldn't figure out the Boss fight with cards though. I run out of energy and so I assume my turn is over. But how do I end my turn?

A button guide in the main menu would be helpful.

I hear you, I have to add a tutorial.

- "z" plays a card - "x" ends your turn

If one never played deck builders, they probably have no idea what is going on. Thanks for trying it!

It's a fun little game. I didn't like that dying makes you start from level 1 though.

Nice game. But the stars in the background were confusing and hard to distinguish between them and projectiles. That got me killed way too many times.

Congrats on your progress! This is pretty cool.

i wish i was that good at pixel art, it would be my sole hoby if i were

I completely understand what you mean, I often feel like that as well. Like every other skill, it takes time and it feels frightening when you see other people's work. Honestly I don't think I'm that good at pixel art, this is my first pixel art project. To be fair, spaceships and technology are pretty straight forward to draw.

Edit: typo

Nice write up! I'm always happy to see interactive articles.

As someone who also do interactive articles from time to time, I'm wondering what is the tech stack you are using to make these?

It is a simple React + Motion + Tailwind + Vanilla SVG here.

But it was just a first try, lots of things are still unoptimized. I'll try to do better in a next article.

Haha I love your comment. I'll let you in on a little secret - you can add a seed parameter to the URL to get a specific invader. It has to be an integer, otherwise it will be ignored.

For example:

https://muffinman.io/blog/invaders/?seed=1234

Thanks, it means a lot!

Thank you! You can also think of the vector shapes as a kind of skeleton. I think that is one of the reasons it works well. Moving the limbs or increasing the size creates the illusion of movement and breathing. But it works well only while the grid is smaller and can hide the underlying shapes. Once the vectors start to emerge, it breaks the illusion. You could definitely improve it to work better at larger sizes, but I think you would need to introduce more constraints, which limits the random factor of the generator.

If you end up using something similar in your game, I would love to see it!

edit: It seems that I need to make the RSS link more prominent :)

Very nice!

I was thinking about using walkers, but after some doodling decided to go with vector shapes. I think the combination of the two could also produce some cool results.

As lyr said, these are part of CCA's code challenge and we'll create a page to present all of the generators on one place.

edit: typo

Thanks! I think AI sucks all the fun from projects like this one. The whole magic of creation process is lost.

While you’re here, might/will you put rayven on GitHub? I’d be very interested to explore some of the algorithms you’ve used for (essentially) attractive vector hatching.

I have a plan to do it, but it is one of those never ending projects. Hopefully I will finally release it this year.

Some say that we will disappear because of AI.

They just hate coding.

Thanks, when I started experimenting I was pleasantly surprised with results I was getting. After some polishing and adding UI I think it really came together nicely.

As for OKLCH, it is a big upgrade. Working with color from code is hard, and it really makes things easier. I also like HSLuv [1], but unfortunately it is not supported natively in browsers.

[1] https://www.hsluv.org/

The uniform lightness looks nice, but it's a shame that the easily memorable hue values of HSL (0 = red, 120 = green, 240=blue) are lost.

Thank you both, it means a lot. I try to make it clean, but fun and personal too.

Can say the effort you put in setting that up was worth it. Fantastic work in both making the generator and sharing it!

I actually lol-ed on this one, thank you. Sorry to disappoint, it is just an old school space invader.