Drawlike

"Drawlike" was made by following Jeremiah Reid's JavaScript Broughlike Tutorial for the purposes of 1.) teaching myself JavaScript through a fun but challenging project and 2.) participating in two concurrent game jams: the NarraScope 2020 Game Jam and I Can't Draw But Want To Make A Game (Again).

I was encouraged by the NarraScope 2020 keynote to put perfectionism aside and release this so that I can move on to my next project. Several NarraScope attendees as well as Jeremiah Reid gave me personalized support for my JavaScript questions over Discord. The theme of the NarraScope jam is "growth" and the theme of the I Can't Draw jam is self evident, so when I tried to decide which jam to focus on submitting to, I realized that I sincerely made this for both. :)

Here is what this project helped me accomplish:

1. Brushing up on HTML and CSS after a long break from web design.
2. Designing original sound effects and music, and drawing pixel art after many years of not drawing anything at all.
3. Overcoming the initial learning curve and confusion of even looking at JavaScript, feeling like I can read some of it at a glance and grasping the grammar, knowing how and what to Google when I don't know the answer, starting to think through questions with programming logic.
4. Remotely connecting with other people by asking for help, learning together, and sharing assets (all the music and SFX are free for anyone to reuse or remix) during a particularly tough time (quarantine, unemployment, injustice, not to mention the weather).

Here are the ways in which "Drawlike" differs from and expands on the Broughlike tutorial, which I plan to develop further in my next project:

• The stats, spells, and most other text elements are in plain HTML instead of "drawn" on the canvas, allowing a greater degree of control over their appearance, placement, and length.
• I created a very basic framework for eventual dialogue and quests.
  • When you pick up treasure, which I arbitrarily decided were pieces of fruit, you get a little information about what kind of fruit you found, and how you feel about it. If you happen to find your favorite fruit, the results are different. 
  • On the first level, the monsters don't want to talk to you. On the second, they dare you keep going. And after that, you get a random silly comment from them.

Here are the things I'd like to polish and fix:

• The various sections of the HTML are fixed sizes and placements in a way that looks good on my exact screen resolution, because I was inventing the layout as I went. Ideally everything would be organized in a nice, responsive grid!
• The music controls are a little slapdash. Music and sound mean a lot to me as a sound designer, so I'd like to really explore how much further I could take them.
• It would be cool if the floor and wall tiles changed as levels progressed, right? I think I know how to do this now, but it's a lower priority.

If you've actually read all the way to here, wow! Thank you.