Work on “A Book About Making Web Games” continues with a new Photics game — Photics: Jigsaw! It’s a solar system themed jigsaw game. The idea is to travel through the solar system by completing the puzzles. The game gets more difficult as you journey outwards from the sun.
The simple fact is that I miss the fun of the early Internet. There were so many Flash games to play. Now, it’s more about apps. And even though there are so many mobile games to choose from, I don’t download apps that much lately. There are privacy concerns, there might be ads, there might be in-app purchases, or the game might simply change in a negative way.
I have been playing YouTube Playables games. That’s rekindled the feeling of early Internet fun — Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope, Pac-Man SuperFast, Crossy Road, and Angry Birds Showdown. Those are some great games.
YouTube Playables works without ads right now, but for long will that last? That’s why I like Apple Arcade. It’s more of a pristine gaming environment. Just recently, I had a lot of fun with Crossy Road Castle and Skate City: New York. Yet, games like that are rare. It’s tough to justify the cost of a subscription service when I only enjoy a few games.
That’s the motivation for creating the Photics… arcade… is it an arcade? Well, the new jigsaw addition is part of the “Games” section of Photics.com. The ulterior motive is obvious. The idea is to attract players with free games. Then, maybe these games will motivate some players to create their own games. That’s why the book is important. The idea is to explain how to create web games, with vanilla web tech — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Jigsaws can be quite puzzling. Creating a Jigsaw is even more of a puzzle. There were so many little problems that needed to be solved. While the project expanded in scope, and the game is still not quite finished, Photics: Jigsaw took way longer than expected to create. The original estimate was just a week… by the end of April. Now in the middle of July, clearly something went wrong.
Or perhaps, maybe something went right. The idea isn’t to mass-produce slop. It’s about designing and engineering great web projects. It’s not just about what works or what’s good enough, it’s about building things the right way. It was surprising to see how a seemingly simple idea involved solving so many technical challenges.
That gained knowledge should make for a good book. Unfortunately, the book is not anywhere near complete. But for now, there’s a new jigsaw game to enjoy. That’s how to know the path is true. As development progressed, it was becoming more difficult to stop playing the game. If this project is successful, the Photics: Jigsaw game is to be amongst the first of many. So, I suppose I should get back to work.