#CodeOff 2013 – Jarrod – Day 2

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Ok so its now day two and I am just realizing that I will never reach inbox zero so its time to think about what I will make. Looking at Dave’s post and the type of apps that seem to be popular I am going to try my hand at a game. I have never written a game before so I will need to keep this simple. Here is my plan:

  1. Think of a fun, unique, challenging and engaging game
  2. Develop
  3. Profit!

This is a fool proof strategy, I am guaranteed to win!

Game Mechanics

Simple 2D scroller, controlling a sprite using touch. As the background scrolls various obstacles will be in the way of our sprite/character (just trying to keep things generic). Hitting an obstacle will cause damage and ultimately end the game.

I think that's enough for now. I have plenty of other ideas and a theme but seeing as this is my first attempt at building a game I am just going to do a simple spike to get a feel for what is involved.

Development Plan

I would like to target all our platforms like Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and IE10 (because everyone knows its the best browser they are just afraid to admit it). For backend stuff I will use the always improving Azure Mobile Services.

I plan on writing the game using JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3 on the two platforms. Windows 8 has native support for this allowing me to talk directly to the WinRT framework. Phone is not there yet but does have a “Windows Phone HTML5 App” template. This sets up a C#/XAML app with an embedded WebBrowser.

Making the Moolah

Hmmm…. somehow I don’t think I have thought this through enough. Time to do some planning then some coding. I need to leave something for another blog post. Smile