Many javascript code compression techniques are used to create even shorter demos, animations and even games, using 140 characters or less, by the Dwitter community. E.g. a similar to Perlin noise image used to create the terrain (in this 13k game) was made with less than 140 characters of JavaScript, see here:
https://www.dwitter.net/top/month
Some Dwitter members are also developers of 13kb games.
Nice it reminds me of the classic Runescape to an extent. I wasnt big on Runescape at the time like my friends were but I still admire the game. I know some still remember it fondly it is one of the icons of mid 2000s gaming much like Starcraft.
This was an incredible read for me! I've always wanted to write a game from scratch, but never quite found the time - and it's a bit daunting if you don't know where to start.
Really appreciate the commentary, details and code snippets!
The previous game, Underrun, was excellent, and I took to heart his points on sound files taking up a lot of space. Using synth sounds is relatively easy to generate and takes up only a few bytes for code snippets.
For people wondering about it, you can select the engineers and make them build harvesters and turrets. There is one medic who will heal the unit closest to him.
Great write-up! It's very interesting to see how one actually goes around making a game in such short time. I have been doing computer graphics stuff as a hobby for some years, and I know your pain when it comes to OpenGL shenanigans. Keep it up!
I don't even think these people understand what they think they are criticizing. Leveraging external code doesn't make something less impressive -- the extent in which you can leverage other code like graphics APIs is what becomes impressive.
I suppose they think they are being some sort of technical pedant, but surely anyone with any actual technical chops knows otherwise.