Nice piece of game! Any chance you could write a couple blog posts about the technical challenges you had to face, if any? I'm especially interested in the way you generate levels. Thanks.
The shop doesn't work on a monitor (or browser window) with height > width. It appears when I resize the browser window. Otherwise the game works quite well on a rotated screen. Independent from screen rotation, some textures are badly compressed. Such as the pattern on the vase.
What's a good way to get started developing similar apps? Do you recommend coding from scratch right in WebGL, or do you recommend starting with some framework or another? Do you have any thoughts on using Unity or Unreal Engine for WebGL deployments?
You might want to take a look at playcanvas [https://playcanvas.com] if you are looking for something a little more game specific than threejs. We've designed it specifically for WebGL and hence it works a lot better than Unity or Unreal.
I recommend using Three.js which is the library that our game is using. Starting with WebGL from scratch might be too difficult if you have no experience.
Unity is not quite ready for the web yet, they have a WebGL exporter but it doesn't support mobile.
Small bug I've found : If you stand in a 'cell' with 3 walls and the only exit is occupied by an enemy, you can't rotate to hit and get killed eventually.
Is there anyway to change the keyboard setting? I accidentally selected the wrong one, and had to relaunch the game in an incognito tab to be given the chance to re-select the right one.
I like it. Unfortunately after running nicely for the first 6 levels, the framerate dropped to unplayable on level 7 :(
I'm on the open source (Nouveau) drivers with a "NVIDIA Corporation GF119M [Quadro NVS 4200M]" which I believe is pretty shite, so don't worry too much I guess!
Was being attacked and I froze a troll like object, but the flying red thing killed me (the fire breathing one you can kill with a sword). I threw a bomb right as I died, now the game scene is stuck at the the moment I died.
The game engine restarted and I can move around using the map. I'm taking no damage, but I get stuck in hallways by creatures that obviously aren't taking any damage either.
Console is filling with
"Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'distanceToPlayer' of null"
I was able to "restart game" - but there wasn't an option to restart the level.
Edit: Browser is OSX Mavericks 10.9.5 / Chromium Version 46.0.2456.0 (64-bit)
Thanks for the detailed bug report. I guess throwing the bomb as you died produced some kind of unexpected side-effect. I will make sure it's fixed! Congrats on getting to lvl 12 :)
I enjoyed it. I would love if it was tougher though. Most enemies are vulnerable when you strafe away and attack them from the side. I found that out pretty quickly and for that reason didn't like the power sword, because the knockback distance makes their movements less predictable. I did the first couple of levels without buying anything and was dissapointed that I had to buy the L1 bow first.
I actually like the game for its simplicity. However, I got a little annoyed by the baby steps in the first level. I guess I can handle walking, slashing and bowing things if its not fed to me with a ridiculously tiny spoon.
The game reminds me a little of Wolfenstein. In relation to that I felt that collecting money ("loot") was cumbersome and boring. In Wolfenstein, a lot of weapons were just laying around and posed an incentive for curageous explorers. I would rather find them and be surprised, or receive them as a reward, instead of having to buy them in the same boring store behind each level.
Finding the right difficulty level was challenging. People have given us different feedback depending on their skill: some keep dying around level 6, some find the game too easy. We tried to keep it difficult enough for it to be still being joyable by everyone. I agree personally that it should be tougher (and with more levels)!
Same thing for the "tutorial" aspect of the first levels. We wanted to make sure that casual players would not get overwhelmed too quickly.
About the tier 1 bow, you don't have to buy it first. Apart from the sword, you can buy weapons in the order you choose.
The shop was put as a incentive for people to keep playing in the context of a Web game which you don't know anything about. We feared players would not understand the scope of the game without it. I tend to agree with you though, as a gamer I prefer exploring and finding hidden items.
I saw this on Twitter yesterday and played for 30 mins while on a break. This is a really nice game. Good controls, well polished, challenging, and fun! Thanks for making it and sharing it with the world.
Readit News
Happy to answer any questions!
Unity is not quite ready for the web yet, they have a WebGL exporter but it doesn't support mobile.
Small bug I've found : If you stand in a 'cell' with 3 walls and the only exit is occupied by an enemy, you can't rotate to hit and get killed eventually.
A drawing explains it better http://pastebin.com/6uZS67VJ
Any plans on adding gamepad support? (It looks like Chrome for Android has it now.)
I'm on the open source (Nouveau) drivers with a "NVIDIA Corporation GF119M [Quadro NVS 4200M]" which I believe is pretty shite, so don't worry too much I guess!
Was being attacked and I froze a troll like object, but the flying red thing killed me (the fire breathing one you can kill with a sword). I threw a bomb right as I died, now the game scene is stuck at the the moment I died.
The game engine restarted and I can move around using the map. I'm taking no damage, but I get stuck in hallways by creatures that obviously aren't taking any damage either.
Console is filling with "Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'distanceToPlayer' of null"
I was able to "restart game" - but there wasn't an option to restart the level.
Edit: Browser is OSX Mavericks 10.9.5 / Chromium Version 46.0.2456.0 (64-bit)
What I also liked was how quick everything was (both loading, introduction gameplay), and relatively well drawn/animated.
I actually like the game for its simplicity. However, I got a little annoyed by the baby steps in the first level. I guess I can handle walking, slashing and bowing things if its not fed to me with a ridiculously tiny spoon.
The game reminds me a little of Wolfenstein. In relation to that I felt that collecting money ("loot") was cumbersome and boring. In Wolfenstein, a lot of weapons were just laying around and posed an incentive for curageous explorers. I would rather find them and be surprised, or receive them as a reward, instead of having to buy them in the same boring store behind each level.
Well done, anyway :)
Finding the right difficulty level was challenging. People have given us different feedback depending on their skill: some keep dying around level 6, some find the game too easy. We tried to keep it difficult enough for it to be still being joyable by everyone. I agree personally that it should be tougher (and with more levels)!
Same thing for the "tutorial" aspect of the first levels. We wanted to make sure that casual players would not get overwhelmed too quickly.
About the tier 1 bow, you don't have to buy it first. Apart from the sword, you can buy weapons in the order you choose.
The shop was put as a incentive for people to keep playing in the context of a Web game which you don't know anything about. We feared players would not understand the scope of the game without it. I tend to agree with you though, as a gamer I prefer exploring and finding hidden items.
GET http://www.playkeepout.com/js/backbone-min.map 404 (Not Found) (index):1
GET http://www.playkeepout.com/js/underscore-min.map 404 (Not Found)
three.min.js:9 THREE.WebGLRenderer 71
three.min.js:1 THREE.WebGLRenderer: Error creating WebGL context.
three.min.js:9 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'getShaderPrecisionFormat' of null
BTW, I played in Firefox and got to level 7. Fun!
You can go to chrome://gpu/ to see more information as to why it's not working on your machine.