Updating a game with a wonky codebase - PhasR blog #1
a year and a half ago, I released PhasR, an infinite runner with vector style graphics of ye olden arcade games. Not a monetary success but that wasn’t the point and thanks to many itch.io charity bundles, lots of people played it while supporting a good cause (or two). As my first “published” game... thing, I’m quite proud of it.
As of 2~3 days ago, I started to work on an update for PhasR
This update is gonna be a big one. I’m looking at doing a lot of work on it, which might be hell considering just how I programmed the game (spoilers, it’s cringe).
Here are a few features I’m looking to implement, these are the bigger things I want to add but are by no means a definitive list:
Scalable window size
Controller support
Swappable colour palettes inc. player made palette
User customizable in-game music
The first item being worked on is scalable window support!
PhasR was initially developed on a 800x600px window and, being made in Processing 3.0, I assumed that window size was set in stone. I had found a way to get the game to full screen, but the way that was programmed required a restart, again because of how Processing 3.0 handles rendering, and that’s unfortunately not likely to change :(
Having recently found out how to change window size/resolution while the game is open and running, I feel quite a deal of shame for not having implemented window size options sooner. Still, work on it has been smooth so far. I have encountered an issue with changing to 1280x800 but it seems to have fixed itself, somehow. The biggest issue now is text not fitting on sizes smaller than 800x600 (specifically 480p and 720x576 sizes). I’m also looking at reworking the game logo to be an SVG so that it can appear crisp on bigger window sizes.
A lot to do. Hoping to keep these development blogs somewhat consistent but so far so good! :D
