Another month, another game. I figure it was about time I tried my hand at an endless runner. It’s implemented in Javascript/HTML5. Its a pretty simple game called Run Block Run.
Run Block Run is very simple to play. There’s only one button involved. J to jump. At first you can only jump once. After a minute you can double jump. After two minutes you can triple jump and so on up to five.
There were no major headaches with this. The usual collision detection bugs to iron out but nothing major. There’s no music or artwork to load which avoids one common source of issues, downloading and managing files.
I took a slightly novel approach to development. First, I built each major visual element as a standalone project. Once that was done all I had to do was gaffer tape the whole thing together. Here are links to the individual components.
https://github.com/andyjdavis/javascript-jumping-block
https://github.com/andyjdavis/javascript-sidescroll-starfield
https://github.com/andyjdavis/javascript-skyline
This style of development worked quite well and helped me focus on completing one thing before moving on. Otherwise I’m inclined to hop around. Ultimately the work still gets done but taking it piece by piece certainly gave me a strong sense of getting stuff done.
Now that its finished, to be honest, I’m not particularly happy with how this turned out. I feel like my projects are progressively becoming more polished but I just don’t feel like Run Block Run is actually that much fun. I don’t actually play endless runners much so maybe that’s the issue. Don’t try to make a game you wouldn’t normally play yourself.
You can play it on New Grounds, Game Jolt or Kongregate.