2D Racing Game with Complex Physics
Requires keyboard! Bug: On MacOS browsers, the spaceship has buffed stats and more stable handling than intended. Still playable, and if you are a speed control demon, you might enjoy the bugged version more. Developer time was obtained without using bugs, increased stats, or exploits.
Completed the spaceship and track functionality in about four hours, my main focus was on adding elaborate and fairly challenging game physics, and the result was great. However, I did spend an additional six hours or more trying to render the ship in 3D and to add background graphics.
I was able to generate a 3D ship using Three.js, but I couldn't make it visible in the game. I modified and imported my JavaScript-generated graphics, but the brisk shallow shore ended up being visually distracting, so I removed it. Adapting the original generative graphic files to work with the game was certainly extra work... Nevertheless, this experience taught me the importance of planning ahead and preparing for every aspect you want to implement in a project.
Other functionality: Everything other than the ship and track functionality and appearance took me a few more hours. The 'increase stats' feature I came across by accident! It works by adding another active "requestAnimationFrame" to the existing game loop. In total, I spent about fifteen hours on development.
Python Web Browser
Leveraging Tkinter, BeautifulSoup, and TkHTMLview, I was able to create a bare-bones web browser in under ten hours! For installation instructions, click here.
Surprisingly, most of the time I spent on this project was to make it distributable: packaging the program, troubleshooting on other systems, and assembling licensing/readme/etc. It felt like a crash course in creating a product.
Generative Wave Graphics Using JavaScript
Made this in 40 minutes, inspired by EarthBound's background battle graphics and wanted to see how quickly I could whip up my own version. I spent much of the time making the movement not shutter or be reminiscent of epilepsy, and what I ended up with was something resembling waves. Found the right colors and it was good to go.
It allows all screen sizes, so you will have a different experience depending on the device/window size. The waves are supposed to overlap, but some mobile device screens will vertically stretch the display enough to cause gaps in between waves.
PowerShell System Cleaner
Read script before running! This is a PowerShell script I made to quickly clean up various temporary files, and optimize the SSD. While many of these tools already exist, I wanted one that is both customizable and quick to run. The script ended up being modular, which is awesome because anyone can easily remove and add any functionality they want! It frees up 1-2 GB of space when I use it.
Features: Modular design, detailed logs, SSD optimization, comprehensive cleaning, and before/after analysis.
QR Code Game
Not optimized for mobile I designed this simple guessing game to be theoretically small enough to fit on a large QR code, particularly if the code is concatenated.
I was inspired by a guy online that did this with his simple version of 'Snake', but it only worked on Windows and the QR was way too big. My idea was to make it as practical as possible: A single code I could pull out of my pocket, that anyone could scan with their phone and load into their browser immediately.
The final result ended up being a near-perfect balance between graphics and game logic. However, given the space limitations, if I was to do this again I would focus solely on graphics or gameplay due to space limitations.
I did not go through with actually making the QR code because it was going to be a lot more time for something that might not load, and honestly the gaming potential is limited. QR codes are generally just a link, so I would have to look more into a special website or software that could make the QR for me. Even if I made it, it's possible that it would not work at all as this assumes the data would be loaded straight into a new page within the browser and is not treated as potential malware.
Squid.Pizza
I built the current version of the site in under an hour, the creation process was pretty unremarkable but owning a fun 'useless website' was a strong desire of mine in middle school! I will probably add more to it eventually.
I tried making the squid mirrored while moving to make it look more like swimming, as well as incorporate my VisitPaul scroll bar, but they were not working without continual issues and I didn't want to go down a rabbit hole. If I add more functionality for squid.pizza it will probably link to new pages and/or include pizza. ... There is one other place on VisitPaul with a link to Squid.Pizza, can you find it?
I probably will not make another graphical web game given the time it took, it was my first time, but 15 hours for borderline 70's graphics, and minimal options?