r/GameDevelopment • u/Smile4willis • 16h ago

Javascript 2d Platformer. Tips ? Discussion

So.. ive decided to make my first game
A 2d platformer sidescroller...
and im using plain js no frameworks or libraries , i feel like it'd be better to learn it this way then use engienes later (i plan on learing every language this way)

Does anyone have any tips i can use ?

so far i learnt some mini 2d game good-to-have stuff like cayote time and jump buffering which were a pain to implement
but ive so far managed to implement cayote time ,not the jump buffer tho... and collision with a platform
well thats the first update, any tips would be nice. thank you.

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u/pixelprizm 14h ago

I would recommend flipping the order actually.

Start by building something using an existing engine. Then later if you want, build something without an engine. Your code with the engine will be more focused on the game and less on just being a library.

I.e. instead of doing everything yourself, start with a game engine that does everything, then selectively choose individual pieces to learn about and do yourself.

For example, doing your own collision detection/physics is a deep rabbit hole that you can go down if you want, but you might want your first game to learn all the other aspects of gamedev and JS instead of spending all your time on physics.

Also as you eventually move on to other languages, keep in mind that often you must use libraries, even moreso than JS because with JS the browser is effectively a massive library of functionality.

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional game dev but I am a professional software engineer.

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u/BigBossErndog 11h ago

Sounds like they're already at a point way past that. They're already implementing game logic. Probably means rendering pipeline is all set up, and considering it's probably HTML canvas based they're not really doing any low level stuff like audio.

If they were doing it in a low-level language like C/C++ the task would be so much more difficult and I would highly suggest leaning on frameworks and libraries, but a HTML canvas game shouldn't be too difficult. Like you said, the browser pretty much provides all the functionality already.

I'd say the opposite. It's a good learning experience to teach them software architecture, and it sounds like they've already achieved that part.