Fracas 3

Devlog

• How it started
  January 19, 2024 by aaryte

  That’s pretty close to how it ended up, too... Continue reading

  
• Supporting all display frame rates
  February 23, 2023 by aaryte

  I upgraded from a laptop with a 60Hz display to one with a 120Hz display, and suddenly Fracas 3 played at 2x speed. I instantly regretted hardcoding my game(s) to expect 60 frames per second. I rememb... Continue reading

  
• Smart arrows: a bug fix & a design note
  February 17, 2023 by aaryte

  First, the bug: Player arrows didn’t seek phaser bullets! Phasers are the enemies that see and shoot through walls. Since phaser bullets have to travel through walls, that bullet class has its own... Continue reading

  
• Fracas 3.1.3
  January 03, 2023 by aaryte

  1

  The intro-to-lasers level was a tricky puzzle, but it wasn’t a fair fight. This is really a game about battles, so I made it a lot easier to win that level purely by combat. I added a new Phaser lev... Continue reading

  
• More new levels
  July 08, 2022 by aaryte

  Fracas 3.1.2: I added a new intro-to-lasers level and a choose-your-door battle arena, got rid of one of the old levels that didn’t match the new vibe, and made some tweaks to some other levels. Her... Continue reading

  
• Blast-radius previews in the editor
  July 01, 2022 by aaryte#level editor

  In the editor, I added rings around mines and mushrooms, to make it easier to see what’ll get blown up or activated, while editing. I updated the levels a little too... Continue reading

  
• Levels & Lasers!
  June 27, 2022 by aaryte

  The big thing is LASERS. I love these little laser drones. They make a cute noise when they die. If they die. They can wreck you at long range, so take cover or learn to dash out of the way at the rig... Continue reading

  
• Fracas 3.1: Caverns & Conflicts
  June 11, 2022 by aaryte

  This is a big update for Fracas 3: There are a bunch of new levels, twelve total. The first eight are all completely new, and the last four are adapted from my favorite original two. In general, the l... Continue reading

  
• Slight changes to mushrooms and enemies
  July 29, 2021 by aaryte

  Popping mushrooms no longer damage enemies, so players can't use mushroom patches as weapons any more. Mushrooms still damage the player though. Now if a blaster sees a player hide, the blaster will k... Continue reading
• Blaster work & level tweaks
  July 05, 2021 by aaryte

  Added a "Blasters Attack" scene in the gallery. Better blaster sounds. You'll know it when they're firing at you, for sure. Improved blaster navigation. They were going in circles in some narrow hallw... Continue reading

  
• ⬢ New enemy: Blasters!
  July 04, 2021 by aaryte#enemies

  Blasters have rapid-fire cannons and perfect aim, and their bolts hit your arrows, giving them a defense against player fire. You can outgun one in single combat, but if there's more than one then you... Continue reading

  
• a bunch of little things
  May 20, 2021 by aaryte

  Updated the main page! Added some graphics, added a lot more text about the game, and updated all the screenshots since the game looks a little different now. Updated the animated gif to include mines... Continue reading
• 🍄 Mushrooms
  May 09, 2021 by aaryte

  New game element! These glowing cave mushrooms pop when they're hit, doing damage in a small area. Like mines, they can burst in a chain reaction. They respawn after a little while with a cute "bwip"... Continue reading

  
• 💥 Mines
  May 03, 2021 by aaryte

  Finally, a new gameplay element, mines! They destroy walls, trigger nearby mines and blocks, and they deal exactly one damage to nearby players and enemies. And they can throw players a bit. Now there... Continue reading

  
• Handle broken SessionStorage & LocalStorage
  April 25, 2021 by aaryte

  I accidentally learned that if you block third-party cookies in Chrome, HTML5 games hosted on itch.io are denied access to LocalStorage and SessionStorage, even though it still works if you're testing... Continue reading

  
• "What are the controls?"
  April 25, 2021 by aaryte

  I like using a laptop trackpad as an input for steering and aiming, using HTML5 Pointer Lock. I like it so much that I made that my default control scheme for mouse & keyboard users in my games. And b... Continue reading

  
• Fresh title screen
  April 24, 2021 by aaryte

  I got a little scene rendering behind the title text, using the power-ups as chill animation accents. I tried having more action, but it was annoying to have a lot going in on the title page. How it l... Continue reading

  
• 🛠 Simple editor startup
  April 18, 2021 by aaryte#level editor

  Now it's much easier to get started with the level editor. It used to take about ten clicks to create and test the first playable custom level, and it was hard to figure out. Now it takes about three... Continue reading

  
• 🎛️ Gameplay Settings
  April 15, 2021 by aaryte#settings

  I added a settings widget, and put two important settings in there so far: screen shake: 0%-400% game speed: 20%-200% (Settings are available in the edit menu too.)... Continue reading

  
• Play your custom adventures
  April 10, 2021 by aaryte

  Now the Game Menu has a list of the adventures from the editor, and you can select any one of those to play. (And you can name your adventures now, too.)... Continue reading

  
• Move and clone levels in the editor
  March 31, 2021 by aaryte#leveleditor

  OK, I think the editor is finally feature-complete! Now you can move levels and adventures easily, and clone levels. Other changes: Scrolling works in fullscreen mode. I think that's been broken forev... Continue reading

  
• ♻️ Undelete
  March 29, 2021 by aaryte#leveleditor

  What kind of monster would make it easy to delete a level, representing hours of work, and then not provide any way to undelete it? Not me, anymore! Now deleted levels are retained in localstorage wit... Continue reading

  
• Editor UI work: Nouns and Verbs
  March 28, 2021 by aaryte#leveleditor

  I de-cluttered the editor menu, in a couple ways: I made the player-selection widget collapsible, collapsed by default. To make sure gamepad connect/disconnect updates still got reflected in collapsed... Continue reading

  
• level-editor thumbnails
  March 09, 2021 by aaryte#leveleditor

  In the level editor, I added add thumbnail previews for every level. Each thumbnail is generated by rendering a level on a tiny canvas, and then calling getDataURL(). That data can be used as an <img>... Continue reading

  
• Fracas 3, ta-da!
  February 19, 2021 by aaryte

  I started this a year ago, in Feb 2020, and while there are a bunch of changes I'd like to make, it's in good-enough shape to publish. It's another top-down 2D shooter, but it's my special baby, and I... Continue reading