Cosmic Clash

A few weeks ago while researching 2D game frameworks, I stumbled across a new one on the scene called Defold. The philosophy behind it is a little different to the norm - it's been in use for several years by the developers at King (the Candy Crush people) and they have recently opened it up for everyone to use for free. The idea being that having many more developers using the framework, it can be improved more effectively.

As I've got a few days off my day job, I've been working on a simple game to learn how to use both Defold and the scripting language Lua, which is the coding part of the framework. It's been tough going as I've never used a framework before and Lua is different to every other programming language I know - most of which are 'C' based. So pretty much every small step has required research.

Pew pew pew

After a few days I've managed to produce a simple playable shoot 'em up game with spawning aliens and a basic laser weapon attached to your ship.

Over the next few days, I'm intending to develop the game further and learn more about how to make games using Defold.

Probably the most advantageous thing about using a framework, is that you're targeting multiple platforms. Previously, all my games have been for specific systems - the most recent stuff targeting Android. So, I can now build applications for Windows, OSX, Linux and both Android and iOS platforms. I can also build packages in HTML5 so the games can be played in an internet browser.

I'm excited about this new framework and the opportunities to reach a much wider audience than with previous projects.