Learning HTML Game coding

I always thought that learning to code games is very exciting! I knew very little about html coding however it seemed to be my best bet for its popularity and abundance of resources. Throughout my learning, I mainly used youtube videos that are made for online courses such as Udacity, Zenva, and CodeYourFirstGame, with the help of StackOverFlow forums.

Hence to use all the various resources in the most efficient way, I broke down of my learning goals was as follows:

1. Upload a ready game on my site, just to make sure I can publish game files.
   
2. Edit user control of the game, to make sure I can handle user interaction.
3. Code a simple game to understand the main components of any 2D game that is developed using HTML5 with help of this video

   

4. Code my game with more graphics! (this will happen next week)

I felt very accomplished after I completed the first 3 goals. This video shows you a glimpse of the process:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyHPUZQ6aFk

 

However, IT IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS THIS!

Coding a game involves user input, constant window update, physics, and graphics. I was able to learn those gaming concepts through videos, which I felt very similar to attending a classroom lecture (except the fact that you can skip to what interests you!). Yet, since this task only allows me to use YouTube and Help Forums, following a video to code was a little frustrating. Many programmers use from a ready code as a starter, then pick and match different code snippets to build a meaningful program. In this specific task I wrote each bit of code, so the more write, the more natural it became to follow up with videos. Turns out it is not a very bad idea to learn to code with videos! 

Another challenge I faced had to do with the fact that most of the videos available are based on online courses. Hence I missed out on the interactivity benefit of actually taking the course, such as completing assignments, getting to interact with TA’s and classmates, etc. At this point I tried using forums which were a lifesaver to me. I found that many people had previously asked the questions I have in mind. It realised that I was saving time by investing it only on my area of deficiency instead of solving assignments that I might have found super easy or super hard. I was working on my pace basically, much better compared a classroom style. 

In the next week I will use what I learnt in making a game with more graphics, and hopefully with levels (figures crossed) as I will need to learn using more advanced features to create player progress.

Stay tuned!