Hashlings: Summoning Circles
A proof of concept that i engineered for a game where you draw circular patterns that then summon a ranomly generated creature. You can make as many as you wish, view other player's creations, and even build a team to battle in a chess-style minigame!
Click here to Try it out!
The Challenge
This project gave me many learning opportunities. The main issues i ran into involved formatting the site for mobile, and storing data in an online database.
While trying to get the format working on mobile, things we're almost never the size i wanted them to be. the nav-bar was too big, the circle canvas for drawing was too small, the minigame board was so massive, you couldn't see the whole thing.
Storing the hashlings data had its host of struggles as well. Throughout the process, i would add or change things related to the hashlings that would make all the existing hashling in the database have faulty information. The newly generated hashlings worked fine so i could have just deleted the old ones, but i already had several friends testing the site out and making their own hashlings. I didn't want to wipe out their creations.
The Solution
Eventually I got the hang of utilizing the debug F12 screen. It was a life saver for identifying issues with everything: html, javascript, and css. When the format didn't look right, I could pinpoint the problem child in the sea of text, and make the adjustments needed.
For the data problems, I learned you could use SQL commands to retroactively apply the updated code to the existing cells in the data table. This came in particular handy when trying to get the hashlings movesets working properly. I could generate moves for all existing hashlings, test to see if its working properly, and if not, I could make some tweaks, regenerate all their moves and try again.
I did use AI in the process of making this project. The design and creative vision was completely mine, but as someone who is still relatively new to coding, it was a huge asset in learning how to apply my design in a functional manner.
The Results
A fully functional browser game prototype that works on both desktop and mobile.