Needs Fewer Pixels: Building A JavaScript Retro Game Engine

13:15, Room 2

Neil McCallion

As a grizzled old 8-bit fan and staunch supporter of the Web, our protagonist finds himself in a creative and ideological pickle: how can he stop sucking at game dev and enjoy some old-school fun, while still JavaScripting All The Things™ like he knows he should?

Fed up with crashing and burning while writing JavaScript at game jam events every couple of months, our intrepid hero attempts to solve the problem the only way he knows how: writing more JavaScript. The result is the JS-powered, retrogame-tailored, ‘virtual fantasy console’ of his dreams… and nightmares!

How will it all unfold? Will our man break the cycle of failure and ride his low-res, 16-colour, minimal-API vision to victory? Or will he and his abomination be destined to rot amongst the rest of his half-finished GitHub repos? Tune in to find out!