After I made Lovur I experimented with some HTML5 frameworks for game development. I have always liked writing games but I’ve normally got stuck somewhere in sprite-handling routines and level editors but with these tools it was amazingly simple to prototype games.

Using the MellonJs HTML5 engine I prototyped two simple games in a few hours. That’s two playable games. I was intrigued by the efficiency of developing and of course I tried the games using Cordova on a recent Android phone and I got disappointed.

As nice and fast it was to develop in this environment the results on smartphone were quite bad.

I tried both games both using Cordova and also using crosswalk and CocoonJS for greater speed. I also tried re-implementing both games using Phaser (remember that I’m still writing about small prototypes of games).

To sum it up. Both games where jerky as normal Cordova builds, not reaching anywhere near 60 fps. With Crosswalk and CocoonJS they were playable, but at a high cost in file size and then just barely playable. I figured that if I would add any logic the playability would suffer. So I tried LibGDX.

I implemented both prototypes in LibGDX, this time taking a bit longer time than the HTML5 variants of course but with more control. The results where really smooth (I only tried on Android) and the development environment quite nice so I decided to continue working on the games a bit. After all, I have a few game ideas I would like to implement, but before I can do that I have to learn. Fallur is a place for me to learn.

I released it before christmas 2014, a bit ahead of time. The game isn’t ready, but it is playable (well, up to level 20, then it gets a bit too hard.. and perhaps a bit boring). I rushed it out since I had made a christmas theme for the game. The game will be re-themed later on and the game play will evolve.

As I am only doing this for my own sake and for learning I have no problem releasing an unfinished product on the world like this. Also, that is the reason the game is only available on Android. I will be updating it and that is simple and fast on Google Play. Also, as I will be evolving the game play and graphics (experimenting) I don’t have time to maintain different versions for different platforms even if the very nice LibGDX would make that possible.

Anyhow, I hope someone is enjoying the game despite it being in the state it is 🙂