It’s Day 19 of GitHub’s Game Off 2016 and it’s time for the final stretch! I’ve actually published the first playable version of the game, available in the browser using WebGL, so please head over to kylewbanks.com/byter and try it out!

I’m planning to have Android, Mac, Windows, Linux and WebGL builds available by the end of the competition, but WebGL is the easiest to continuously update and deploy prior to the game actually being complete, so that will have to do for the next 11 or so days. I’ll potentially be providing an iOS build as well, but due to the way Apple manages the iOS app ecosystem this is much more of a headache than other platforms, so it all depends on time. Either way, the source code is available for those who want to build and run on their own iOS devices!

With all that being said, let’s take a look at what’s been done over the last few days:

Changelog

Audio

• Added background music, bit spawn and Lost Packet collection sound effects.
• Added a settings menu containing background music and sound effect toggles.

Lost Packet Improvements

• Better touch input support on Lost Packets, specifically multi-touch when also touching another game element.
• Removed physics from the Lost Packets. For the simple movement of the Lost Packets the built-in physics system was overkill.
• Displaying the Lost Packet rewards as a text element above the collected Lost Packet.
• Object pooling on the Lost Packets for improved performance.

Camera Improvements

Added camera zooming using multi-touch on mobile and the scroll wheel on desktop. I’m actually planning to do a blog post on this in the future, so keep an eye out here.

UI Enhancements

Display the current Automation reward below the top menu when circuit nodes are lit and Automation upgrades have been purchased.

Tuning

Reworked the Automation reward to increase bit value by a certain percentage for each lit curcuit node.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with not being able to collect a Lost Packet while the clicker is held. This is related to the better touch input mentioned in the Lost Packet Improvements section above.
• Fixed an issue that caused the game not to save in WebGL builds.

And that’s it! Please do take a moment to check out the game and let me know what you think in the comments!