The Traze Maze Used AI

Still working on major readability changes and organization of code. Almost fully understand the codebase now! (lol there will probably be a part 3).

After thinking about the way the Traze Maze runs, I've decided to stop development of the maze (fow now) and work on organizing the code and taking out unnecessary modules so that it's easier to work with and maintain. I've taken out ~20 unnecessary functions and still continuing to do so! Also making sure that variables are clearly declared by placing them all at the top of the file. There will probably be a part 2 of this devlog.

The image is a screenshot of the level select, just to demonstrate the vibe of the page. Not really sure how to document this change properly

The back button now works properly! Also, I disabled level 2 for now to make it shippable... Wondering if I should edit the jump function to jump instantly instead of charging up a jump (I think more people prefer it that way...)? I also found a bug where resizing the window makes the maze disappear completely, so I'm going to work on that... Anyway, time for ship 3!

Added a Start Screen, a Level Select, and make the functionality of the Back button go back to the Start Screen instead of the homepage (although it's still buggy). Also starting to add a level 2 but it's going to take a while to fix up properly (or maybe not, I'm not sure)

Just some bug fixes and a demonstration of how the restart maze button works now

Added a start screen, moved code into modules so that it's easier to maintain, a couple of bug fixes, and made it so that the Restart Maze function doesn't just reload the page, but instead resets the entire maze without the need to reload it.

Added a proper spike that can take away hearts, meaning that it's now possible to fail the level! Going to rework the way that the game starts up and runs so that no reloading is needed... (I also needed a black screen that covers up the page while it's loading in so that it looks smooth)

Revamped the maze look and added a jump indicator! I also began adding a heart mechanic to account for trap and enemy hits...but I haven't added any traps or enemies. I think I will add a trap and then design a proper start screen before adding more levels and enemies.

Also, around half the time in the previous devlog should have been in this one, but I was having trouble posting a devlog, so just note I spent around 3-4 hours, not 23 minutes on this update.

Added dash and ground pound animation! Going to add a jump indicator and revamp the look of the level next...

I finally added animations to the game! It's only running left and right for now, but I'll add more in the future. I tried to generate them first with Copilot, but it looked so bad that I had to hand-draw them using Piskel (@ https://www.piskelapp.com/). After putting it into the code, I finally got the result shown. Going to also fix some bugs...

P.S. I forgot to put this in an earlier devlog, but I did add coyote time to the game!

Added a ground pound feature! Took many tries to adjust the collision and the speed, but it finally worked out! Going to add animation next.

I added a gravity, variable jumping, and dashing system to my game to make it more of a platformer. I'm going to ship this initial version of the game, but will add more like a gunner, enemies, levels, and upgrades.

Finally fixed the lag issue of the page and now I have a solid base to add features, levels, and upgrades. The hitbox of the sprite can slightly overlap with the edge, but will fix eventually. Going to finalize the classic mazes (the ones under the classic page) and finally add features to the new maze!

Updated the HTML pages to add the new maze to the page, and separated the code in modular libraries for easier editing.

The player can now move freely throughout the maze without being constrained by the cell system of the maze, but the game will run slowly after a while. Working to fix this.

Fixed up a couple bugs, made the whole page run smoothly, and remove the player on the grid system that it was on. Going to work on proper motion and animation next.

It may look like a step backwards, but I'm planning to change up the way the maze game works and add levels to the game instead of random generation. Going to add gravity and a proper movement system soon.

Updated the sprite, going to make a major overhaul of the game's mechanics soon to an actual platformer

Remade the look of the page and the styling to make it make appealing

I added a camera system that focuses on the player and revamped the movement. I also tried to add animations, but they don't work so well. Going to continue adding to the camera system and revising the animations before moving on to other mechanics.

Revamped the landing page of the game to make it look better. Tomorrow, I'll work on adding an animation for selecting a maze and quickly edit the other pages before working on the maze game itself...