Lately I have been giving my turret defense canvas example a much needed overhaul as I do not like the state that I have it in. I added a whole bunch of code that brings things to the example that start to make it look like an actual game to some extent for once. However there is much more work to do when it comes to making a quality game that people might actually want to play. For today though I wanted to work out a simple javaScript example where I am just focusing one one little aspect of the game, and that is just having the turret move and fire.

This fire control system is just working out a standard way to control what will cause the turret to move, in what direction, and at at what rate of movement. This example then makes use of a bunch of methods that have to do with working with angles, because I will want to know the shortest direction between two angles, and also the angular distance from one angle to another, and so forth. Also it is true that what I am working out here will ally to all kind of games that will make use of this kind of control system, or something like it.

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Some may say that a good way to learn javaScript, or any programing language is to study the language itself, as well as various libraries that are written in the language. However learning javaScript is a lot like learning English, where learning the language itself is just a way to gain a kind of literacy. Becoming literate of a language is great, but that alone by itself is not going to help me creating something useful, entertaining, or at least interesting. In order to really move forward with a language the real way to learn would be to apply a working knowledge of a language to make some kind of project. When it comes to English that would be doing a little writing, however when it comes to javaScript that would me making some actual projects, and functioning code examples. Simply put there is learning by reading a blog post such as this one that you are reading right now, and if course that is great, but it is no replacement for learning by doing.

So then maybe the best way to go about learning javaScript would be to just start making some fun, or useful javaScript examples that you can start to actually play with, or use to help solve some kind of problem, or at least do something that is an interesting taking point to say the least.

In this post I will be briefly writing about and linking to each of my javaScript example posts where I am just writing about a little code that constitutes some kind of simple javaScript project. Many of these javaScript examples are modules that will just provide one little feature of a game, or some kind of reusable function that could be part of an over all larger framework. However others are more or less almost full working applications actually.

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For todays javaScript example I worked out a new draw points method, or actually a draw line method rather as what I want is a way to draw a collection of points rather than just one. This kind of method would be a typical method that I might use in one or more canvas examples that I am working on that would call for such a method, and would work with one or more methods that I can use to create and mutate a state that would be used by such a draw points method. I have made a method like this many times, but I thought I should work out a half way decent method that will work well with certain situations where I want to have a display object that constitutes many lines.

When I make a basic draw points method such a method will just draw an array of points in the form of a single array of numbers where each set of two numbers is another point to draw to. That is that the first two numbers in the array are a position to use with the ctx.moveTo method, and then each set of numbers from there is another point to draw to from there with the ctx.lineTo method. However there is much more to drawing lines to a canvas than just having an array of points for a line, such as if the line should be closed at the end or not, and if the what is drawn should just be stroked, filled, or stroked and filled. Also I might want to draw something that involves not just one line, but a whole bunch of lines, with all kinds of different settings for each line or shape. So a simple solution might work okay for starters, but sooner or alter I might want to move on to using something a little more advanced.

So then in this post I will be going over a more advanced draw points method, and a new format of object that I might use as a way to draw images to a canvas without having to bother with external images. This format will not just be a single array of numbers for points, but an array of such arrays, in addition I can add some string values that will change settings for each line. I have made a few solutions for this sort of thing, but I think I might like to work out a few more, and also improve the ones that I have all ready made.

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For todays javaScript example I worked out an attack wave control system that I might use in one or move canvas projects that will be games that might make use of such a system. What I am taking about here is a system where there is an object pool that is used for buttons that from a bar or sorts. As time goes by the buttons move along to a given point such as the top of the canvas element. When a button reaches the top of the canvas it will become inactive, and that wave will then become the current wave, and as such will add however many enemies the wave will add to a queue.

There are a number of canvas examples that I would like to improve with a system such as this, and a whole bunch of additional ides for canvas element powered games that might make use of this feature in one way or another. So for this post for starters I would like to get a solid starting point for this kind of system up and running. Once I have that it is just a matter of shoehorning it into a project.

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When it comes to formating numbers in javaScript there is now a built in feature called the Intl Object, that is worth checking out before looking into user space options, or making ones own solution for number formating. I first became aware of this new built in feature when researching solutions for quick and simple money string formatting, and found a stack overflow post on the topic of the NumnberFormat constructor of the Intl object that had to do with using that constructor to format a money string. So I thought that it might be a good idea to write a post on this Intl object to gain a better sense of what this object is for when it comes to formating strings, and numbers for the purpose of display, rather than preforming operations.

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