v2.9.5 Java Version

New Move Block, Reflect & Mirror!

Chest Upgrade Path: Player starts with Block and can earn: Reflect -> Mirror Block an attack, reflect it back, or mirror all attacks.

• Block reduces a ‘physical’ attacks incoming damage by 50%
• Reflect ‘melee’ attacks back after blocking. Brief invincibility.
• Mirror ‘any attack’ and reflect it back, ‘including magic’. Brief invincibility.

I am currently migrating the game runtime into Java. Much of the original game logic was built using procedural scripting in JavaScript, beginning with the original 1-Bit version which was a template game for the project. This was my “base engine”, a game runtime & loop, player controller, and 1 enemy with bare-bones ‘move to player and attack’ logic, using small, procedural JS scripts. I originally started this project in Python (It’s the 2D Game engine in my GitHub Lab), but after a few years between fiddling between Unity and “DIY” tooling, I wanted to try something different to make my first game.

v2 Enhanced rendering logic. There are no bitmaps in this game besides the Title screen and icon, everything else is rendered in real-time to maintain the “NES-Style” game-flow in logic.. However, eventually I did use 1 Bitmap.. for the Title screen, because my current designs IMO are ugly. Personally I’ve spent little time in design throughout and many things are not to their final result. The technical design and working on the back-end magnified from v2 -> v2.5

Phase 1 - v1 took a few hours (template)
Phase 2 - v2 took 4 days (base game)
Phase 3 - v2.5 took 2 weeks (beginning refactor, rewire & polishing)
Phase 4 - v2.6 -> 2.9 (Finished manifest system, code-cleanup and rewiring)

The goal for v3 is the beginning of the Java game state runtime management.

The game itself is mostly feature complete with Block/Reflect/Mirror being the last addition to the player. All future updates are to include the remaining 50% of ‘the game’ - 3 more maps and the proper story (already made, just not worked in thoroughly yet). Over the past month, development has focused on refactoring the codebase, introducing manifests, reorganizing systems, and transitioning toward a more object-oriented approach for game state and engine management.

Java is being used to provide a more structured runtime environment, improve engine organization, and centralize game-state management & progression. This is needed to help bridge the editor & runtime flows.

Version 2.9.5 moves the project into a Java container and embeds a Chromium-based browser using Swing for the desktop interface.

BoneCrawler is free to play online in browser at BoneCrawler.com, Itchi.io and the GitHub Page.

The Windows desktop release is available as a donation-supported version for players who enjoy the game. The source code and free builds are also available through my GitHub repository.

This game is a learning project for me. It’s helped improve my understanding of game development, including in technical design in concept & application: Example: Analyzing how other games can work on specific hardware, apply limitations in scope of project design - ‘NES-Style’

This project will still be on-going for a while. I’m using it to help improve my understanding of JavaScript and Java programming languages. Much of this effort has been an educational process for future games projects. Much of what was applied here was influenced by my experience working in Unity, which I will return to for BoneCrawler 2.

If you experience bugs or issues, please let me know. Thank you for playing my game!