Issue #491: Sandspiel, Voyager, and Thwack

Issue #491 - June 2nd 2023

If you have anything you want to share with the HTML5 game development community please let me know by sending an email to andrzej.mazur@end3r.com.
I'm also open for related sponsorship opportunities and job listings.
 

Articles:

Two men got jobs at Amazon just to steal copies of Zelda
The Japanese men were both caught and fired, but not before one had a 'Zelda vacation'.
Luke Plunkett at Kotaku

CD Projekt laying off Gwent developers as it prepares to end active support
"We’ve been transferring some of the team members to other projects, but we have to part ways with some."
Chris Kerr at Game Developer

Epic Games rewards Fortnite creators with payouts based on time played
In the past, creators of Fortnite islands (which include both individuals and teams of developers) were rewarded if players visited their islands.
Dean Takahashi at GamesBeat

Redfall devs cite unclear direction, high turnover, low headcount for game's shortcomings
Speaking with more than a dozen devs, Bloomberg details a troubled move to multiplayer for the immersive sim studio.
Jeffrey Rousseau at GamesIndustryBiz
 

Tutorials:

Making Sandspiel
I really enjoyed writing this game, and wanted to put into writing some of my goals, design decisions, and learnings from that process.
Max Bittker's blog

Build a HTML5 game like Mini Archer using Phaser and TypeScript – step 6
Splitting the code into classes.
Emanuele Feronato's blog
 

Grants:

Hyperledger Foundation’s grant for a mini game exploring decentralized identity and payments
 

Competitions:

WAM Jam starts today
 

Tools:

Voyager: open-ended embodied agent with large language models

Emojistan - create games with emojis
 

Demos:

Truchet car track

Meece

Draggable 3D layered cube
 

Games:

Thwack

Super Hero Driving School