Issue #543 - May 31st 2024

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

So here's a story of, by far, the weirdest bug I've encountered in my CS career
Along with @maciejwolczyk we've been training a neural network that learns how to play NetHack, an old roguelike game. Recenlty, something unexpected happened.
Bartłomiej Cupiał at Thread Reader

How I used paid ads to reach Steam's Popular Upcoming list
TL;DR: money make line go up.
ParsleyMan at Reddit

Panic recovers stolen Playdates worth $400,000 after lots of 'detective work'
'Guess what got hastily dumped at a random restaurant this morning? Welcome back stolen Playdates!'
Chris Kerr at Game Developer

‘A place that made sense’: Minecraft is 15 years old and still changing lives
When my son, who is on the austim spectrum, was struggling, this classic game opened up his world. It continues to help lonely, isolated people find ways to connect and belong.
Keith Stuart at The Guardian
 

Tutorials:

Flat planets
Sky can serve as an excellent narrative device. Movie directors and game developers understand this well, often using it for exposition.
Emil Dziewanowski's blog

Pathfinding part 2 with A*
This is a continuation of our discussion on pathfinding. In the first part of our discussion, we investigated Dijkstra's algorithm. This time, we are digging into A* pathfinding.
Justin Young at Excalibur.js
 

Tools:

Kaplay - spiritual successor (and fork) of Kaboom.js

Bytebeat collection
 

Demos:

Qlock - a JavaScript quine clock

Matter.js car demo

Dweet of the week: tree tops
 

Games:

Powertoys

Gleep Gym

IONCLAD