I now have a working implementation for a multiplayer server that allows for running a game across separate machines that can run both the JavaScript and the JVM version (link to demo). It’s too slow to be really usable yet, but all the core algorithms are in place. Multiplayer was the last difficult technical problems that I wanted to tackle, so from now on I intend to focus mostly on improving existing features and getting the word out about CodeCraft. For this post, I have compiled an overview of what I want to do on the technical side of things over the next few weeks. If you have any feedback or suggestions, let me know in the comments or on twitter.

Open source the code: Long overdue, really.

Gameplay: I want to eliminate the “refinery” module, which doesn’t really serve an important purpose and adds unnecessary complexity. I will also change the map, and maybe the mechanics of resource collection, to speed up the game and make it more action packed. I’ll also investigate adding some additional modules that might offer interesting strategic possibilities, like a jump/teleportation module and maybe a second weapon type.

Website: I think it would be good to have some kind of a live demo on the website, similar to http://cswinter.github.io/codecraftjs-demo/. Also good would be a carefully compiled video that gives a quick overview of the game, but that will take a more effort to create. In the JavaScript tutorial I want to detect when a task has been solved correctly and give some visual indication, I think this will give valuable feedback and additional motivation to progress through the tutorial. And then there is some other tidying up to do, like integrating the Scala tutorial that currently resides on github and adding a page about the game mechanics.