Jackdaw is a collaboratively-developed game project, for the members and friends of the Javascript Leeds (@leedsjs) group. As a member of the crow family, along with magpies, blue-jays and other handsome thieves, a jackdaw is a smart bird that likes to collect shiny things.
The purpose of Jackdaw is to provide a goal-oriented way of learning more javascript and HTML5. We may or may not come out with a playable game or demo, but we will get to try out some ideas and techniques and see how they play out in a real project co-developed by our community.
Here's what we're shooting for:
- A "game", with levels, characters and challenges developed on top of a framework we create
- The framework should be just enough to provide a foundation to build on
- We'll need to get modular to facilitate the collaboration we want
- Probably 2D for now, though we can leave the door open for a 3D webgl environment + renderer later
- We don't have to fit a particular genre, I think we can mad-lib a game that'll be fun to work on and even to play
Remember, the point is to learn. For that reason we're not adopting an existing game framework initially. We want to reinvent the wheel, because only by making something do you really understand it. That's not to say we have to write every line of code ourselves. We are free to adopt and borrow implementations as we need them, once we understand the need, the problem they solve and how the solve it.
Get yourself a github account and fork the master branch of the project. Pick a task, bug or other deficiency and go to work. Please use the IRC #leedsjs channel on freenode, and the leedsjs google group for discussion, commit often to your own fork and send a pull request when you have something that's not totally broken. This is not a code-off or competition. Relax, ask questions, have fun and share.
The initial commits are just scribblings of things we might build on. No details are set in stone.