Book Image

Going the Distance with Babylon.js

By : Josh Elster
Book Image

Going the Distance with Babylon.js

By: Josh Elster

Overview of this book

Babylon.js allows anyone to effortlessly create and render 3D content in a web browser using the power of WebGL and JavaScript. 3D games and apps accessible via the web open numerous opportunities for both entertainment and profit. Developers working with Babylon.js will be able to put their knowledge to work with this guide to building a fully featured 3D game. The book provides a hands-on approach to implementation and associated methodologies that will have you up and running, and productive in no time. Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, practical examples, and links to fully working self-contained code snippets, you’ll start by learning about Babylon.js and the finished Space-Truckers game. You’ll also explore the development workflows involved in making the game. Focusing on a wide range of features in Babylon.js, you’ll iteratively add pieces of functionality and assets to the application being built. Once you’ve built out the basic game mechanics, you’ll learn how to bring the Space-Truckers environment to life with cut scenes, particle systems, animations, shadows, PBR materials, and more. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to structure your code, organize your workflow processes, and continuously deploy to a static website/PWA a game limited only by bandwidth and your imagination.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Part 1: Building the Application
7
Part 2: Constructing the Game
13
Part 3: Going the Distance

Calculating Scores

Much of the fun that comes from playing a game is through the different ways that a game can provide feedback to the player – positive or negative. This is a great opportunity for game designers to connect with players at an emotional level. Connecting positive events and outcomes to a player’s actions creates a feedback loop between the game and the player, and one of the oldest and truest connections in gaming is the concept of a point score that accumulates throughout gameplay.

The scoring system used in Space-Truckers bases a player’s final score around a few basic categories and concepts, details of which we’ll be covering shortly. When scoring is triggered (that is, the player reaches their cargo’s destination), the game displays a DialogBox that is initially empty, but which displays each category of scores in a line-by-line fashion before giving the final score.

Before building out the logic to capture and calculate...