Andrzej Mazur

Last month was a weird one: we had a bunch of delays with our work and ultimately weren’t able to finish planned tasks in time, got some bad news when we were counting on the good ones, but also got the awesome news faster than expected right after.

Our latest bi-monthly W3C Games Community Group meetup was held online on November 30th, and this time we had the author of Roadroller (the js13kGames 2021 hit), Kang Seonghoon, talk about his heavyweight JavaScript packer.

Third year of the Web Monetization category in the js13kGames competition ended up with 30 submitted games out of 223 total - let’s have a closer look and see how the monetization was actually implemented in the best ones.

I’m beyond excited to announce that OP Games is donating part of the $300k earnings from the Arcadians NFT project sales towards the growth of the js13kGames competition in coming months.

Participated in a panel discussion about moving from Web 2 to Web 3 games.

I had the pleasure of joining a panel discussion titled Moving from Web 2 to Web 3 games that was held during the online GamesBeat Summit Next conference on November 9-10 2021.

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about moving from Web 2 to Web 3 games.

At the beginning of October we’ve announced the winners of the js13kGames 2021 competition during the online Awards Ceremony, and were steadily sending prizes and preparing the swag through the rest of the month.

I wasn’t planning much for October, but ended up with a whole lot of online events I’ve attended and actively participated in over the past month.

I’m honored to be listed among the fine folks of the GitHub Stars program, which gathers shining individuals from the world’s largest open source community, though I still think I got mistaken for someone else.

You might’ve heard about Arcadians - an NFT project by OP Games that aims to grow the Web 3 gaming space. Since I’ve collaborated with Paul Gadi in the past already, we’ve decided to join forces here as well. And so, our little black cat Badlucky from the game Triska Reloaded decided to join Arcadians as a pet sidekick.

js13kGames is one of my favorite events of the year; as a developer, I cannot wait to exploit all possible technical tricks and figure smart ways to use procedural generation to fit as much content as possible into that little .zip, while at the same time optimizing my design process to remove all bloat into the purest possible game.

Winners of js13kGames 2021 were announced - congratulations to the authors of the best entries, and to all who participated and submitted their games to the tenth edition of the competition this year!

September was quite intense when it comes to js13kGames, especially the first half of the month. It wasn’t only about the competition though: I’ve updated an app, attended two meetups, and submitted a lenghty CFP.

The NSHex Counter app that launched two years ago, which serves Neuroshima Hex board game fans with the ability to keep track of the tiles used by them and the opponent, got its second update with the newest army - Beasts.

Similar to how we organized it last year, we’re going to have an Awards Ceremony this year as well to announce the winners, but also showcase interesting entries, share experts’ feedback, win swag in a quiz, and much more.

After June’s meetup about Godot, Coil, and Pixi we’ve gathered online for the September one to talk about GDevelop with Florian Rival and Clément Pasteau.

Roadroller tool was the big hit of this year’s js13kGames competition - it helped many developers squeeze in extra kilobytes into their entries. The author, Kang Seonghoon, agreed to write all about it.

Voting on the submitted entries by participants starts now, same as experts giving feedback to your games. The voting app is at vote.js13kgames.com, and it runs till October 4th.

We’re opening the submit form and offering something new this year - the “Unfinished” category for all the projects that were not completed, but you’d want to share the progress anyway.

I know this comes out quite late as we’re close to the end of the competition already, but it’s better late than never, right? There’s still some time left if you’d like to try adding the decentralized ingredient to your compo entry.

Another month entirely focused on the js13kGames competition.

The js13kGames competition is my most successful project - I have so many ideas for it to grow in the next couple of years, yet I struggle to run it again and again on the current platform.

The video recordings of the kick-off meetup that happened on Friday 13th and the online workshop from Monday 16th are already available to be watched on our brand new YouTube channel for whose who missed them or couldn’t attend.

Recording of my talk.

August 13th is a special date for me tenth time in a row, since it is the day when the js13kGames competition starts. This year, like previously, we’ve gathered online at the kick-off meetup.

Gave a talk "Building games in 13 kilobytes".

Friday 13th? There’s no better time to start the tenth edition of the js13kGames online competition! You have a whole month to build an HTML5 game within the 13 kilobyte zip package and win some cool prizes as well.

Decentralized is a brand new category this year, and the new rules might sound tricky, especially for a competition where you try to squeeze in a tiny amount of code to a single zip package, so below are the clarifications that will hopefully help you understand what you can do a little bit more.

Since the very beginning, the js13kGames competition was all about the community - there was never a marketing budget, and the number of submitted entries heavily relied on past participants sharing their experiences with their folks.

This year’s WebXR category in the js13kGames competition is introducing a new engine to be used outside of the size limit - PlayCanvas.

It’s time to reveal the look of this year’s t-shirt (as always designed by Ewa) that will be distributed to the creators of the best entries in js13kGames 2021. Traditionally for free, shipped worldwide -all thanks to our Partners.

Third year of the Web Monetization category in the js13kGames competition is introducing cash prizes for best entries with the total amount of $1300.

A very long time ago (around 2014) we’ve released Triskaidekaphobia (the name meaning “fear of the number thirteen”) - a hyper casual mobile game promoting the js13kGames competition. With the tenth edition starting in a couple of days, I wanted to revive the original concept, but properly this time.

It’s that time of the year again - preparations to the js13kGames competition are in full swing. It runs yearly since 2012, so this edition is actually the tenth.

A two-day event all about the Web Monetization API was held online on July 28-29th, wih the showcase of monetized projects during the first day, and discussions during the second. Yup, I talked about our Grant project.

Second public Call for Proposals for the Grant for the Web program is now open! The first one was announced more than a year ago, in May 2020, and the program evolved since then bringing many interesting Web Monetization experiments to life.

I’m always trying to improve and grow the competition every single year, and the big news in 2021 is the introduction of the new category: Decentralized.

Gave a talk "Web Monetized HTML5 Game Development".

Recording of my talk.

I’m pleased to announce that we’re continuing with the online kick-off and awards ceremony events together with Sascha Depold from eBay, and this time we’re moving to our new home on the Meetup platform.

As you can see the countdown started later than usual, only one month before the beginning on August 13th, but now we’re focusing all our time and energy into making the tenth (!) edition of the js13kGames online competition even better than the previous ones.

We’ve focused on completing our Grant for the Web project and publishing the final report through the first half of June, and spent the other half of the month catching up on the rest of the work.

The very first Grant for the Web program community call was happening last week, on Thursday June 24th, and I was lucky enough to be presenting about our very own project that we completed recently.

Wait, what? Yes, you read that right: there’s going to be a one-day Forest Cuties tournament where the main prize is 50 NEAR.

This time during our bi-monthly W3C Games Community Group meetup that happened June 22nd we had three presentations: Godot’s and Pixi’s history and future, and an update from Coil about the upcoming Web Monetization Workshop and the Rafiki project.

Recording of my talk.

Gave a talk "Web Monetized HTML5 Game Development".

Something I was hoping and waiting for - Richard Davey, the author of Phaser, is currently working on the fourth version of the framework full time.

It’s been almost a year since our Web Monetized HTML5 Game Development grant project was announced in July 2020, and even though we had quite significant delay of four extra months on top of original six, I’m really happy with how the project went for us.

This game’s story started a couple of years ago on a wall above our daughter’s bed as a cute poster, only to evolve into a physical card game, and then a mobile one that implemented Web Monetization’s receipt verifier service, and even offered an NFT to the mix.

The beginning of May was all about the Gamedev.js Jam 2021 results, while during the rest of the month we were wrapping our already-too-many-times-delayed Grant for the Web grant work, which included NSHex Roulette, Body Guard, and Forest Cuties.

Gave a talk called "Earning money from HTML5 games using Web Monetization API".

This is going to be a weird (but not sponsored!) blog post where I brag about a whole lot of cool swag I got from one particular company, and almost all because of one perticular person, so I’d like to officially thank him for that.

Demo of the Body Guard game was prototyped more than three years ago during Global Game Jam 2018, and right after that tossed into a pile of unfinished projects. Since it is a game where you fight against viruses, we’ve decided to bring it back to life, finish and release it as part of our Web Monetization API experiments, and support Artist Rescue Trust (and Phaser) thanks to the Grant for the Web program as well.

We’ve wrapped the second edition of the Gamedev.js Jam last week, so it’s time to do a little summary of how it went, especially given it ended up being way bigger than initially planned.

We’re big fans of the physical board game Neuroshima Hex, and NSHex Roulette is a digital expansion to that game. We are offering a unique experience to all the fellow players, and it’s free thanks to implementing the Web Monetization API as part of the Grant for the Web program.

Recording of my talk.

Most of April revolved around the Gamedev.js Jam 2021 - it was suppose to be a short and simple competition, but I wouldn’t be me if I haven’t tossed in two new categories, challenges, dedicated experts, partners, and $20k worth of prizes.

Another bi-monthly online meetup of the W3C Games Community Group happened a few days ago, on April 15th, and this time two main presentation topics revolved around Unity and WebCodecs.

Gave a talk called "Earning money from HTML5 games using Web Monetization API".

Gave a talk "Gamedev.js Survey and Jam".

After announcing the Web Monetization category in the upcoming Gamedev.js Jam 2021, now it’s time to reveal the second, Decentralized one, organized in partnership with Protocol Labs and NEAR Protocol!

March was a crazy month on so many levels - we were extremely busy, had health issues, unexpected problems, and couldn’t work as much as we wanted. We didn’t even have the time or energy to celebrate Enclave’s birthday that happened March 10th, but I do hope April will be better.

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about Web 3 games.

Second cohort of the Kernel program, first one game-themed, ended up already, so it’s time to summarize all the sessions that we had over those past few weeks.

We’re happy to announce the Gamedev.js Jam 2021 that will run online between April 13th and 26th 2021 will have a Web Monetization category this year, with cash prizes and Coil memberships for the best entries.

After a whole month of gathering responses, and a week of preparing results, we’re happy to publish the report containing answers to 26 questions submitted by 437 developers.

The Mozilla Festival 2021 is slowly coming to an end, and so we decided to recall previous MozFest Arcade experience and prepare a totally subjective list of five games that utilize Web Monetization API you can play right now and support its creators.

We’re starting the countdown to Gamedev.js Jam 2021 - an online competition for HTML5 game developers, running for thirteen days between April 13th and 26th. It’s the second edition after the Gamedev.js Jam 2020 hosted last year.

If you follow the competition for long enough this is absolutely no surprise - printing of the swag from js13kGames 2020 was delayed a few times, similarly to the previous years. It’s finally done though, and all the packages were already shipped!

If you follow the competition for long enough this is absolutely no surprise - printing of the swag from js13kGames 2020 was delayed a few times, similarly to the previous years. It’s finally done though, and all the packages were already shipped!

On Thursday March 4th, I’ve joined a session about the Diverse Game Developers Fund (started by IGDA Foundation and supported by the Grant for the Web program) at the Indie Game Business online conference.

Participated in a panel discussion about Web Monetization and HTML5 games.

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about Web Monetization and HTML5 games.

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about Web Monetization and Web 3 games.

Participated in a panel discussion about Web Monetization and Web 3 games. URL: https://kernel.community/en/track-gaming/module-6/ (form blocks this url as invalid)

February was all about working on the remaining Grant for the Web program grant projects - we’ve already got the deadline extended, so we have to finish our work as soon as possible.

Participated in a panel discussion about Web 3 games. URL: https://kernel.community/en/track-gaming/module-5/ (form blocks this url as invalid)

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about Web 3 games.

We’re conducting a Survey as part of the Gamedev.js initiative to learn about the current state of the HTML5 Game Development in 2021 - where the developers work, what tools do they use, how much do they earn, and much more.

After gathering at TPAC in October, deciding to do that bi-monthly and having a dedicated meetup in December, we had another W3C Games Community Group online meetup that happened earlier this week, on Tuesday February 9th.

Participated in a panel discussion about Web 3 games. URL: https://kernel.community/en/track-gaming/module-3/ (form blocks this url as invalid)

A podcast where I was interviewed at about Web Monetization and HTML5 games.

Participated in a panel discussion about Web 3 games. URL: https://kernel.community/en/track-gaming/module-2/ (form blocks this url as invalid)

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about Web 3 games.

January was full of various activities: from publishing the Yearly Report, through two js13kGames videos to watch, and Enclave Phaser Template being updated to 3.50, to the Global Game Jam 2021 invitation. And most of all, the work on the new js13kGames website moved forward significantly!

This year’s Global Game Jam, given what’s happening around the world, went entirely online. The good news are you all are invited to particpate however and wherever you want.

Participated in a panel discussion about Web 3 games. URL: https://kernel.community/en/track-gaming/module-1/ (form blocks this url as invalid)

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about Web 3 games.

Participated in a panel discussion about Web 3 games. URL: https://kernel.community/en/track-gaming/module-0/ (form blocks this url as invalid)

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about Web 3 games.

Since the latest Phaser release was the biggest one ever (not counting the major versions), I decided to give the Enclave Phaser Template an update as well.

There are two interesting video materials about last year’s competition that are worth spending some time on: showcase of all the 36 entries from the Web Monetization category recorded by Jupiter Hadley, and overall top 20 best games with their source code explained by Ania Kubów prepared for freeCodeCamp.

There are two interesting video materials about last year’s competition that are worth spending some time on: showcase of all the 36 entries from the Web Monetization category recorded by Jupiter Hadley, and overall top 20 best games with their source code explained by Ania Kubów prepared for freeCodeCamp.

Even though 2020 was overall a terrible year, we are really happy with how it turned out for us, given we received a grant from the Grant for the Web program to work on our projects.

December was quite intense, especially from the tech speaking and networking point of view - I was actively testing my new audio/video setup.

A podcast where I was interviewed at about Web Monetization and HTML5 games.

The ongoing pandemic and the end of the Mozilla Tech Speakers program accelerated my shift in focus towards more writing and coding, but this didn’t last for too long.

After reactivating the W3C Games Community Group at TPAC 2020, we decided to continue with bi-monthly online meetups to report on our progress and be up-to-date with all things web gamedev. The short summary below is about the second gathering this year that happened on December 15th 2020.

Our Grant for the Web project was announced in the middle of July 2020 - it had a somewhat generic name “Web Monetized HTML5 Game Development” since it was actually a few (six to be exact) smaller projects revolving around monetizing web games: three Enclave Games creations, js13kGames competition, an eBook, and a Gamedev.js Survey.

I was invited to be a judge in The Web Monetization Challenge 2020 organized by Björn Ritzl from the Defold Foundation as part of their Grant, and since the concept of having your own top 5 games ended up quite well for the experts in js13kGames 2020, I decided to do that myself too.

Video of the panel discussion I participated in about HTML5 games.

I’m happy to announce I’m supporting the efforts behind the Kernel’s Gaming Guild created by Paul Gadi and the Gitcoin folks - from both Web Gamedev and Web Monetization perspectives.

Gave a talk called "Earning money from HTML5 games using Web Monetization API".

Participated in a panel discussion about HTML5 games.

November was a strange month - busy, but with many small tasks that are hard to summarize in the report, so it looks weirdly empty. Let me assure you we weren’t having any vacations or anything though.

On Thursday November 5th, I’ve participated in the Future of MicroPayments virtual (un)conference hosted on the Nexus Events platform, organized by Amber Case and Anselm Hook.

October was quite an active month: handling js13kGames, giving a talk at an online meetup, and writing lots of blog posts.

Recording of my talk.

Gave a talk "Limitations spawn creativity" about the js13kGames competition.

Even though this year’s js13kGames competition is over, there are still some interesting opportunities ahead if you’d like to participate in a game jam (or two).

On Tuesday October 20th, we had a W3C Games Community Group meeting at TPAC 2020 that was held online, and I was talking about Web Monetization in HTML5 games.

Gave a talk "Introduction to Web Monetization in HTML5 games".

Recording of my talk.

A podcast where I was interviewed at about HTML5 games.

Since the overall score by which the winners were announced was based on a summary of various criteria, we were able to extract those results and present you with the top 10 lists for each one separetely.

I was so happy to see the projects that I was rooting for in the first Grant for the Web open Call for Proposals were accepted and announced.

Co-hosted the online meetup where the winners of the js13kGames 2020 competition were announced.

I’m excited to share the final results of your voting - check out the list of winners in the ninth edition of the js13kGames competition!

Added Progressive Loading to the Enclave Phaser Template.

The sources of all the js13kGames 2020 competition entries were forked to keep them for learning purposes.

Wrote a summary of the Mozilla Tech Speakers program that was running between 2015 and 2020.

Co-organized an online meetup starting js13kGames 2020, with theme announcement.

Wrote a guest post for Mozilla Hacks blog about the WebXR and Web Monetization categories in the js13kGames 2020 competition.

Created a list of all the Grant for the Web awardees.

Announcement blog post about Enclave Games being awarded with the Grant for the Web.

Did a tech review of the book for the Polish publisher, PWN.

Gave a short intro to the Web Monetization API for Mozilla Tech Speakers.

Organized an online game jam for HTML5 game developers.

Organized a fifteenth edition of our local Gamedev.js meetup in Warsaw, Poland.

Organized an Entity Component System workshop with Michał Budzyński and Staś Małolepszy as workshop leads, as part of the Gamedev.js Warsaw initiative.

Gave a talk about the past, present, and the future of HTML5 game development at the ConFrontJS conference in Warsaw, Poland.

Wrote a GDevelop 5 tutorial based on the game Geometry Monster created by Ewa Mazur, as part of the Google Season of Docs program.

Gave a lightning talk about the past, present, and the future of HTML5 game development at the JS Poland conference in Warsaw, Poland.

Organized the fourteenth Gamedev.js Warsaw meetup.

Gave a keynote talk about the past, present, and the future of HTML5 game development at the WebBR 2019 conference in São Paulo, Brazil.

Wrote a guest post for Mozilla Hacks blog about running an Arcade booth at the Mozilla Festival.

Organized a special Gamedev.js Warsaw meetup all about the js13kGames competition, since it was our thirteenth edition.

Gave a lightning talk about the past, present, and the future of HTML5 game development at the Tech Speakers meetup in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Created an app for counting the Neuroshima Hex tiles, useful to the players of this popular board game.

Co-organized the all-day hackathon of building js13kGames 2019 entries in Berlin, Germany.

Gave a talk about building immersive worlds with Mixed Reality at the Fullstack London 2019 conference.

Created a meditation - small game that was published on June 30th as part of Rami Ismail's Meditations Games project.

Gave a talk about the indie perspective on Web games, sharing developer struggles like discoverability and monetization.