Ar0se caught our attention with her game Txtaria. The game is a platformer with an ASCII art style that gives it a mysterious look and feel.

Ar0se agreed to tell us more about her story and the development behind Txtaria.

txtaria-screenshot

Ar0se got her start in programming about 10 years ago and has focused her career on front-end development. Currently she is a freelance developer who is learning game development in-between contracts.

After some initial steps in making games in vanilla JavaScript (that is to say, JavaScript without any additional frameworks or tools), she started using Phaser. She says that ease of use and an active community of developers were what made her choose Phaser.

Where Txtaria is made!

Ar0se says:

I've made a couple game demos using vanilla JS previously. Made a lot of mistakes and learned what not to do. Which was fun, but takes a long time and can be an isolated way to work. So I wanted to try a well-established HTML5 framework with an active community, to speed up my game development process and have more people to learn from and talk to. Phaser fits that description perfectly, so that's why I picked it.

Txtaria got its start as an evolution of the Getting Started Tutorial. Ar0se completed the tutorial and then went on to expand and modify it, adding her own art and sound effects. Regarding the unique art style, she says she was inspired by the LPMUD called Genesis.

When I started this project, I was obsessed with a text-based MUD called Genesis that uses a lot of ASCII art

Ar0se says:

When I started this project, I was obsessed with a text-based MUD called Genesis that uses a lot of ASCII art. The aesthetic inspiration comes from there and the nostalgia it invoked for games I played as a kid.

Impressions

A behind the scenes look at Txtaria

Ar0se played through the game with us and shared some insights, such as:

  • The graphics are actually not made with text, but with sprites! We discussed how this might be upsetting to some ASCII purists (to which Ar0se says “Let them come at me!”) but also how this lets Ar0se change the color of the assets easily, scale them up and down, and generally explore all the fancy features that Phaser offers which would not be possible with plain text. We discussed how this could be used in interesting ways such as for parallax scrolling and so on.

  • While playing the game alone the first time, I didn’t realize that you actually have to pay in-game money when you collide with enemies. Ar0se explained how she didn’t want the game to end when you get hit by a mob and that she likes how the fact that you cannot run out of money kind of makes it kind of pointless (which is cool commentary on our capitalist society).

  • The palette swap is also an accessibility feature, allowing you to effectively have a dark and light mode. Ar0se invites you to leave feedback on https://ar0se.itch.io/txtaria if you found this useful or have other ideas on how to make web games more accessible for everyone!

  • And finally, the author of this article had always assumed that Txtaria is a play on Terraria but Ar0se pointed out that it was actually meant as a play on textarea (which is an HTML element). Works on multiple levels.

All of us at Phaser Studio hope Ar0se continues with the development of Txtaria and are curious to see how the game continues to evolve over time. Thank you Ar0se for taking the time to chat about your game!

Play Txtaria