Java Microgames icon

Java Microgames

Java, 2006

  • I tend to equate my game design chops with entering the industry. My first internship at Disney was a game design revolution every single day, where I was trying to absorb as much information and technique and process as possible. It was awesome!

  • So I was a little nervous when I rediscovered my high school senior project. Not only because I had zero experience designing games, I also had zero experience with programming. That computer science class was entirely in Java, so there was no visual or layout editor at all - just shapes and colors. And maybe a texture or two when feeling extra saucy.

  • To my pleasant surprise, it was not a burning trash fire! While not every microgame is a winner, there's a couple solidly not bad ones. I know this is a weird thing to write about a project on my own site, but I had so completely forgotten about this project that it feels like discovering someone else's work.

  • Of course, the game is Warioware, my eternal muse. It includes 10 microgames, with varying levels of difficulty. Overall the difficulty is exceptionally high, with the win conditions being brutally narrow. A couple of the games have some unexpected touches however, with code and animation support for loss conditions. For example, losing in the "File" game pushes the character out and makes them drop the file to the floor. Little did I know that small touches would become my trademark!