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Enclave Games in 2020, and plans for 2021

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.

Enclave Games - Grant for the Web announcement

If you’re wondering how previous years looked for us, check out the summaries of: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. Let’s traditionally start with the plans from last year and see how they ended up:

  • Refreshing websites - this one worked well: both End3r’s Corner and Enclave Games websites were finally, properly rebuilt and updated, although js13kGames is still waiting for that
  • Building new games - NOPE, was hoping to build a few after the release of Phaser 4 Nano, but that never happened
  • Keep Gamedev.js Warsaw events going - pandemic said NO, but we did one meetup in February and an online one in December though
  • Starting Gamedev.js Jam - yup, Gamedev.js Jam 2020 was a thing, and I plan to have 2021 one as well
  • Running Gamedev.js Survey - not yet, but it’s part of the grant, so will be out soon
  • Write and publish at least one eBook - same as the Survey

Ok, and now the last sentence from the 2019 report:

Grant for the Web fund was announced - I’m gonna try to be as involved as possible. Implementing Web Monetization in our games and other stuff will be one of the top priorities this year.

Yup, 100%. I went full into Web Monetization - we got the grant, and it was the most important thing that happened for us in 2020. I’m really happy we were able to pull this one off!

Now onto the bad, ok, and good things from the past twelve months.

Bad things

Enclave Games - 2020: Tech Speakers

The Mozilla Tech Speakers program was cancelled after the five fruitful years, and this was the saddest thing to happen for me in 2020. We were literally one big family, and I’m hoping to stick with a few fine folks even after it was disbanded.

Enclave Games - 2020: AV setup

Because of the pandemic there was no traveling to conferences at all, first time since I started public speaking in 2011. I decided to shift my focus towards writing and coding, but after wasting my time on js13kGames again, I quickly realized I still like evangelizing and got back to it like I never left.

Enclave Games - 2020: Winter Flood Escape

No new games - it’s getting out of hand for the ”Game Development Studio”, since our last released game was Flood Escape back in 2017… I worked a bit on the Hat Tricks and Rack Match games, and the NSHex Roulette app. New winter level for Flood Escape was published, and the NSHex Counter app got Troglodytes.

Enclave Games - 2020: 404

No new backend for js13kGames, almost equally terrible to cancelling Tech Speakers.

OpenHTML5Games is still a placeholder, another year in a row.

Gamedevjs.com site is almost dormant, with random news mostly about my own projects, and only when I realize it would be nice to publish anything once every now and then.

Ok things

Enclave Games - 2020: js13kGames kick-off

I kind of managed to run js13kGames 2020 after all, even though I was saying I’d rather cancel than do it again with the same old backend forcing a lot of manual maintenance. It did take a few months worth of work out of this year though, like it did in previous ones, which I was hoping to avoid.

The Gamedev.js Weekly newsletter is being sent every single Friday, but it wasn’t refreshed at all. The whole effort is spent on preparing and emailing the contents, while none at all on promoting - that’s why it didn’t grow at all, still having about 6k subscribers.

Good things

Enclave Games - 2020: js13kGames Nintendo Switch

Grant for the Web! Getting it was without a doubt the best thing that happened to Enclave Games in 2020. Most of the year revolved around Web Monetization and HTML5 games in various forms - 90% of the content in this yearly summary is about exactly that. For example, the js13kGames 2020 competition offered a Nintendo Switch for the winner of the Web Monetization category.

Enclave Games - 2020: Gamedev.js Jam

Gamedev.js Jam 2020 happened, and hopefully it’s going to be a yearly gig, next time with Web Monetization.

Enclave Games - 2020: OS13k

Many contributors were active on the js13kGames’ Medium blog:

Enclave Games - 2020: Game Programming Patterns book

I did a tech review of the Polish translation of the Game Programming Patterns book, was a judge in The Web Monetization Challenge 2020, and an advisor for the Kernel Gaming Guild.

Enclave Games - 2020: W3C Games CG December 2020

I participated in a few podcasts and panels, and gave a few talks: last physical one at the Gamedev.js Warsaw #15, then an online Tech Briefing when Tech Speakers were still active, the js13kGames kick-off meetup, TPAC 2020 event, Future of Micropayments 2020 conference, the Gamedev.js Warsaw #16 meetup that happened during the Warsaw IT Days 2020 conference, and the W3C Games December 2020 meetup.

Plans for 2021

Finish remaining Grant for the Web work as soon as possible: Web Monetized games, Survey, and the eBook. Try getting a second grant?

Pick up Phaser 4 when it’s released, and make my own Nano version to build tiny games (for GameSnacks, KaiOS, etc), maybe even create a video tutorial about it.

Do more tech speaking about Web Monetization, work closer with Coil, and be more active within W3C Games community.

Gamedev.js Jam 2021 on Itch.io again, most probably with Web Monetization.

Gamedev.js Meetup(s) online, but in English.

New backend for js13kGames, maybe an online t-shirt shop (finally), and some extra materials, since it’s going to be a tenth edition.