CoinWare

A mini-game framework aiming at game jams.

The main idea behind this framework is to be able to aggregate mini-games, like in WarioWare. Each mini-game can be developed independently, and then integrated into the game through this framework and a simple API. We only deal with Web-based games here, but you should be able to use plugin-based Web technologies like flash or Unity3D as well.

The framework handles the global state of the game, with lifes, level and the score.

The current stylesheet of the framework is quite ugly, it is up to you to customise it to your needs ;)

How to use?

Your mini-game must be in a folder with the following structure:

YourMiniGame folder
- index.html: the main page that will be loaded by the framework
- manifest.json: a manifest describing your game (more on that later)
- thumbnail.jpg: (optional) a thumbnail of your game, 800x480

There is no other restriction in the content of the folder. When it's done, you can put this folder in the CoinWare folder and modify the config.js file to include your mini-game name in the gamesId array.

Screen Size

To simplify the development of your mini-game during a game jam, we assume that it will have a fixed size of 800x480.

manifest.json

The manifest.json file should have the following structure:

{
    "id": "YourMiniGame",
    "name": "My Mini-Game",
    "description": "My elevator pitch goes here",
    "teamName": "MyTeam",
    "credits": [{
        "name": "Bob",
        "job": "Graphism",
        "url": "http://your-homepage-here.org"
    }, {
        "name": "Jack",
        "job": "Music",
        "url": "http://your-homepage-here.org"
    }
    }, {
        "name": "Paul",
        "job": "Code",
        "url": "http://your-homepage-here.org"
    }
    ]
}

id: it should correspond to the folder name
name: it is obviously the name of your mini-game
description: describe in a few words what it is, what it does
teamName: the name of your team if you have one
credits: an array in which you can put an object describing each member of the team.

This information is only useful for the generation of the Credits screen in the game.

Game API

Then, you have to integrate your mini-game with the Game API provided by the framework. Basically it provides a mean to load, start and stop your mini-game, but also to know the difficulty level and to report the score.

This API is really simple:

the gameLoad function: when the framework loads your game it will search for a function named gameLoad and then execute it. Think of it as a DOM ready function but for mini-games. When you are in this function, the Game object is available as a parameter.
the Game object:
- Game.ready(): call this when your game finished loading all the assets and is ready to run.
- Game.onStart(function(difficulty) { }): pass a callback function with one parameter, the difficulty. This callback function will be called by the framework when your mini-game should start (in fact your mini-game will be loaded by the framework but it should do nothing at first. Your callback function will start the game)
- Game.end(wonGame, score): you must call this when the mini-game is over. It has two parameters: wonGame (boolean), score (integer)

You can find in the Game1 folder a very simple game example.

Test your mini-game