The Emergent Menagerie of Entities Resembling a Jungle is an interactive project implemented using HTML5 Canvas. My purpose in its development is experimental: to see if I can implement some of my running AI ideas and establish a working interface by which to edit the details of the implementation. The current state is somewhere in establishing the AI functionality and methods for handling differing behavioral trees based on shifting needs and desires.
Going Apey was my first project with the HTML5 Canvas element in which I tried to support the animation and updating of several thousand entities simultaneously as a stress test for the technology. Squares are spawned at random velocities, bounce off the walls of the canvas element, and are eaten by Hunters that track the nearest square and ‘eat’ it. The squares’ speed decays, so the Hunters will always be able to catch them no matter how fast they’re going. To stress test your CPU, mash the ‘Make 500!’ button several times and see how your computer handles it. A lot of the performance success of this project relies on recent updates to canvas rendering code by the V8 team, as well as the efficiency of the translation engine.
The Interactive Storybook was an attempt to create a web-based in-console look-a-like similar to a MUD that would be a platform for a complex AI simulation. However, the details of the interface and text generation got annoying fast and I realized that, as the old cliche goes, graphics are worth thousands of words. It sits a bit despondent, waiting for me to put it out of its misery or use what I’ve built to make something that’s actually functional.