Beginnings

Every year I have a personal goal of learning something new each summer to make sure I don't stagnate as a programmer. This summer, my focus is to learn about the graphics stack of the web platform--namely, WebGL. After learning the basics of WebGL, shaders, and ThreeJS, I thought I'd start a project that incorporates all these technologies. That project is xwing, a game which recreates the trench run scene from Star Wars. If you've every seen Star Wars, you're probably familiar with the trench run scene. If not, here's a short clip showing what that is:

Inspiration

This game was heavily inspired by Star War Squadron Rogue Leader:

Goals

The goal of this project is to design a gameplay experience that is similar to Star War Squadron Rogue Leader. Here are the following goals that are unique to xwing:

  • Published to the web
  • Optimize game for slower internet connections
  • Run on multiple devices with different levels of graphics performance
  • Leverage high resolution assets and textures for the game
  • Leverage modern web graphics technologies (WebGL 2, OffscreenCanvas)

Current State

The current state of xwing is a very experimental work in progress. The source code is available here. Feel free to contribute if you're interested! Subscribe for follow up blog posts tracking my progress on xwing and other projects.

Prior Art