Terminal Velocity

Terminal Velocity is a text-adventure game developed using web technologies. I had previously developed a similar project using Python Flask and Ajax.

However, this time I wanted to experiment with something different. As I wanted to expand my knowledge on the fundamentals of web technologies I decided to develop my project using a variety of technologies such as: HTML/CSS, JavaScript, Jekyll and Flexbox.

Think you can Escape from G-34B in time?

I wanted to bring my love of retro text-adventure games to the web. Although not as popular as they once were, text-adventures seem to be making a comeback in the video games industry. In the form of indie video game like in Stories Untold and in mini-game form like in Saint Row IV.

Design

The design of the project was just as important as the development. Text-adventure games gained mainstream popularity in the 1980's it felt only right to design my project around 80's aesthetics. Inspiration for the design was not limited to the text games, I researched films and modern space designs to bring the two design areas together.

I was greatly inspired by the uniform design the Nostromo crew wear in the film Alien. In particular it was the Nostromo badge featured on the uniform that captured my attention.

I took note of the shape, colours and simplistic details of the Nostromo uniform badge. The idea was to keep the shape in-line with a patch that could potentially be used on a space uniform. I purposely researched 80's sci-fi for the logo as I felt it was important to step away from modern space designs to differentiate from existing designs.

Mobile First

As more and more users are using mobile phones, I wanted to adopt a mobile first approach. My honours project presented an opportunity to do so. Initially, I found mobile first to be very limiting in terms of what elements I could use and how they would appear on screen. Over time, I found I much preferred the mobile first approach as it meant I didn’t have unnecessary elements in my work.