N17: Swoop (#429)

* Wrote about the swoop game that I made, and some of my thoughts on making it
* N17: Swoop: 1st person, split into 2 sections

Co-authored-by: Andrey Lesnikov <[email protected]>

Author: sdfgeoff

content/posts/newsletter-017/index.md

@@ -308,6 +308,38 @@ Full December's devlogs:
 [learning-art]: https://reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/k8i773/how_i_a_mere_programmer_am_learning
 [@chinedufn]: https://chinedufn.com
 
+### [Swoop][swoop-itch]
+
+![Doing donuts while being overtaken](swoop.gif)
+_Getting lapped by purple? - don't worry, it happens to everyone_
+
+[Swoop][swoop-itch] by [@sdfgeoff] is a procedural racing web game
+written in Rust from scratch.
+
+> I've tried to make games in a variety of engines, but invariably got frustrated.
+> So I decided to throw out the engine and find out what makes game-making so complex.
+> It turns out that the stuff below the game engine is only slightly less friendly
+> than the stuff above it.
+>
+> All up this game was a large experiment:
+> I'm not all that familiar with Rust, it was my first go at targetting WASM,
+> I've never used WebGL before, and my linear algebra is worse than I thought.
+
+[The source code is available here][swoop-source] and
+you can also read about about the process of making the game
+here: ["WASM Games From Scratch"][swoop-book].
+
+You can also play the game's [prototype version done in shadertoy][swoop-shadertoy]
+and check out a [prototype of the next @sdfgeoff's project][swoop-next]
+that is based on raymarching giant caves.
+
+[swoop-itch]: https://sdfgeoff.itch.io/swoop
+[swoop-source]: https://github.com/sdfgeoff/wasm_minigames
+[swoop-shadertoy]: https://shadertoy.com/view/WlScWd
+[swoop-book]: https://sdfgeoff.github.io/wasm_minigames/a_first_game_swoop.html
+[swoop-next]: https://shadertoy.com/view/tltyRB
+[@sdfgeoff]: https://github.com/sdfgeoff
+
 ### Harvest Hero
 
 ![Harvest Hero Gameplay](harvest_hero_snippet.gif)
@@ -609,6 +641,36 @@ in [this Amethyst forum thread][thesis-thread].
 [amethyst]: https://github.com/amethyst/amethyst
 [thesis-thread]: https://community.amethyst.rs/t/undergrad-thesis-on-game-scripting-for-legion/1753
 
+### [WASM Games From Scratch][wasm-scratch-book]
+
+![sprite transformation explanations](wasm_sprite_transform.svg)
+
+[@sdfgeoff] published a book that describes the process
+of building the abovementioned web game [Swoop][swoop-itch] from scratch:
+["WASM Games From Scratch"][wasm-scratch-book].
+
+> Game engines are huge behemoths, and contain algorithms
+> for handling everything and the kitchen sink.
+> While that's normally good, if you want to do something small,
+> or possibly do something outside the bounds of a normal game enine,
+> you suddenly have to learn how to do everything yourself.
+>
+> Or perhaps you just like the "type it and run" style of development
+> for shadertoy shaders and want something similar
+> that you can host on your system as (pretty much) a single file.
+>
+> Either way, this book chronicles my adventures
+> into creating WASM games from scratch in Rust.
+
+Some of the topics covered by the book:
+
+- Building for WASM, event handling, WebGL and shader basics.
+- Map generation using a Fourier series.
+- Camera positioning and drawing a map, ships and engine trails.
+- Ship physics and simple AI.
+
+[wasm-scratch-book]: https://sdfgeoff.github.io/wasm_minigames
+
 ## Library & Tooling Updates
 
 ### [Thermite SIMD]: Melt Your CPU