- Introduction
- User Experience
- Development Planes
- Technologies Used
- Search Engine Optimization
- Bugs & Issues
- Testing
- Validation
- Deployment
- Credits
- Acknowledgements
Video gaming is one of the world’s most popular pastimes, with an estimated 2.8 billion gamers worldwide. On average users spend nearly 9 weekly hours playing video games, signifying a huge demand (Statista, 2021). This is especially true for web and mobile gaming, whose collective market penetration accounts for 71% of the world’s total (Wijman, 2020). These factors coupled with rapid growth and mainstream appeal have flooded the market with an influx of new entrants, heralding ascension of opportunities but also challenges.
The current gaming sector is over saturated, with a vast majority of competitors fixated on developing the latest ultra-high-resolution software, leaving a gap in the market (Newzoo, 2020). Retrogaming has had a poignant resurgence due to the preponderance of gamers being around the age of 34. This coupled with the phenomenon of nostalgia has driven users to seek memories of old in terms of graphics, sound and gameplay (Wulf et al, 2018). Gaming giants such as Nintendo, Sony & Sega have begun to both quash and exploit this by shutting down websites hosting old games code while planning to release their own back catalogue on new platforms (Doyoon, 2020 & Wulf et al, 2018).
Spacescape challenges this as it is an 8-bit, intergalactic themed, platform game in which the core objective is to manoeuvre the player sprite between obstacles avoiding contact resulting in death. Its ethos is to reintroduce Retrogaming to young and old users alike, quashing the nostalgia or interest they crave. Its mission is to provide users with a cross-platform, online emulator quest indicative of the 90’s style gameplay. This combined with an interstellar action storyline, modern technology and retro gameplay makes Spacescape unique within the market place.