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Ajar.io

A clone of agar.io. Created by @Bogidon.

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Ajar.io

Short link to this workshop: https://workshops.hackclub.com/ajar


Agar.io is a popular game built for the web with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The goal of this workshop is to teach you to make your own simplistic version of agar.io which we’ll call ajar.io.

agar

The workshop will be divided into several parts (check indicates workshop has been written):

More coming soon…

Tips And Tricks

  1. To open a link in another tab, right click on the link and select Open In New Tab.
  2. When copying code from this workshop to your project try retyping the code yourself instead of using your copy-pasting shortcuts. Forcing yourself to read through the code as you retype it can help increase your understanding.

Part 1

In this part you’re going to learn to display the user’s cell on-screen using the HTML <canvas> element.

The HTML <canvas> element is used to draw graphics, on the fly, via scripting (usually JavaScript).

The <canvas> element is only a container for graphics. You must use a script to actually draw the graphics.

Canvas has several methods for drawing paths, boxes, circles, text, and adding images.

--- from W3C

By the end of this part you’ll have something that looks like this:

End of Part 1

Check out the demo here (JS Fiddle).

Creating the files

If you haven’t already set up Cloud9, click here to be taken to a guide on setting it up. Once you’ve done that, continue over here.

In Cloud9, create two files in a folder of your choice:

Your folder should look like this:

Directory

Setting up the HTML

Type the below code as it is written exactly into your index.html file in Cloud9 (no copy-pasting :p):

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Ajar.io</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

Next, add the below <canvas> element inside of the <body> element.

<canvas id="canvas" width="500px" height="500px"></canvas>

Adding the canvas element

Understanding The Code

canvas - The canvas element allows you to draw shapes and other visual elements on screen. Feel free to read more about canvas.

id - To review, this attribute, which can be applied to any HTML element, allows you to use that element in your JavaScript.

width - Specifies the width of the <canvas>, this time in pixels.

height - Specifies the height of the <canvas>, this time in pixels.


Now we have to tell our HTML (index.html) to use our JavaScript (app.js). In our index.html file we add the following line inside of the the <body> element (make sure it’s at the end):

<script type="text/javascript" src="app.js"></script>

Your HTML is now configured!

Writing the JavaScript

The bulk of this workshop will take place in our the app.js file. If you completed the previous section successfully, your app.js file should be linked to your HTML (index.html).

Let’s start by writing this line:

var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas");

Get canvas element

Understanding The Code

var - Creates a variable named canvas. Variables are containers for storing data values. In this case canvas is used to reference the <canvas> element from your HTML.

document.getElementById("canvas") - This function gets an element from your HTML that has the id you provide inside the quotes, in this case “canvas”. Feel free to read more about functions.

The <canvas> element retrieved by document.getElementById("canvas") gets assigned to the variable canvas.

Next, write this line of code:

var context = canvas.getContext("2d");

Understanding The Code

You create another variable, this time named context. Don’t worry too much about what context is, just know that we will be using it to draw shapes on the canvas.

Time to draw a circle! Open your index.html file and from the menu bar click Preview > Live Preview File (index.html).

Now each time you save changes to your HTML or JavaScript your site will refresh to reflect the changes. Remember to save changes by going to File > Save.

Write the following lines at the end of your app.js file:

context.beginPath();
context.arc(10, 10, 10, 0, 2*3.14159);
context.fill();

You should have something that looks like this.

first circle

Understanding The Code

context.beginPath() - Any shape on the canvas is considered a path. You need to call this function before beginning to draw a new shape. In this case we are starting to draw a circle.

context.arc(10, 10, 10, 0, 2*3.14159) - This function creates an arc. An arc that ends where it starts forms a circle. The function takes a lot of arguments (the items separated by commas) so let’s look at each one. The order of the arguments goes as follows: x, y, radius, startAngle, endAngle.

  • The x and y (both 10 in this case) indicate where to position the center of the arc. The top left corner of the canvas is considered (0, 0). Try moving the circle to a different location by changing the x and y.
  • The radius (also 10) determines the radius of the arc. Try making the circle a little larger by changing the radius.
  • The startAngle (0) determines at what angle the arc should start. The angle is measured in radians. Briefly, 0 radians = 0 degrees and 2π radians = 360 degrees.
  • The endAngle (2*π) determines at what angle the arc should end. If the endAngle is 2π radians, or 360 degrees, more than the startAngle, the arc loops back into itself and forms a circle. Try making a semi-circle by changing the endAngle.

context.fill() fills the shape with a solid color. In this case the color is black.

Let’s add some color! For this we write the following line directly above the context.fill function:

context.fillStyle = "cyan";

Fill style

Woah! Our circle is now cyan.

Understanding the code

The fillStyle is a variable that determines the color that is used to fill the shape. Many colors are available, so try some on your own (like papayawhip).

When you’ve finished exploring, change the arguments of the context.arc function to the following:

Your website should now look like this:

End of Part 1

Congrats!

You’ve finished Part 1!

Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of the Ajar.io workshop!

To recap, in part 1 you learned about:

In this part you will learn about functions.

What are functions?

In part 1, you wrote all your code outside of any functions. This means that your code runs from top to bottom. This was okay for a simple task such as displaying one circle on screen. For more complex scenarios we will need functions.

A JavaScript function is a block of code designed to perform a particular task.

A function looks like this:

function name() {
  // code to be executed goes here <-- That is a comment
}

A JavaScript function is defined with the function keyword, followed by a name and a set of parentheses (). The code to be executed by the function is placed inside curly brackets: {}.

You “run” a function (the code inside of it) by “invoking” the function.

You use an empty set of parentheses () to invoke the function. To invoke the function name from above, you would write the code:

name();

The code contained within the curly brackets {} would then be executed.

Unlike the code in part 1, code contained in functions can be run multiple times.

Let’s make another function.

function addOne(myNumber) {
  myNumber = myNumber + 1;
}

This function’s name is addOne.

But look! There’s something inside of the parentheses. You can put parameters inside function parentheses. Parameters are values you can give to the function that the function can then use when executing it’s code block.

In this function we give the function a number. The function can refer to this number as myNumber.

The function proceeds to take the number (myNumber) and add one to it.

So how do we “invoke” this function? Like this:

addOne(5);

The function thinks of myNumber as a variable whose value is 5. It then proceeds to run the code:

myNumber = myNumber +1;

Because myNumber is 5, you can think of the computer seeing the code like this:

myNumber = 5 + 1;

So myNumber becomes 6.

Using functions in Ajar.

Right now your code should look like this:

Index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Ajar.io</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <canvas id="canvas" width="500px" height="500px"></canvas>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="app.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

App.js

var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas");
var context = canvas.getContext("2d");
context.beginPath();
context.arc(x, y, 40, 0, 2*3.14159);
context.fillStyle = "cyan";
context.fill();

Let’s modify our code to use functions. Go ahead and open your index.html file and click on preview in the menu bar and then Live Preview File (index.html). Now open your app.js file.

Open live preview

The first thing we want to do is to wrap these lines in a function:

context.beginPath();
context.arc(250, 250, 40, 0, 2*3.14159);
context.fillStyle = "cyan";
context.fill();

We’re going to make a new function called drawUserCell and place the lines from above in it:

function drawUserCell() {
  context.beginPath();
  context.arc(250, 250, 40, 0, 2*3.14159);
  context.fillStyle = "cyan";
  context.fill();
}

Wrap with `drawUserCell` function

If you save the file now you’ll see that there’s no more circle on screen!

This is because we haven’t “invoked” the function drawUserCell. Let’s invoke it. Type out the code below the drawUserCell function:

drawUserCell();

Invoke `drawUserCell` function

The circle is back!

Congrats!

You’ve finished Part 2!

Part 3

Now that you know about functions let’s move on to something more exciting! In this part we will make the user’s cell move.

This is how it’s going to work:

  1. Get the position (x and y) of the mouse cursor over the screen by adding an EventListner for mousemove to the <canvas> element.
  2. Clear what’s currently drawn on screen by overlaying a rectangle over the entire screen.
  3. Draw the circle again this time at the new coordinates.

That’s the order the computer will execute the code in, but not the order in which we’ll write the code.

Draw Circle Based on Variable Values

In part 1 we hardcoded the x and y position of the circle:

context.arc(250, 250, 10, 0, 2*3.14159);
            ^x  ^y

Since the position of our circle will change those values have to be variable. How do we make something variable? Oh right! Variables!

So we will make variables x and y and plop them at the start of our JavaScript file, right under where we declare context:

var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas");
var context = canvas.getContext("2d");
var x = 250;
var y = 250;

We still set the x and y to 250 because that’s what we want them to be by default. But now we can change them.

Let’s modify our circle-drawing code to use the variables.

Inside of the drawUserCell function, modify the context.arc function like so:

context.arc(x, y, 40, 0, 2*3.14159);

Now the circle will be drawn at the values from x and y.

Save your file and open Live Preview. Your results should be the same.

Detect Mouse Movements

First we need to create a function that will be invoked each time the mouse is moved. Here it is:

function mouseMoved(mouse) {
  x = mouse.clientX;
  y = mouse.clientY;
}

Understanding The Code

  • You declare a function called mouseMoved that takes one parameter, mouse.
  • mouse is an object that contains two variables that we care about: clientX and clientY. These represent, respectively, the x and y coordinates of the mouse cursor in relation to the canvas.
  • You then set the variable x equal to the clientX and the variable y equal to the clientY.

We detect mouse movements by adding an EventListner for mousemove to the <canvas> element. The syntax looks like this:

canvas.addEventListener("mousemove", /*your function goes here*/);

Understanding The Code

This code will invoke a function that goes in place of the comment /*your function goes here*/ each time the mouse is moved.

Let’s invoke the mouseMoved function each time the mouse is moved:

canvas.addEventListener("mousemove", mouseMoved);

Notice we do not invoke the mouseMoved function ourselves (by writing mouseMoved()). Instead we simply tell the EventListner to invoke the function for us each time it receives a mousemove event.

Finally, let’s draw a new cell each time the mouse is moved. To do this, we simply invoke the drawUserCell function from within our mouseMoved function:

function mouseMoved(mouse) {
  x = mouse.clientX;
  y = mouse.clientY;
  drawUserCell(); <== NEW
}

If you save now, you’ll see the fruits of our labor.

Huh. That’s strange. It looks like we’ve just recreated Paint. Although that’s pretty cool, it wasn’t what we wanted. We wanted one circle that moved with the mouse.

Why is this happening?

If you look at the code, you’ll see that each time we move the mouse we draw a new circle at that location. We’re forgetting to clear the canvas.

Clearing the canvas

Clearing the canvas is pretty easy. All we’ve got to do is to draw a rectangle over the whole canvas.

You could find the solution by googling “How to draw rectangle on canvas JavaScript”, but I’ll save you the hassle.

We draw a rectangle with the rect function of context.

The rect function accepts 4 parameters:

x - The x-coordinate of the upper-left corner of the rectangle y - The y-coordinate of the upper-left corner of the rectangle width - The width of the rectangle, in pixels height - The height of the rectangle, in pixels

Since we know the canvas is 500px by 500px, making a rectangle that covers the whole thing looks like this:

context.rect(0, 0, 500, 500);

Remember from part 1 that before we draw anything we have to invoke the beginPath function of context. We’ll also want to give the rectangle a color, so we will also set the fillStyle to white and finally invoke the fill function.

Let’s put all this into a function called clearCanvas:

function clearCanvas() {
  context.beginPath();
  context.rect(0, 0, 500, 500);
  context.fillStyle = "white";
  context.fill();
}

Finally invoke this function each time the mouse is moved and before you draw the cell:

function mouseMoved(mouse) {
  x = mouse.clientX;
  y = mouse.clientY;
  clearCanvas(); <== NEW
  drawUserCell();
}

Your app.js should look like this:

end of part 3

Save your work and see the results!

End of part 3

Wonderful, we have a moving cell!

Congrats!

You’ve finished Part 3!

Part 4

In this part you will learn to give your cell’s movements a velocity. That means that the cell won’t always be where your cursor is, instead it will follow your cursor.

Let’s recap

In Part 3 you learned about functions. Remember that functions are self-contained blocks of code. They can receive input - In the form of parameters.

This is how we wrapped the code used to draw the user’s cell into a function called drawUserCell:

function drawUserCell() {
  context.beginPath();
  context.arc(250, 250, 40, 0, 2*3.14159);
  context.fillStyle = "cyan";
  context.fill();
}

And this is how we invoked the function drawUserCell:

drawUserCell();

Planning it out

What we want to do: add a velocity to the cell’s movements.

How do we even approach that? It goes something like this:

  1. Create an infinite loop that calculates the position of the cell 60 times a second. If you’re familiar with video games you might recognize 60 times a second as 60 frames per second or 60 fps. More in a bit.
  2. For each frame, move the cell closer to the mouse location by a given amount.

Setting up the drawScreen function

We’re now going to create a new function called drawScreen. This function will be run 60 times every second forever.

The goal of this function is to redraw the cell closer to where the mouse is.

To redraw the cell we have to:

Additionally we will invoke a function called calculatePosition before drawUserCell. This function will calculate the new position of the cell after 1/60th of a second (one frame).

First though, let’s set up the function named drawScreen:

function drawScreen() {
  clearCanvas();
  drawUserCell();
  setTimeout(drawScreen, 1000/60);
}

Understanding The Code

We create a function named drawScreen. This function has no parameters (the parentheses are empty).

setTimeout(drawScreen, 1000/60) - This is the magic sauce. The setTimeout function is what let’s our drawScreen function repeat 60 times a second. It works by taking a function - The first parameter - And running it after a specified delay, in milliseconds - The second parameter.

It’s often useful to run through your code as if you’re the computer. So let’s do that. Pretend like the drawScreen function just got invoked.

  1. drawScreen function gets invoked
  2. we clear the canvas with the clearCanvas function
  3. we draw the user’s cell with the drawUserCell function
  4. we use the setTimeout function to invoke the drawScreen function after a delay of (1000 / 60) milliseconds. Since 1000 milliseconds is equal to 1 second, the drawScreen function will be invoked in 1/60th of a second.
  5. the drawScreen function gets invoked. WE’RE AT STEP 1 AGAIN! (the process repeats forever).

Now, let’s modify the mouseMoved function so it doesn’t do what we just made the drawScreen function do. Namely, let’s delete these lines from the mouseMoved function:

clearCanvas();
drawUserCell();

Lastly, let’s replace the invocation of drawUserCell at the end of the app.js file with an invocation of drawScreen:

Now if we save the file and preview our work, we’ll see exactly what we had before. Note though that we have what we had before even though we took a very different approach to get the same result.

**Running through the code

Let’s quickly go through what the computer does when it executes our code:

  1. Variables (x and y) and functions (drawScreen, drawUserCell, clearCanvas and mouseMoved) are declared.
  2. The mouseMoved function is made to run each time the mouse is moved:

    canvas.addEventListener("mousemove", mouseMoved);
    
  3. The drawScreen function is invoked and begins it’s infinite loop.

At this point our program is in a stable state. The drawScreen function will continue looping. It will redraw the circle each frame at the same position so it won’t look like anything is changing. Until…

*The mouse is moved!*

  1. The mouseMoved function is invoked.
  2. The x and y are set to the coordinates of the mouse.
  3. The next time the drawScreen function loops (at max in 1/60th of a second), it will clear the canvas (clearCanvas) and invoke the drawUserCell function.
  4. The drawUserCell function draws another circle centered at x and y. (The x and y are now the coordinates of the mouse).
  5. A new circle appears where the mouse is.

Great, let’s now actually add velocity.

Setting up the variables for the calculatePosition function

For this section it’s fundamental to understand this basic concept:

We want x and y to slowly become equal to the coordinates of the mouse, instead of immediately as we’ve done so far.

The way we do this is by increasing or decreasing x and y each frame to get them closer to the mouse’s position.

We will need to create three variables at the top of the app.js file:

var mouseX = 250;
var mouseY = 250;
var velocity = 2;

The important part is that mouseX and mouseY will always be equal to the current position of the mouse. velocity will determine how fast the cell moves (a higher velocity will make the cell go faster).

To make mouseX and mouseY instantaneously equal to the position of the mouse, you must update the variables in the mouseMoved. So let’s switch from updating x and y to updating mouseX and mouseY:

function mouseMoved(e) {
  mouseX = e.clientX;
  mouseY = e.clientY;
}

The if-else statement

The calculatePosition will teach us a fundamental programming concept: the if-else statement.

It looks like this:

if (3 > 2) {
  // code to run if condition is true
} else {
  // code to run if condition is false
}

The “condition” is held within the parentheses. For now we will just use basic math operations like the > (greater than sign).

Since 3 is greater than 2, the condition is true and the code inside the if statement runs.

Let’s try another one:

var x = 1;

if (x > 2) {
  // code to run if condition is true
} else {
  // code to run if condition is false
}

As you can see, the condition can contain variables too, not only numbers.

Since x is 1 and 1 is not greater than 2, the condition is false and the code inside the else statement executes.

Setting up the calculatePosition function

The time has finally come! Let’s give our cell some velocity!

Here’s the code:

function calculatePosition() {
  // For the x-axis
  if (mouseX > x) {
    x = x + velocity;  // mouse is to the right of the ball
  } else {
    x = x - Velocity;  // mouse is to the left of the ball
  }

  // For the y-axis
  if (mouseY > y) {
    y = y + velocity;  // mouse is under ball
  } else {
    y = y - Velocity;  // mouse is above ball
  }
}

Understanding The Code

Although this code may look intimidating, it’s not hard at all — promise.

function calculatePosition() - We declare a function called calculatePosition.

if (mouseX > x) - The code in the if statement will run if the x value of the mouse (mouseX) is greater than (>) the x value of the circle (x). Your goal is to get x closer to mouseX so when mouseX is larger you must increase x. And that’s exactly what you do:

x = x + velocity;

else - The code in the else statement will run if the condition is false. in this case the condition is false if mouseX is less than (<) x. When mouseX is less than x we must reduce x to get it closer to mouseX. And that’s exactly what you do:

x = x - Velocity;

The same explanations apply to the y-axis code.

Note: it is not entirely accurate that the opposite of mouseX > x is mouseX < x. In fact the wiggling you’ll see in a minute is partly due to this approximation. Use this hint for Challenge #1.

Invoking the calculatePosition function

Remember what the purpose of writing the calculatePosition function was? It was so that we can calculate the position of the cell once every frame.

Where can we do things once per frame (every 1/60th of a second)? Oh right! In the drawScreen function.

So let’s invoke calculatePosition in the drawScreen function. Note that it has to be before you invoke the drawUserCell function because drawUserCell will use the position calculated by the calculatePosition function:

function drawScreen() {
  clearCanvas();
  calculatePosition();  <-- NEW
  drawUserCell();
  setTimeout(drawScreen, 1000/60);
}

Your app.js should look like this:

end of part 4 code

Save your work and preview your results!

end of part 4 result

Our cell has velocity!

Part 5

In this lesson you will add food at hardcoded positions. You will also learn about JavaScript arrays.

This is how it’s going to work:

  1. Create an array to hold the positions of the food
  2. Modify the drawUserCell function to work for any circle (i.e. food and the user cell).
  3. Draw the food at the positions held in the array during the drawScreen function.

What are arrays?

The Array object is used to store multiple values in a single variable.

You can store strings:

var cars = ["Saab", "Volvo", "BMW"];

numbers:

var lotteryWinners = [23, 6, 25, 9, 15];

or anything else.

Array indexes are zero-based: The first element in the array is 0, the second is 1, and so on.

To access the 2nd element of the cars array we can do this:

var secondElement = cars[1]; <-- THE VALUE WILL BE "volvo"

Store food positions in an array

Let’s create an array named foodPositions at the top of the app.js file. This array will contain an array of an (x, y) coordinate pair for each food position. Yep, that’s right. An array can contain other arrays.

This is what a coordinate pair array will look like:

[30, 100]

This pair represents the location (30, 100) where x is 30 and y is 100.

Here’s the array we’re going to make:

[[30, 20], [400, 90], [60, 317], [300, 268]]

We want to store this array in a variable named foodPositions:

var foodPositions = [[30, 20], [400, 90], [60, 317], [300, 268]];

Generalizing (abstracting) the drawUserCell

We now want to “generalize” (more accurately abstract) the drawScreen function to draw any type of circle, not just the user’s cell.

Let’s remember how we draw a circle.

context.arc(x, y, radius, startAngle, endAngle);

Since all circles will have the same startAngle and endAngle, the only parameters we will need to change are x, y and radius.

We’ll first start off by changing the name of the drawUserCell function to drawCircle:

function drawCircle () {
  ...
}

Next we’ll add some parameters:

function drawCircle(circleX, circleY, radius) {
  context.beginPath();
  context.arc(circleX, circleY, radius, 0, 2*3.14159);
  context.fillStyle = "cyan";
  context.fill();
}

Finally change the invocation of the old drawUserCell inside of drawScreen to invoke drawCircle instead:

drawCircle(x, y, 40);

Lastly, below that invocation (which draws the user cell), we are going to draw the food:

drawCircle(foodPositions[0][0], foodPositions[0][1], 10);
drawCircle(foodPositions[1][0], foodPositions[1][1], 10);
drawCircle(foodPositions[2][0], foodPositions[2][1], 10);
drawCircle(foodPositions[3][0], foodPositions[3][1], 10);

Preview your work! We have food!

Your code should look like this:

var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas");
var context = canvas.getContext("2d");
var x = 250;
var y = 250;
var mouseX = 250;
var mouseY = 250;
var velocity = 2;
var foodPositions = [[30, 20], [400, 90], [60, 317], [300, 268]];

function drawCircle(cellX, cellY, radius) {
  context.beginPath();
  context.arc(cellX, cellY, radius, 0, 2*3.14159);
  context.fillStyle = "cyan";
  context.fill();
}

function clearCanvas() {
  context.beginPath();
  context.rect(0, 0, 500, 500);
  context.fillStyle = "white";
  context.fill();
}

function calculatePosition() {
  // For the x-axis
  if (mouseX > x) {
    x = x + velocity;  // mouse is to the right of the ball
  } else {
    x = x - Velocity;  // mouse is to the left of the ball
  }

  // For the y-axis
  if (mouseY > y) {
    y = y + velocity;  // mouse is under ball
  } else {
    y = y - Velocity;  // mouse is above ball
  }
}

function drawScreen() {
  clearCanvas();
  calculatePosition();
  drawCircle(x, y, 40);
  drawCircle(foodPositions[0][0], foodPositions[0][1], 10);
  drawCircle(foodPositions[1][0], foodPositions[1][1], 10);
  drawCircle(foodPositions[2][0], foodPositions[2][1], 10);
  drawCircle(foodPositions[3][0], foodPositions[3][1], 10);
  setTimeout(drawScreen, 1000/60);
}

function mouseMoved(e) {
  mouseX = e.clientX;
  mouseY = e.clientY;
}

canvas.addEventListener("mousemove", mouseMoved);
drawScreen();

Congrats!

You’ve finished Part 5!

More coming soon…

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