This is my attempt at making a full strategy game in a measly 13kB of minified HTML5 and Javascript. That restriction is not a random thing on my part: the game was made for the JS13k 2014 competition, where it took 10th place (out of an impressive 129 entries). The version posted here is updated after the competition, but it’s still less than 13kB minified and zipped.
Having to limit my design considerably due to the size and time constraints, I looked for a strategy genre that would work well with little to no graphical assets. In the end, I decided to take the classic Risk as inspiration. The final result resembles it only in how the map is constructed, but using it as a basis allowed me to quickly get something working off the ground, and easily add the competition theme (the four elements: earth, water, fire and air) to the mix later.
My goal was to make a game that could be played inside 15 minutes, so I tweaked the dynamics a bit; limiting each player to 3 moves per turn, but allowing armies to move more than once. This shifted the ponderous tempo of classic Risk towards a much more fast-paced and dynamic game. While that changed the tactics you have to use significantly, it didn’t remove the fun from the game.
The game can be played both single-player (against the AI) or multi-player against your friends. There is no online play though, so the most comfortable way to play against other people might be a tablet (or multiple mouses :)).
