Learn JavaScript by Making Digital Tabletop Games and Web Apps

JavaScript is an incredibly versatile and beginner-friendly programming language. It powers interactive experiences on the web, from simple scripts to complex web applications. JavaScript is also increasingly being used to create engaging digital versions of tabletop games.

In this guide, we‘ll explore how you can learn core programming concepts and level up your web development skills by building digital tabletop games and interactive web apps with JavaScript. Whether you want to make a companion app for your favorite board game, design a virtual tabletop roleplaying game, or create a multiplayer card battler playable in the browser, JavaScript provides all the tools you need.

Why Learn JavaScript with Digital Tabletop Games?

Digital tabletop games are a perfect avenue for learning to code with JavaScript. Compared to video games, tabletop games usually have turn-based gameplay and rely more on logic and game state rather than real-time rendering and physics. This makes the programming easier for beginners to reason about.

Some advantages of learning JavaScript development with tabletop games:

1. Tabletop games involve interesting logic and game mechanics you can model in code
2. You can start with simple text-based implementations and gradually add graphics/animations
3. Tabletop games can be built as single-page web apps without complex server-side logic
4. You can leverage the same JavaScript skills to create web-based companion apps and tools for physical games
5. Lots of open-source JavaScript libraries and frameworks exist specifically for building digital tabletop games

JavaScript is also ubiquitous on the web. It‘s supported by all major browsers on desktop and mobile. This makes it easy to share your digital tabletop creations far and wide. And with JavaScript‘s huge ecosystem, you‘ll be able to find libraries and tools for adding every feature imaginable to your games and apps.

Getting Started with JavaScript

Before you start building your own digital tabletop games, it helps to have a basic understanding of JavaScript fundamentals. Let‘s go over how to set up your development environment and walk through the core concepts.

Setting Up a JavaScript Development Environment

All you really need to start writing JavaScript is a web browser and a text editor. However, there are some helpful tools that can supercharge your productivity:

• Visual Studio Code – A free code editor with excellent JavaScript support, debugging features, and useful extensions
• Node.js – A JavaScript runtime for executing code outside the browser and managing dependencies
• npm – A package manager for installing JavaScript libraries and tools
• Git – A version control system for tracking changes to your code

I recommend installing Visual Studio Code and adding extensions like ESLint and Prettier for catching errors and auto-formatting your code. You should also install Node.js, which comes bundled with npm. Having Node.js will allow you to run JavaScript from the command line and use npm to install additional packages.

JavaScript Programming Basics

Here are some of the fundamental programming concepts in JavaScript that you should become familiar with:

• Variables – Variables allow you to store and reference data in your program‘s memory. JavaScript variables are declared with the keywords var, let, and const.

• Data Types – JavaScript has several built-in data types including numbers, strings, booleans, objects, and arrays. You can use the typeof operator to check the type of a value.

• Functions – Functions let you encapsulate reusable blocks of code. They can take input arguments and return an output value. Functions in JavaScript are first-class objects.

• Control Flow – Control flow statements like if...else, switch, and loops allow you to add branching logic and repeat code in your program.

• Arrays – Arrays are ordered lists of data. They have lots of helpful built-in methods for iterating, searching, adding, and removing elements.

• Objects – Objects are collections of key-value pairs for organizing related data and functionality. They‘re fundamental to Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) in JavaScript.

• DOM – The Document Object Model is a tree-like structure representing the HTML of a web page. You can select elements from the DOM and manipulate them with JavaScript.

• Events – JavaScript can listen and respond to events like mouse clicks, keyboard input, and browser actions. This is key to making interactive experiences.

• Asynchronous Programming – JavaScript can perform asynchronous actions with callbacks, Promises, and async/await syntax. This allows your app to stay responsive waiting on long-running tasks.

Spend some time practicing these concepts and getting comfortable with JavaScript‘s syntax. Solve algorithm challenges and build small projects to solidify your understanding. Resources like freeCodeCamp, Codecademy, and Eloquent JavaScript are great for getting up to speed.

Building Games with JavaScript

Once you have a decent grasp of JavaScript basics, you can start applying your skills to game development. Digital tabletop games can actually be a great entry point before diving into more complex video game projects.

Modeling Game State and Logic

At their core, most tabletop games are about manipulating game state based on a defined rule set. The game state encompasses things like:

• The current game phase or round
• Which players‘ turn it is
• The status of the game board or play area
• Each player‘s hand, deck, points, resources, etc.

Think about how you would model the game state for chess, or poker, or Settlers of Catan as a JavaScript object. What properties would it need? How would the game state change in response to different player actions?

Implementing game logic is largely about updating your game state properly in response to events. Some example game logic tasks:

• Shuffle the deck and deal cards to players
• Check if a player‘s action or move is valid
• Resolve a player‘s turn and go to the next player
• Determine when the game is over and who won

Spend time thinking through your game‘s state and logic and model it in clean, readable JavaScript code. Encapsulate the operations into functions and test them thoroughly. Getting your game logic right is essential before adding any visual chrome.

Creating Game UI with HTML and CSS

No matter how elegant your game logic is under the hood, players will still need a way to view and interact with the game. This is where HTML and CSS come into play.

Your HTML will provide the semantic structure of your game UI. It will contain elements for the game board, player areas, cards, buttons, and so forth. CSS will provide the visual styling of your HTML elements so they look nice and fit your game‘s theme.

Some tips for good game UI:

• Use semantic HTML5 elements like <header>, <main>, <section>, etc. This will make your UI more accessible
• Use CSS grid and flexbox for flexible layouts that adapt to different screen sizes
• Keep your UI simple and uncluttered so players can focus on the game
• Make sure interactive elements like buttons and forms have clear affordances
• Test your UI to make sure it‘s usable on both desktop and mobile

Making Games Interactive with JavaScript Event Listeners

With your core game logic implemented and a UI mocked up in HTML/CSS, your next task is using JavaScript events to connect the two. You‘ll want to strategically "listen" for events like:

• "Click" events on buttons or game spaces
• "Dragstart" and "dragend" events for drag-and-drop
• "Keydown" events for keyboard shortcuts
• "Submit" events on forms
• Browser events like "resize" and "beforeunload"

Your event listeners will use DOM methods like querySelector and getElementById to select the relevant HTML element(s), then apply the appropriate game logic to update game state (and consequently update the UI).

Some example event listener logic:

const squares = document.querySelectorAll(‘.square‘);
squares.forEach(square => {
  square.addEventListener(‘click‘, event => {
    const squareId = event.target.id;
    handlePlayerMove(squareId);
    updateGameUI();
  });  
});

This listens for clicks on HTML elements with the class "square" (game board spaces), passes the clicked square‘s ID to a handlePlayerMove function, then updates the UI based on the new game state.

Take special care to keep your event handlers lean, and offload the heavy logic to dedicated game engine functions. This will keep your code more maintainable as it grows.

Leveling Up with HTML Canvas

For more advanced 2D graphics and animations, you can utilize the HTML5 <canvas> element alongside your DOM-based UI. The canvas allows you to programmatically draw shapes, images, and text via JavaScript.

Some cool things you can do with <canvas> in your tabletop games:

• Procedurally draw game boards, cards, and pieces
• Animate dice rolls, card flips, combat effects, etc.
• Add particle effects for things like magic spells or explosions
• Efficiently render large numbers of game objects
• Implement zoom and pan functionality

Getting started with <canvas> is fairly straightforward:

<canvas id="my-canvas"></canvas>

const canvas = document.getElementById(‘my-canvas‘);
const ctx = canvas.getContext(‘2d‘);

ctx.fillStyle = ‘green‘;
ctx.fillRect(50, 50, 100, 100);

This draws a 100×100 green rectangle to the canvas. You can draw all sorts of shapes with the 2d rendering context and manipulate them with transformations.

Working directly with the canvas API can get complex quickly, so there are several popular JavaScript game engines/libraries built on top of canvas that provide helpful abstractions:

• PixiJS – A 2D rendering engine with WebGL support
• Phaser – A complete framework for building 2D games in canvas or WebGL
• Kontra.js – A tiny JavaScript library for simple 2D canvas games
• melon.js – A 2D HTML5 platformer engine
• Babylon.js – A powerful 3D game engine with a canvas fallback

Using a canvas-based framework like Phaser can help speed up your game development with conveniences like a built-in scene graph, input handling, physics, tweening, particles, and more.

Going Beyond Games with JavaScript Web Apps

The JavaScript skills you build making games can transfer over to all sorts of interactive web projects. Why not enhance your physical tabletop games with companion web apps? Some ideas:

• Digital character sheets and campaign trackers for tabletop RPGs
• Web-based deck builders and collection managers for card games
• Digital recreations of board game maps and scenarios
• Real-time game state "mirrors" that display info on a separate screen
• Achievement trackers and online leaderboards

The functionality of your web app will determine your technical approach. Some apps can be simple single-page client-side applications, while others may require a more complex client-server architecture. Here‘s an overview of the landscape of modern JavaScript web development:

Client-Side Web App Development

Client-side JavaScript lets you build interactive web apps where most of the application logic happens right in the browser. Some key concepts to familiarize yourself with:

• DOM Manipulation – Dynamically updating HTML elements based on application state
• AJAX – Asynchronous requests to APIs for fetching/sending data without refreshing the page
• Web Storage – Using the browser‘s local/session storage to persist user data between page loads
• Single-Page Apps (SPAs) – Web apps that dynamically rewrite the page rather than loading new pages from the server
• Frontend Frameworks – Tools like React, Vue, and Angular for building complex frontend apps with reusable UI components

Server-Side Web App Development

For more full-featured web applications, you‘ll likely need a backend server component to handle things like user authentication, database querying, and business logic. On the server, JavaScript is often used via Node.js. Key backend concepts:

• Web servers – Software like Express and Koa for building JavaScript web servers that can receive and respond to HTTP requests
• APIs – Building endpoints to expose your app‘s data and functionality for programmatic access in a variety of formats like JSON or GraphQL
• Databases – Storing and querying persistent data, often with NoSQL databases like MongoDB or PostgreSQL
• User Authentication – Allowing users to sign up, log in, and access protected resources with authentication strategies like JWT or sessions
• Deployment – Deploying your full-stack JavaScript app to a hosting platform like Heroku or AWS to make it publicly accessible on the web

Project Ideas

The best way to learn is by doing! Here are some project ideas to test out your newfound JavaScript skills for tabletop gaming and web apps:

1. Tic-tac-toe – Build a 2-player game of tic-tac-toe with win detection
2. Dice Roller – Create an app to roll a variable number of polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20) and track results
3. Card Draw Simulator – Simulate drawing cards from a shuffled deck one at a time (e.g. for Uno or Poker)
4. Initiative Tracker – Make a combat turn tracker for tabletop RPGs that lets you add, remove, and sort characters by initiative roll
5. Character Generator – Randomly generate character ability scores and other stats for an RPG system
6. Monster Lookup – Use the D&D or Pathfinder API to let users search and filter a database of monsters
7. Virtual Game Board – Digitally recreate a board game like Scrabble or Settlers of Catan in the browser

Conclusion and Next Steps

As you can see, learning JavaScript for building digital tabletop games and web apps opens up a world of possibilities. These skills are immensely transferable to all sorts of coding careers and personal projects.

I hope this high-level roadmap has given you a taste of the JavaScript landscape and inspired you to begin your own learning journey. Stay curious, read documentation, practice often, and don‘t be afraid to ask for help!

For further exploration, check out some of these recommended resources:

• freeCodeCamp‘s JavaScript curriculum
• Eloquent JavaScript by Marijn Haverbeke
• MDN Web Docs on JavaScript
• You Don‘t Know JS book series by Kyle Simpson
• Phaser game development tutorials
• Vue Mastery‘s Vue.js courses
• Full Stack Open curriculum

Remember, you can only improve your programming skills by regularly applying them to real projects. Whenever you get stuck, refer back to documentation, search for code samples, and debug patiently. Every bug you solve makes you a better coder.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start using JavaScript to make something awesome! Happy coding!