Welcome to the Code Playground.

Still being excited about new technologies and enjoying the act of writing code is essential to keeping programmers motivated and productive (that, and pizza). A chance to have some fun often leads to new abilities, honed skills, fresh ideas and keeps us at Polynomial at the cutting edge of technology.

Here are some of the products of 'play time'.

Please note: The code here does not represent the quality of our normal production work - there are likely to be bugs and it's entirely possible that things may be broken in some or even all browsers. Also, if your computer catches fire, that wasn't our fault.

Back Home

Slipgate

Lander
Brace

A more advanced take on Lander, Slipgate was an aim to create a fully featured retro shoot 'em up directly in the browser. There are 50 levels, 3 weapons and plenty of power ups to pick up. The backgrounds are procedurally generated by a custom Perlin/sine algorithm that generates a unique nebulae each time you play.

Full information about controls and the object of the game can be found on the help screen within the game.

Added February 2014

Key features:

  • HTML Canvas
  • Procedural backgrounds
  • Sprite engine
  • Particle system
  • Powerups
  • Finite-state AI
  • Game state
  • Collision detection
Load

Lightning

Lightning
Brace

Lightning uses a simple Lindenmayer system to simulate a tesla or lightning effect. An alpha fade function makes each 'bolt' of lightning slowly dissolve into the background as more bolts are generated.

Passes makes the lightning more or less complex. Amplitude makes the lightning bigger. Terminal speed makes the terminals (the points that generate lightning) bounce up and down the screen. Terminals can be dragged around with the mouse.

Added November 2013

Key features:

  • HTML Canvas
  • HTML5 Forms
  • L-system generation
  • Real-time interaction
  • Mouse support
  • No bitmap assets
Load

Lander

Lander
Brace

Lander uses the HTML canvas element to turn a few primitive shapes into a (mildly) amusing little game. Particle thrusters and fireworks with trigonometry based velocity and simple gravity combines to make a playable little game within the browser with zero external assets.

The cursor keys can be used to take off and accelerate with up firing your thrusters. The fuel gauge is in the top right of the screen, try and land on the gold arrow to score points and get more fuel. If you crash, space starts a new game.

Added December 2013

Key features:

  • HTML Canvas
  • Particle system
  • Star field generator
  • Gravity simulation
  • Game logic & scoring
  • Collision detection
  • No bitmap assets
Load