12 JavaScript Game Ideas with Source Code
2023 February 13 • 
5 min read
If you're into game development and you already have some basic JavaScript knowledge, then you're at the right place. This article collects some JavaScript game ideas with tutorials and source code included.
The following tutorials will help you learn more about building games in JavaScript, and give you some ideas on what project to take on next. Let's start with the simpler, easier games to make, the ones that can be created entirely with vanilla JavaScript, then we'll move on to more advanced stuff.
Vanilla JavaScript Game Ideas
The following game ideas can all be recreated using only vanilla JavaScript, but later on, we'll also look at more complex ideas for which we can use a game framework. We'll leave a link to the tutorial for every game idea, and you'll also find links to the GitHub projects there.
Create a Hangman
Building a hangman is a fun project to take on, and we can learn a lot along the way. Working with game logic, randomization, and switching between game assets. This tutorial is available on Webtips as part of a preview lesson from our JavaScript course.
📚 You'll learn:
Working in Node- CJS vs ESM format
- Regular expressions
- Game logic flow
- Using Inquirer
- Handling terminal input and output
Create a Memory Game
One of our recent tutorials covers how to create a memory game to improve your memory and your JavaScript skills. You'll learn about how to flip cards, and how to interact with them. We'll also see how to work with timers and game states.
📚 You'll learn:
- Working with DOM
- Event listeners
- CSS animations and transforms
- Shuffling algorithms and randomization
-
setTimeoutandsetInterval - Handling game states
Create a Tic-Tac-Toe Game
Next, we have the classic tic-tac-toe game. In this tutorial, you can learn more about grids, event listeners, and working with a game state. Here you'll see how to create turn-based games. The entire logic for the game will fit into less than 100 lines of code.
📚 You'll learn:
- DOM manipulation
- Array methods
- CSS Grid
- Pseudo-selectors and elements
- State handling
- Restart functionality
Create a Snake Game from Checkboxes
Want to look into creating a snake game? This is made entirely with checkboxes and a radio button. In this project, you'll learn a lot about working with arrays and manipulating DOM elements. We'll also look into how to create a scoring system.
📚 You'll learn:
- World generation
- Keyboard input
- Character movement
- Working with configurations
- Randomization
- Scoring system
- CSS animations
- Game over state
Create Particle Effects
Want to create particle effects for a game? For this, you can use the canvas element. This tutorial is not a game on its own, but it teaches you a fundamental part of game development, how to create particle effects. This project will tackle this from the point of fireworks.
📚 You'll learn:
- Working with canvas
- Particle effects
- Canvas mouse actions
- Canvas gradients
- JavaScript animations
- Calculating distance in JavaScript
Create a Rock, Paper, Scissors Game
The following game ideas can be found on Youtube, as we have yet to create tutorials for these games on Webtips. The first one is rock, paper scissors, created by WebDevSimplied that you can play against your computer.
📚 You'll learn:
- How to simplify complex game logic
- CSS Grid and Flexbox
- Randomization
Create a Quiz Game
Also created by the same channel, is a quiz game that teaches you what steps you need to take when building out JavaScript games, or any other project for that matter. It teaches you how to create a quiz game that you can later easily extend and customize.
📚 You'll learn:
- Dynamic display
- Working with child elements
- Array randomization
- CSS variables
Create a Minesweeper
Looking for an even more complex game idea? Minesweeper it's then. Created by The Coding Train who is all about coding challenges, in this tutorial, you'll learn how to work with cells, loops, arrays, shapes, and there will be some math involved too.
📚 You'll learn:
- Working with grids
- Nested loops
- Detecting neighboring cells
- Flood fill algorithm
Create a Word Scramble
For the last vanilla JavaScript game idea, you can only find the source code on Codepen. This project takes on the challenge to create a word scramble game. Work with multiple difficulty levels, randomization, and event listeners for interaction.
📚 You'll learn:
- Leveling system
- Reset functionality
- DOM manipulation
- Working with random values
Phaser Game Ideas
Now let's move to more advanced concepts. For the following 3 game ideas, we're going to use Phaser, a JavaScript Game Framework to rebuild classic games, such as Atari's Breakout or Mario.
Remake Mario
Mario, first created in 1985 is now a classic platformer game. In this tutorial, you'll learn about working with tiles: generating a world with tilemap, loading it into the game, and working with tilemap objects. You'll also learn about animating sprites, camera movement, and particle effects. This tutorial is broken down into three parts.
📚 You'll learn:
- Phaser 3 basics
- Working with tilemaps and sprites
- Camera movement
- Character movement
- Game objects
- Interactibles
Remake Chrome's Dino Game
Chrome's Dino comes online when you go offline. Just like Mario, this tutorial is also broken down into three parts due to its complexity. A lot of concepts are covered in this series starting from building out a game UI and generating game objects, all the way to handling game logic with timers.
📚 You'll learn:
- Creating game UI
- Side scroll behavior
- Working with Timers
- Collision detection
- Dynamically spawning game objects
- High score system
Create Atari's Breakout
Last but not least, in this tutorial, you'll learn how you can recreate the famous Atari Breakout game, again with the help of Phaser. We'll look at configuring the game, preloading assets, creating the world with physics, displaying texts, adding collision detection, and much more.
📚 You'll learn:
- Working in Phaser
- Loading game assets
- Groups and colliders
- Working with game text
Remove adsSummary
Hope you found the right game idea for your next project. If you're looking for more JavaScript project ideas — not necessarily just game ideas — check out our 100 JavaScript project ideas with takeaways and resources such as designs and tutorials, so can only focus on coding. Thank you for reading through, happy coding! 👨💻
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Courses
Game Development in JS/TS - The Complete Guide
HTML5 Game Development
Create a Survival Game in Javascript with Phaser 3
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