Couple of years later, I decided to pursue a BS in CS because I was interested in getting into AI, however during my degree, I realized that I enjoyed building applications/web apps better than fine-tuning ML models. So I shifted my interest and effort towards web development and got a normal SWE job after college. Also, I heard about the bad pay and working conditions in the games industry so I was never interested in joining it anyway.

During that time, I didn't think too much of video games as I basically stopped playing them for a while and was not willing to learn Unity/Unreal/Godot as they were specifc to the game industry. I preferred to build side projects in languages that I could put on my CV and would be relevant to web dev.

However, I soon realized that I could make games using the same programming language I was using for my job (JavaScript/TypeScript) so I gave it a try. This is how I was introduced to the world of JS game dev.

This is what I learned.

-> Making 2D games in JS is viable, graphics have come a long way in the browser.

-> There are many options you can use. Just like the plethora of frontend libraries/frameworks the same can be found in JS gamedev.

-> Monetizing games made in JS is also possible. You just have to wrap your games as a desktop app. Here again many options exists.

-> Games made in JS are easily shareable, which is ideal for game jams. You can then take your JS game jam game and continue developing it as a full release you can wrap as a desktop app and sale on Steam. I think this is the greatest advantage of making games with JS.

Here are the various options I came across so you can narrow down your choices when choosing how you'll make your game :

Lower level (No libraries being used):

    -> Canvas API (Easy enough)

    -> WebGL API (Harder than the canvas but more performant)

    -> WebGPU API (Early days, not widely supported)

    -> Rendering: Pixi.js + Physics: Matter.js or Planck.js

    -> Rendering: P5.js + Physics: Matter.js or Planck.js

    -> Rendering: Kontra.js + Physics: (same options, there are probably more I'm unaware of)

    ... other options I'm unaware of.

    -> Phaser3 (Most famous, Vampire Survivor is made with it)

    -> Kaboom.js (The one I'm currently using, documentation is great and very easy to understand)

    -> Excalibur.js (Very promising but below ver1. Latest version at the time of writing this is ver. 0.28)

    -> Melon.js (Old but being currently revamped)

    ... other options I'm unaware of.

    -> Ct.js

    -> Cocos2d

    -> Play Canvas

    -> GDevelop (No code but can use javascript)

    ... other options I'm unaware of.

Anyway if you have yet to delve into the topic and you're interested, I made a YouTube channel teaching gamedev in JS through tutorials. Tutorials I already made include :

    -> How to make a Pokemon-like.

    -> How to make a platformer.

    -> How to make a fighting game.