Wisedocks

This is the devlog for Baby Launcher

The Idea

I got the idea for Baby Launcher from Kitten Cannon. If you never played that classic, you missed out; it’s a 20-year-old Flash game where you blast kittens out of a cannon and watch them fly. I wasted way too many hours on it. No idea why it was so addicting, but it was.

I’ve always wanted to turn Wisedocks into an arcade, but honestly, I could build websites; not games. Until now. Thanks to AI, I can actually work through the parts that trip me up. JavaScript is a major weakness for me. So this is a great way to learn. Baby Launcher is the game that made me realize Wisedocks should be my own collection of weird games, not a generic dump of random titles.

I could have just hosted a ton of other people’s games and slapped on my own scoreboard, but screw that. I’m building everything myself. New games will be slow and probably janky at first, but they’ll be mine. I may grab a few older games later and heavily modify them. The tower game for instance will be the first one to get the treatment. I've barely touched it beyond implementing my scoring logic into it thus far, but it will look drastically different once I jump on it.

Why Baby Launcher?

Wisedocks is getting the dark humor treatment. Expect some cursing and probably a few questionable jokes. I mean, what’s more delightfully messed up than launching cartoon babies across a screen?

Work Flow

When I start a new game, I cram everything, header, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript into a single file. It’s not smart, but it lets me work live and tweak on the fly. If you could make money off of jam sessions than I would be in heaven. Once things get too messy, I finally break the code into separate files: stylesheet.css, game.html, game-physics.js. With Cloudflare, this works out, since it only caches CSS and JS, not the full HTML. The end result? The games run smoother once I clean house. Should I separate everything from the start? Probably. Will I? Absolutely not.

At this moment the code is not separated for Baby Launcher, not yet anyhow.

Update: Now it is, sort of... 

Ideas For The Future

• Add a cartoon leg that kicks the baby at launch Even better a freaking clown! 🤡
• Move the “game over” modal into the game itself for a less annoying experience
• Improve the graphics, especially the background.
• Keep your running high score in the game so you don't have to submit a score after every launch.
• Add high scores below the game so you know your competition.
• Remove the Exit button.
• Improve game scaling.
• Add sound effects for virtual keyboard.

Changelog

June 20th, 2025

• Moved all popup modals into the game for better UI/UX.
• Removed all toast messages, and div overlays for loading and screen rotate on small screens. Everything is in canvas now.
• Added an in game keyboard for submitting initials and scores.
• Improved the full screen functionality.
• Fixed bug when submitting scores the game jumped into full screen.
• Fixed bug when sometimes submitting scores would submit the score twice.

June 17th, 2025

I'm trying to get the base game layout set in stone this week so I can duplicate this game over to FartDump.com as it is a bit more popular. One of these days Wisedocks will be king, but we are not even close yet. People love the Fart Dump name, I guess. lol

• Added a loading screen and a rather funny notice for those on phones to rotate their screen for a better experience.
• Added a clown that now kicks the baby.
• Flipped the image around where the baby finally splats so he is facing the right way.
• Moved the high score to the top under the current score. It makes way more sense there.
• Changed up a few of the sounds to better match what was happening in-game.
• Cleaned up the code a bit, finally gave in and separated out some of the JavaScript into different files. I will need to do quite a bit more modularization as I add more bells and whistles.

June 14th, 2025

• Fixed the buttons not working on mobile devices. They were completely broken.
• Added a message to rotate screen on small screens.
• Made buttons slightly larger on small screens. The mute and full screen buttons may need to be a little larger. Will come back around to that later.
• Not necessarily related to this game but I fixed the sites manifest so that if you installed Wisedocks on your phone, you can now rotate your screen for a wider site. Sort of important for this game.

June 9th, 2025

• Reworked the end game functionality so that the modals aren't so obtrusive.
• Added running high score to local storage so that when you do decide to submit your score it will submit your highest score. Need to work on the logic here but it works well for now.

June 5th, 2025

• Added sound effects and background music
• Updated baby images; splat baby now leaves a little pool of blood (you’re welcome)
• Reworked the physics for more bounce and more trampoline hits
• Added a full-screen button (still floating above the game; needs to be inside the canvas)

May 28th, 2025

• Working prototype of Baby Launcher live