A fundamental aspect of the demoscene movement is that the projects presented are artificially limited, so they must never exceed a specific number of kilobytes. That kind of restriction makes any competition very interesting, and one of the best examples out there is JS1k, which has been running for eight years. The goal for participants is to create a small demo in JavaScript, with no external elements, that never exceeds 1,024 bytes. Today we're going to meet the winners.
The official site explains that JS1k started in 2010 as a recurring joke, but it didn't take long to become a real competition. The rules are very clear: no external elements. A demo contained in 1,024 bytes of pure JavaScript, which can use any available web technology. A jury (with members from the demoscene and JavaScript movements) that is updated each year chooses the winning demos. Would you like to meet them?
JS1k 2010: 'First'
The first JS1k competition was won by Marijn Haverbeke with his game Legend of the Bouncing Beholder, in which you control a sphere and collect coins without stopping. Second place went to Óscar Toledo G. with a Mini Ajedrez that plays well, but has some limitations (no castling support). The podium was closed by Sjoerd Visscher with a disturbing version of Tetris that speeds up the game (and the music) as pieces fall.
JS1k 2010: 'Xmas'
Inspired by Christmas, the second JS1k of 2010 crowned Román Cortés, who managed to create an animated Christmas tree in exactly 1,024 bytes. Second place went to Jeremy Clarke with an interactive animation that accumulates snow at the bottom of the screen, and third place went to Rebecca, with a complex hanjie puzzle.
JS1k 2011: 'Oregon Trail'
Interestingly, two of the three winners are not related to the classic educational game. At the top of the list is the game Flexidroid by Taras Zlotnikov, in which we must use the three symbols to touch the stars with the tip of the rope. Mathieu Henri claimed second place with a render of 7,000 particles of the wagon we used in Oregon Trail, and third place went to Alexander Vedernikov with Battle in the Sky, a plane game.
JS1k 2012: 'Love'
With a significant amount of euros and an Arduino board as prizes, the 2012 edition of JS1k took love as its theme. First place went to Philip Buchanan with his formidable animation Autumn Evening, Román Cortés came second with A Rose is a Rose, and Mathieu Henri finished third with a JavaScript voice synthesizer, which doesn't seem to work at the moment. Too bad.
JS1k 2013: 'Spring!'
The JS1k 2013 was won by Philippe Deschaseaux with his impressive demo Stange Crystals II. Román Cortés and Mathieu Henri again claimed second and third places respectively, the first with Furbee, get out of that tunnel ASAP!, and the second with 3013: The 䕵 space-time fracture.
JS1k 2014: 'Dragons'
Another event notable for its impressive prizes, the JS1k 2014 placed Felix Woitzel at the top with his fractal renderer DragonDrop. Second place went to Highway at Night by Jani Ylikangas, and Reinder Nijhoff took the last step with a special Minecraft render that includes trees, fog, water, and hills. Highway at Night is the most aesthetically pleasing, but you also have to consider the technical aspect.
JS1k 2015: 'Hype Train'
The winner of the 2015 edition is not necessarily train-based. In fact, Keith Clark's work presents us with a fairly faithful clone of the classic Defender. Mysterious Monorail is the only animation on the podium, courtesy of homecoded / DESiRE. In third place we see Mathieu Henri back with his addictive Impossible Road. Do you think you can keep the sphere on the road? You have nothing to lose by trying...
JS1k 2016: 'Elemental'
The best animation of all JS1k so far (undoubtedly competing with Autumn Evening) is probably Romanesco 2.0, created by Lara & HellMod and winner of the 2016 edition. The variety of colors and the shape of the animation change with cursor movement, without losing the smoothness of its motion. The demo Voxeling by Raimon Ràfols demonstrates the power of its voxel engine in JavaScript, and Rebecca returned to third place with Firewatch, a small game in which we must put out forest fires.
JS1k 2017: 'Magic'
Finally, Mathieu Henri reached first place in JS1k 2017 with the project DWITTER—SON1K, an audiovisual programming environment "for the Twitter generation". Solar System Game by Viktor Kovacs is a solar system simulator in which we must place multiple planets in orbit, and Rebecca closes the podium again with Leap of Faith, a game in which a wizard needs to reach the top of his tower by jumping.
JS1k 2018: 'Coin Mine'
Don't worry, there are no miners in the background here. The most recent edition of JS1k gave the win to Román Cortés and his excellent render of the bust of Nefertiti. In second position we find another animation, Solar Quartet, by Yonatan. Third place went to Jani Ylikangas and his Cyber Auroras, which also includes a meteor shower.
As a closing note, I recommend a combination of Firefox and Chrome to view all demos correctly. The main differences are in speed, but there are occasions when a demo refuses to load in one browser and works perfectly in another. Enjoy! Official site:
