Hi everybody,
I just finished my latest creation, Ancient Arenas. I thought I would post here to maybe get some feedback.
Hope you enjoy it : http://63.246.153.52/ancientarenas/medium.html
If you have any problems running it, I would be interested in knowing your OS/browser/JVM details. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time,
Ben.
AWESOME! Ran really well and no problems what-so-ever!
-Chris
Nice work!
Looked fine in Opera and whatever jvm I’m running…
1.4.2 or thereabouts.
Seems to run just fine, nice smooth camera and collision and everything.
Just oooone little detail. Do you think you could make strafe left/right operated by z and x respectively? Or something to that effect (A and D?)? You can’t circle strafe very well 
Not to complain… you put together a pretty good game, but that would make it a whole lot better I think.
Run’s fine. But medium level is too hard for me :’(
I think I should change settings to “EASY” 
Runs well on my low-spec system: Fujistu/Siemens Notebook Lifebook C
Windows XP Home Edition
Celeron CPU 1.5 Ghz
256 MB Ram
IE 6.0.2 running Java 1.5.0_02 -----------> No problems
Mozilla 5.0 Firefox 1.5.0.1 With Java 1.5.0_02 —> No problems
Netscape Communicator 4.79 with built-in Java 1.1.5
Twice it started loading data (only visible in statusbar)
and crashes without displaying anything.
Allthough I’m not a shoot-lover I admire the Java 1.1 Applet work which I code for as well!
Regards from
Wow. Really nice. Fire effects on the torches too. Standard version ran slow on my Powerbook A4 1.67GHz, but it did run without errors. Probably the Small version would be a better bet on this machine. I’ll be back for another go later (but on my faster Windows box). (I really just want to admire the capabilities of your software renderer )
Alan
Works in Firefox, but NOT in IE (6.0.2900). I don’t think IE likes “” tags? Nothing happens in IE. You might want to try “htmlconverter.jar”? JVM 1.5.06
Great deathmatch game… The only thing I found frustrating was that the frag camera rotates twice instead of once
Multiplayer would be a really nice addition, I think the movement in the game is slow enough to make it work even at relatively high pings (~150-200ms to the server, assuming a client/server model).
I noticed you used the good old Anfy3d engine Which means the game is “true” 3d? If so, maybe you can add some other nice features like looking around or platforms at different heights in the level to play at.
[quote]Works in Firefox, but NOT in IE (6.0.2900). I don’t think IE likes “” tags? Nothing happens in IE. You might want to try “htmlconverter.jar”? JVM 1.5.06
[/quote]
IE likes applet tags (I even think it was MS who introduced the applet tag), it works for me in IE 6 + JVM 1.5, maybe you have disabled the applet tag in your internet options?
Thijs
This is very cool - I like the dynamic lighting from the plasma gun!
This must be real 3D and not pseudo-3D like the original doom because I think those are quake 1 models and animations…
Just one note, loading the victorian town level using firefox gave me that red screen of death ‘out of memory error’ but reloading as suggested fixed the problem.
Tested on MacOSX 10.4.5 , 2GHz dualcore, 1.5GB DDR2
The game itself run smooth and nice, there is however and issue in the start menu’s.
The text “flashes” and changes size and color, making it hard to know where to click.
Here are a couple of SS that kinda showes the problem.
The SS only shows the Copyright text being screwed up but it really goes for all menu texts.
Hi all,
Thanks to everyone who has played and posted feedback so far (please keep the feedback coming :), I really do appreciate it!
To address some points made so far (sorry in advance if I miss any):
Thanks a very good point, I just programmed to use the same Doom key setup I used to use all those years ago, but there should probably be separate sidestep keys, and I will add this with the next update. Will probably use A and D work (since I am already using Z for strafe modifier.
I always find difficulty balancing tricky, since while playing you own game over and over as you develop it, you tend to get very good at it :), making you believe that the game might be too easy. If anybody else believe the game is too difficult, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.
Yeah, it seems there aren’t too many Java 1.1game developers around.
Re : Netscape Communicator, during the last phase of development I started concentrating on testing only uner the big 2 browsers (Firefix and IE and very occasionally Opera) I will look in to the Communicator problem. Thanks.
Wow, it ran on a Powerbook!? I would be curious to see if the small screen version would be playable on it. Also, I should have mentioned before, that you can get considerably increase perfromance if you turn down Graphics Detail to Low in the Options menu.
RE : software renderer, as thijs correctly observed, it uses the Anfy3D API, which I would highly recommend to anyone for it’s speed and stability).
As thijs has suggested, I am hoping this might be in your browser setup. I have extensively tested under IE6 (6.0.2600), and it works well.
Multiplayer would be fun, I have been considering doing a multiplayer version of this for some time, but I have lots of other game dev stuff waiting in a queue.
Re Anfy3D, correct, and 'tis true 3D. You can actually look up and down ( i have just disabled it in this version, since it is irrelevant to the gameplay). By “looking around” I assume you mean mouselook, which I don’t really think is do-able in any satisfactory way in a browser embedded 1.1 applet unfortunately. Multi-level platforms are a good idea, but then you have either enable vertical aiming (which does work, but is it bit awkward with the keyboard in a fast paced game), or enable some sort of automatci vertical aiming, which I never really liked (even in Doom). Wirth consdering though.
Congratulations on discovering the red screen of death! The out of memory exception has thus far caused me many hours of grief :’( , mainly because it happens so rarely and randomly. I am still looking into this problem, and at the moment, as you have observed, I have merely trapped it, and output a message urging the player to reload the page (which always seems to work). Oddly enough, this problem only seems to occur (for me at least) on more modern versions of Sun’s JVM (older IBM and microsoft JVM’s don’t seem to exhibit this behaviour).
I dont have access to MacOSX, so I won’t be able to reproduce and fix this at the moment. I have however noticed similar behaviour on an old Win98 machine running some eversion of the microsft JVM, the menu text flashed around a little and randomly changed size, I though it looked quite stylish to be honest .When I observed it, the menu was still quite usable though. I am glad to hear that the actual game ran well for you though. Thanks for sending the screenshots.
Runs slow on Mac OS X 10.4.5 Powerbook 1GHz, Java 5. Strafe key didn’t seem to work reliably.
Sweet mother of all that is holy, that kicks ass. 
I didn’t like the controls (wasd to move/strafe and arrow keys to look around would feel more natural for me, even if up/down don’t actually DO anything on the arrow keys), but the game was actually FUN.
Glad you like it, I appreciate your enthusiasm!
I am going to redesgn the controls slightly for the next update (based on this and all the comments I have received so far about controls).
Thanks.
Ben.
Wow awesome FPS. Worked flawlessly with Low Detail on my “crap” of a PC I have. I would love to know what you used for the 3D rendering. OpenGL or DirectX? Or did you create your own 3D engine?
EDIT: Never mind the 3D rendering question. I realized someone clarified what 3D software rendering API you’ve used.
That was awesome, and really fun.
The time delay is a cool idea.
very nice! looks great, the guns have that oomf that I always look for. AI is good, great stuff!
It is really great.
But I noticed something, might be a smaller bug. I was firing the last round of the rocket launcher and it switched to the plasma or whatever rifle and fired 2 more rounds. It seems to meddle a bit with burst fire and weapon change when out of ammo. It seems to continue the burst with the next weapon.
-JAW