Arena4k *Update 2

Contests 4K Game Competition - 2009
#1

This is my first 4k game, and one of my first games period. It’s basically a simple birds eye shooter. I don’t expect much in the way of score or placing (I’m aiming for a passing grade). Please tell me what you think, any bugs, suggestions, and highscores. I attached the executable jar to the post. And here’s the link to the webstart (Not Updated). www.java4k.com/game/arena4k/arena4k.jnlp

Controls

Moving - WSAD
Aim + Fire - Mouse
Select Weapon - 1 2 3
Cycle Weapon - Q E
Restart - R
Pause - P

Gameplay

Hit the green “enemies” with your three guns (Pistol, Shotgun, Machine Gun). You get ammo for shotgun and machine gun by killing enemies with pistol. If you get “hit” by an enemy, you lose 1 life and you turn red and are invulnerable for 3 seconds.

Enjoy, Rowdy!

EDIT : A few things I would like to say.
Thanks for hosting this competition appel, it really helped my programming skills and it was fun to do.

Update’s - (Replaced Jar)
1 -s fixed the graphic displacement for pcs[/s] Didn’t fix it, and found another problem
2 -Fixed the graphics error in the panel and made the game compensate for lag

#2

Very nice game!
I got to wave 17 with 327 points. The only issue I had was that the game would randomly slow down making it much easier to evade and destroy the enemies. [This could just be my laptop tho…]

Good job!

Edit: As a suggestion, if you have bytes to spare, maybe you could add in power-ups which appear rarely and randomly around the arena which would give boosts like increased speed, proximity mines, lives etc.

#3

Good game, I had some problems with the controls, they get stuck, so I release the key but the ball keeps moving for about 1 second.

#4

[quote]The only issue I had was that the game would randomly slow down making it much easier to evade and destroy the enemies. [This could just be my laptop tho…]
[/quote]
This is completely random right? Because I think the most likely place where that would happen is the spawn.

[quote]I had some problems with the controls, they get stuck, so I release the key but the ball keeps moving for about 1 second.
[/quote]
Odd, there may be lag with the process event method. Because the code is pretty much if(key pressed) move. Does is happen when your moving diagonally or all of the time?

Thanks, i have a few ideas where these could be messing up. And I forgot to ask a few questions before, if you’re playing on a pc, can you see the fps and the highscore on the bottom? I think there are some graphical bugs regarding insets or different font sizes that i have to look into.

Thanks for the feedback,
Rowdy

#5

This is my game screen.

#6

Thats what I was fearing… Hopefully i’ll have that fixed in a bit. Thanks!

EDIT - Didn’t fix it and I found out it runs really really slow on some computers, I’m going to have to implement a whole other framing system instead of a fixed fps. This is probably why the keys stick and it randomly gets slow (and slower). I’ll fix it in time though.

#7

Only a tiny bit of the bottom text is shown.

Are you drawing relative to the top and left insets?

left = getInsets().left;
top = getInsets().top;
#8

Ok found the problem with the graphics, somehow by moving the setSize(WIDTH+left+right,HEIGHT+top+bottom) ahead of some variables fixed the problem. And I also made it to where if you’re running low fps somehow, the game changes the speed you move. If there are anymore errors or suggestions, please tell me. Oh, and post your highscores, mine is 529 :slight_smile:

Thanks
Rowdy

EDIT - If you think the switching weapons button layout it akward (like I do), please give me some suggestions or notify me.

#9

This game has some good concepts; however, as it is now, the game is not that fun. I think all the machinery for an awesome game is actually there and it just needs to be transformed a little. The graphics are primitive, but I have nothing against primitive graphics as long as it is compensated by amazing game play. I like the controls, at least in concept. But, the player needs to be able to outrun the enemies or else it’s just way too difficult to escape. I like different weapons, but it’s a tad difficult to switch weapons and I don’t like running out of a weapon so easily. Perhaps you could switch weapons with the other mouse button. How about collecting new weapons? The play field needs to be larger and there needs to be walls to help you dodge enemies. There should also be some sort of goal to accomplish on each levels play field.