Attack of the Meeplings - Retro Shooter (applet)

WIP games, tools & toy projects
#1

Hello, I’m back with a demonstration of my latest game.

Attack of the Meeplings
http://www.tinyfrogsoftware.com/attackofthemeeplings/index.php

Its a retro inspired 2D shooter that loops infinately getting faster everytime you complete 3 waves of the game.

Online highscores are avalible, but you can’t get on them if you play on ‘easy’

http://www.tinyfrogsoftware.com/aotm/meeplings1.gif

edit: moved to showcase 27 July 2009

#2

Cool game, but I wasn’t very good. The spiral-shooting things annihilated me.

It’s got it all - retro music, sound effects, graphics, a minimum of menus and it loaded fine. nice work. 8)

If you wanted to add a distinguishing factor to the game, you should have a look at jbox2d (see www.box2d.org). Some really good physics would make this scrolling shooter stand right out.

#3 

Exception in thread "Thread-3" sun.misc.ServiceConfigurationError: javax.imageio.spi.ImageTranscoderSpi: http://www.tinyfrogsoftware.com/attackofthemeeplings/META-INF/services/javax.imageio.spi.ImageTranscoderSpi:1: Illegal provider-class name: <HTML>
	at sun.misc.Service.fail(Unknown Source)
	at sun.misc.Service.fail(Unknown Source)
	at sun.misc.Service.parseLine(Unknown Source)
	at sun.misc.Service.parse(Unknown Source)
	at sun.misc.Service.access$100(Unknown Source)
	at sun.misc.Service$LazyIterator.hasNext(Unknown Source)
	at javax.imageio.spi.IIORegistry.registerApplicationClasspathSpis(Unknown Source)
	at javax.imageio.spi.IIORegistry.<init>(Unknown Source)
	at javax.imageio.spi.IIORegistry.getDefaultInstance(Unknown Source)
	at javax.imageio.ImageIO.<clinit>(Unknown Source)
	at gameState.loadBackgroundImage(gameState.java:51)
	at gameState_titleScreen.<init>(gameState_titleScreen.java:14)
	at gameStateManager.<init>(gameStateManager.java:32)
	at gameStateManager.init(gameStateManager.java:73)
	at BangBang.init(BangBang.java:26)
	at com.opera.AppletPanel.runHandlerThread(AppletPanel.java:438)
	at com.opera.AppletPanel.run(AppletPanel.java:334)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Java version: 1.6.0_10-ea
Opera 9.27
Win XP

Cas :slight_smile:

#4

…worked great in FireFox though. Excellently done game! It’s crying out for mouse control though.

Cas :slight_smile:

#5

I got the same error as above on Opera, but it worked on IE.

You captured the retro feel quite well, and the gameplay is great!

Don’t listen to Cas though :P; a pure retro shooter like this and mouse control don’t mix IMHO :slight_smile:
What you could consider however is move with keyboard, and aim/shoot with the mouse, but that would also mean quite a change in gameplay. Which could be a good thing (bringing gameplay mechanics a bit more up to date), but I guess this depends on what you’re after…

#6

No, don’t listen to Erik! Mouse! Mouse! Mouse FTW!

Cas

#7

I like the scoring system. It didn’t save my score (about 121 000?), was the second time I played.

Crying out for a Wii Remote Headtracking system.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/
Do not play with a hangover then.

#8

Thanks guys…

Someone else posted a similar error to do with javax in opera (possibly on a mac… I’ll double check) - Anyone got any ideas to why it would run in one browser but not another??

I may add mouse movement at a later date.

Mouse Targeting would of course change the game entirely :slight_smile: Maybe if I made another shooter that needed a different mechanic.

For the highscore - did you play on normal or easy 'cause it doesn’t save on easy… otherwise you might have found an error in my half-assed encryption/decryption scheme when I send the scores over the wire.

#9

Good game, but I suck. I found it too hard early. Those spinning shooters got me every time.(Only tried it once though).

That would be awesome if someone created a game with that system.

#10

Same thing here. Way too hard. The easy mode is easier to play but not that easy.

Graphics are cool and have style. Same thing for sound.

#11

I played the normal mode on Firefox, Vista, blahhh.
The first time I died very quickly, then I played again (with my name still ‘logged in’), the second time I got to the 3rd Boss the 2nd ‘sped up mode’ and I thought: yeah! play this again! until I realized the score submitting system wasn’t working for me.
One extra Supermegaflashbomb PER life would be cool, I lost 5(?) lives within 20 seconds in the end.

#12

This is an excellent game–simple, elegant, and challenging. Actually, very challenging–I still can’t get past the first boss. Nonetheless, I really like this game. (And I hate those pinwheel things. Every time I see one, I reach for the smart bomb button. :P)

#13

Hrmmm… wonder if there is a firewall or something thats blocking the transmission. I’m not sure what the problem might be, but I’ll try to fix it if I work out what it is.

#14

This time it worked :slight_smile:
I’m on a C2D here (C2Quad the last time), now the game is fixed at 31fps, the last time it was 70fps if I remember correctly.
Can’t be the difference in cpu performance, no?

#15

I just use the graphics2D java libraries which I think are videocard bound more than cpu bound. Theres no noticable difference between 30 and 70 fps anyhow because the movement is frame rate independant.

#16

Lovely stuff! For what it’s aiming to do it’s near perfect.

It may just be my eyesight though but I did find the star field a bit distracting. I know that the stars are much smaller than the enemy bullets, but I still found myself dodging out of their way from time to time. Maybe they could be less bright? (Or smaller, but you probably don’t want to mess with the “pixel” size.)

Then again, maybe I’m just making excuses for being rubbish at the game. :wink:

Simon

#17

Attack of the Meeplings is at the top of the page at jayisgames.com right now. Gratz!

#18

Hey, congratulations! :smiley:

#19

Great game… Really enjoyed it… (Found no probs, Firefox, Win2000)
Good one!

#20

great game. the control is perfect and extremely responsive. it presents a level of challenge expected from a retro shmup (or any shmup, really). kudos.