Bullets4k

Contests 4K Game Competition - 2007
#1

Hey, just wanted to share my progress on my current 4k project, and ask for opinions and critique. It’s getting closer to completion, but it’s not done and I’m open to any suggestions (and I hope you have a few!) :>

So, behold Bullets4k.

Now, as for the gameplay and controls:

  • Arrow keys control your character - the bullets will follow you
  • By holding control you can use “Power”, attracting all the bullets
  • Power can be obtained more quickly by placing your character in the green circle
  • Reach the red circle with at least 50 of the bullets to win

The game currently holds 8 levels, but I should be able to fit in one or two more.

Note that the bullets have the same gravity at all distances below 100px, but further away it’s based on the distance to the power of two, making you lose them if you don’t stay close. Power will still attract these bullets as usual.

It’s currently some 40 bytes below the limit, but I should be able to pack that somewhat harder. Please note that it is optimized for size, not for performance, and is therefore slightly slow. With any luck I’ll manage to fix that with a hint I got from oNyx, but I haven’t been able to make it work so far.

Again, comments & critique appreciated!

EDIT: A few fixes to the text.
EDIT2: A working off-line version recompressed by moogie’s 4KJO tool is down to 3700B, leaving room for some 5-6 more maps at the very least. This space could also be used for introducing textures (~130B) or a combination of both. I could even allow for paramenter input so that one can play custom maps built in my editor, but that’d require downloading the jar instead of running via webstart. What do you think? Maps? Textures? Other ideas?
EDIT3: 3 new maps (from 5 to 8), and harder compression. 3931 bytes at the moment.

#2

Cool Idea and Nice graphics. :o

But i’m missing one thing, any form of highscore if possible :wink:

#3

I suppose. I’ll think about adding all the scores together and displaying them when cycling back to level 1 or something such. A more sophisticated highscore would probably take up more space than I’d like to use, especially since it’s more about clearing the levels than getting good scores. :slight_smile:

#4

Wow that’s really cool. This is exactly what 4k should be IMO too. Creative concept, simple game, and just a little flare to show that you still can fit in a little graphics to make it look good. I don’t think I’ve seen something like this before (you didn’t clone this from something did you?).

#5

Really nice game, good job. That third level was pretty tough, then I got to four and quit. I think there might be a shmup concept in there; heard your bullets to kill the baddies. A no button shmup. Cool game. :slight_smile:

#6

Thanks for the comments! :slight_smile:
nva: Well, as far as I know it’s an original idea, but who knows? Someone has probably made a similar game at some point. I actually started with just the bullets following the mouse on a black screen, and thought, “hey, this needs a game”. After that, it was just testing any ideas I could think of :slight_smile:

EDIT: Grammar.

#7

So far the best gameplay i have seen in this contest.

Hope you will put more levels :wink:

#8

Thanks! :smiley:
The game now has 8 levels, and the three new ones have slightly more detailed polygons (that is, more corners in each map). The game is 3931 bytes, so I can still squeeze in something more (perhaps two or so new maps, those textures, or one large final map). Please, feel free to try it out - I really wish to be notified of any bugs (since it’s now a version that’s been taken through moogies compression tool, which saves lots of space but has the potential to introduce bugs due to many forms of compression and obfuscation).

#9

I’m using the lastest Java release on OSX and I’m getting literally 1 frame per 45 seconds. I can’t move the character in any way. I just see a new frame every now and then pop up to show me a different shape of the white blob thing. I don’t know what’s going on.

#10

Very strange - I’ve heard from somebody else that he has a problem on OS X though. I’ll look into it. If I’m not mistaken, it might have to do with me using BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB instead of BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB_PRE, which is supposedly faster on macs but slower on pc:s, making it a tough choice.

EDIT: Oh, one more thing - on popular request I’ve changed the attraction key from space to control. If anyone has an ever better suggestion, feel free to tell me :smiley:

EDIT2: Updated again. Used up most of the remaing space to fit in in-game instructions, as most people I’ve asked to try it have been having a hard time understanding how to play the game. Still 8 maps, still a few bytes remaining - could be use to make one map bigger, or making another small map. I should still be able to squeeze out more, I suppose. We’ll see :slight_smile:
Oh, and I’m still working on fixing that Mac OS X problem. Haven’t found the cause yet, but I’m looking.

#11

What about making it configurable? ;D
Just kidding.