Concept demo for 2D Space trader/shooter.

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#1

Basically the idea is a space trade/shooter on a vast scale. Travel will be sub-light inertial within solar-systems with jump gates between systems.
I am looking for some feedback on the unique control system which is really the hook of the game. Basically the ship has two control modes: while holding down Shift the ship is in standard asteroid style (i.e keep drifting until you act to stop it) mode. Releasing Shift activates a computer control system that attempts to make the ship fly in a more user friendly manner (within the same physics simulation).

It may take a bit of getting used to but let me know what you think.

http://www.angryoctopus.co.nz/strafefighter/strafefighter.jnlp

#2

i really like it, didnt take long to get used to at all.

if you want some criticism, i did think i was moving a bit slow. would be nice if the “auto pilot” was needed. in order to prevent hitting objects. but i seemed to be moving so slow that it wasnt needed.

also, maybe instead of holding down shift, make the flight modes toggle on and off. like:
mechwarrior2: “auto pilot, engaged!” “auto pilot, disABLED!” :smiley:

#3

I just noticed that there were no collision objects to get a feel for speed. i was looking at the planets in the back

#4

Space games tend to have the problem that you don’t feel like you are really moving. The max speed is pretty fast and quick enough that it would be impossible to dodge anything as it appears on screen. I think what I need to do is add a debris layer at that is the same paralax level as the ship so you get a sense for how fast you are going.

#5

Hi!

2 straight horizontal lines appear on the screen, one above the ship, one below, I don’t know why. It does not come from my computer as I have already played with tens of Java games using JOGL, GL4J and LWJGL.

#6

I have noticed a few graphical glitches like that, probably something to do with the background tiles not in pixel perfect alignment. Possibly will be sorted when if I turn V-sync on.

#7

[quote=“sws26,post:6,topic:31650”]
and

[quote=“sws26,post:6,topic:31650”]
are completely unrelated.

Vertical synchronization is a timing concept, not a positioning concept.

#8

Can’t play…1.5 OS X :frowning:

#9

Markus_Persson - You are of course correct, but I think it is actually a timing issue with my update loop which is dependant on the framerate (an hence vsync). Very high frame rates result in very small increments in in position so vsync may fix the issue (most of the time) but the more I think about it the more I realize it is most certainly the wrong way to fix it.

ChrisM - I don’t suppose you could elaborate? I haven’t tested on OSX so there is a good chance it won’t work but I have included the native libs so it should in theory.

#10

Same here. You can download the 1.6 Beta from Apple’s Developer Connection if you want, though.

#11

I can’t believe Apple haven’t got 1.6 sorted properly on OS X yet. There is nothing that is dependent on 1.6, I just put 1.6+ in the jnlp because I have had Java version problems before. For the next release (this weekend hopefully) I’ll try going back to 1.5.

#12

[quote=“sws26,post:9,topic:31650”]
oh, i see. =)

#13

The control scheme concept is cool but it didn’t feel quite much like you explained sws26. Maybe if you added some foreground asteroids it would be more obvious? By the way, the graphics are really, really nice!

#14

They didn’t release 1.5 until 1.6 has already been announced.

And I think it’s Sun’s fault, not Apple’s.

#15

New release up:

-Added a radar so you don’t get lost
-Something to shoot (ctrl)
-Something to shoot at (no collisions yet)
-Made a rough model of our solar system out to Jupiter (need to work on rings for Saturn)
-Added debris layer so you can tell how fast you are going
-Upped the top speed
-Tried out a nice blue nebula
-Switched to requiring 1.5+ (not tested)

#16

Just interested your website is a New Zealand website are you a new zealander? Wouldnt happen to be at Massey uni?

Me and my mate are working on a similar game using jogl.

Try using a quad tree for the collision detection.

Anyway 2nd release is much better.

#17

Yes I am an Kiwi, live in Christchurch at the moment but moving to the US (California) in a few months.
Collision detection using a quad tree may be problematic because the levels are completely unbounded and so I would end up with a really deep sparse tree. Frankly I’ve never had any performance problems just doing a nested loop through every object in the world and doing a distance squared check but if it becomes a bottleneck I suppose I could go for a quad tree.

#18

Yeah im trying for an epic scale of objects in the universe. Just make sure the tree isnt so deep just to avoid the O(n^2) stuff. Anyway good luck!