You may be wondering why you’ve never heard of this project until now. Careful readers may note that I’ve posted in the past but have always been rather quiet about my own project. This was due to it being involved in a contest whose rules made it unclear just how much we were allowed to speak of the game. We decided to err on the side of caution, and thus my announcement of our game going gold may come as a surpise to many on this forum.
Danger Maze was written against LWJGL 0.7, and compiled using Excelsior Jet. We hope to have java versions available soon, for use on Linux, and possibly the Mac as well.
So go download it and give it a whirl. Feedback is very welcome.
Aaargh! This is why I stopped using Jet (for now). I’ve just got hold of a new MakeUsg.jar which will take care of this problem though so I might have another go.
(Works for me btw, Radeon 8500 / XP / Dual 1GHz p3 - pretty hard game! More comments later)
Yeah, Jet became a real pain for us. We had to drop from JDK 1.4.2 to 1.4.1, as the former kept causing OutOfMemoryExceptions when compiled in Jet. I tried using that usage file creating tool, it did make a huge usage file - about ten times the size of the one we created manually. And yet, when I compiled with it the game wouldn’t run at all! I’m digging into it now to try and find the problem.
Cas, I’m glad you got to see the game. I’ve been meaning to contact you directly about it, as your help was instrumental in getting the thing done. So let me just say publicly thanks a ton!
There was some concern that perhaps the demo is a bit too hard. The full version actually ramps the difficulty up at a much slower pace, but we were attempting to give the end user a real feal for what the game is like in the demo. Perhaps we overdid it though, as level 4 in the demo is something like level 34 in the full version.
I’ve heard this over and over again from other indies and discovered it myself: the easier you make the game, the more sales you make. I’d advise you not to include the dark level in the demo, and slow the water down a teeny bit. Provide a few more levels in the demo where the water gets obviously faster. In fact don’t limit the levels in the demo if you can . That way you can see how it’s going to pan out and get a good few games in. Then restrict the amount of play time you get - there’s no more powerful incentive to play than getting hooked on something and feeling like you’ve got somewhere, only to get stopped by the demo running out of time / uses!
BTW, I’m impressed that you got the CC purchase stuff built in to version 1. I’m still psyching myself up to do it. I hate writing GUIs. The server bit doesn’t look very fun either
Yes, the built in GUI sales system was long and painful. I ended up having to write an entire gui library for it, and this after we thought the game was “done”.
The server end also required a bit of hair pulling, as we decided to go with php, a language none of knew. Though I had done a tiny bit of php hacking when putting up our forums (using phpbb). The client side of it was easy - just a matter of doing a regular https post. I was even able to encode our server’s certificate directly into the java code in PEM format. I’m sure I could whip up some code samples of any of this if you want. Send me a private message if you like.
On the flip side, we don’t have a basic web sales system yet, which is something we want very much. So you have to have a live internet connection when the game is running to make a purchase. Should be just a matter of writing an html version of our in-game sales screen though.
The idea of making the demo easier is probably something we’ll persue. We were also thinking it might be good to greatly increase the time delay before the flood on the second level. Going from no flood at all to 4 seconds before the flood hits seems a bit disconcerting to new users.
I like the idea of limiting play based on time, but I’m not sure how one would do this that isn’t horribly easy to hack around. I know two ways to do it, and the easy way can be faked by simply changing your clock, while the hard way requires registry keys, which is something we don’t have access to in Java. (And I wouldn’t want access to it, as how on earth would you replicate that in Mac/Linux?)
Simply use Preferences. It’s relatively easy for a hacker to tweak - but in about 2000 installations of Alien Flux only about 3 people have hacked the registry to play more and even then they can’t get past level 10 in the demo.
You did ought to get the Webstarted one up and running too.
Please do tell me everything you can about SSL because I really need to find out how to set my server up to receive SSL connections from Alien Flux so I can transmit cc details!
As an interesting comparison the only reason I wrote that huge GUI library was to do the cc registration stuff. I ended up pulling it out (unwisely) and using the GUI for the rest of the game!
Preferences you say? I wasn’t aware of this class - looks like I’ve got some javadoc reading to do. Does this class map to the registry in windows? What does it map to in Linux?
The webstart version is on hold as (a) I know nothing about webstart, and (b) I want to obfuscate our classes before releasing them. It’s just too darn easy to decompile java without protected it at least a little.
As for SSL, I will start a new thread in the Networking topic to discuss it. I don’t want to hijack my own game’s thread to discuss SSL!
[quote]BTW, I’m impressed that you got the CC purchase stuff built in to version 1. I’m still psyching myself up to do it. I hate writing GUIs. The server bit doesn’t look very fun either
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Let me tell you, the server-side php bit was not fun at all. The only thing that kept me sane was the thought, “We only have to do this ONCE for all our games.”
Are you sure putting the SSL stuff in the game and having the game UI collect credit card info is a wise thing to do? I can tell you right now that I would never give my credit card details to a game. I know that the security in browsers is tested and exposed to a huge amount of scrutiny by the security community… (in short “I trust it enough”) . Whereas an indie game that I downloaded from some company I never heard of is not worthy of my credit card details - I don’t care how good the game is, there is simply no way for me to be confident that the transmission is secure.
It’s more and more common for software to directly include secure communications. Download Crimsonland and see how that works - they’re doing particularly well. ReflexiveArcade have built a business on impulse-buy instant cc purchase gratification. I don’t even know if it’s secure or not! But I don’t care because someone’s actually got to be able to intercept the packets in the first place.
Interestingly, you say you are confident in the security of your browser when it has been and still is one of the most insecure pieces of software in the system, with huge numbers of totally deadly exploits in it that keep popping up.
Now let’s think about Mr Bloggs next door. Does he know what the little padlock in the corner of the window means? No. Does he know why it says https: in the URL? No. Does he know what “secure communications” means? No. In fact you will find if you ask anyone you know apart from programmers about any of these features, they will gaze blankly at you. When we’re dealing with the mass market we have to understand that internet security issues are understood by perhaps less than 1% of the potential buying market. You can go some way to allay the fears of this small group of people by branding your game with “Java SSL - Your Transaction Is Safe and Secure” or somesuch and trusting they’ll trust you. After all, it would take a particularly fine idiot to spend months writing a computer game in the hope that they’ll scam their own customers! It makes no business sense, criminal or otherwise.
If I were being reasonably cynical I would say that SSL is total overkill for credit card detail sending; a simple XOR filter would mask out any pattern that an anonymous sniffer on the internet who miraculously got his sniffer between your game and your server would see.
There are far easier ways to get ripped off on the net, and buying computer games from within the game ain’t one of 'em.
But thats a developer talking again, you know it to be true, but how many Joe Bloggs do?
At the moment I would have thought still the best way to get your game bought is to put it in a box on a shelf.
However, I would have thought the average Joe on the street would think web purchasing was safer than giving your details to some random piece of software. Especially with the amount of MS/IBM/Lotus advertising telling them it is.
Not a single person I know who isn’t a programmer who uses computers daily knows what https means. Even my wife, who sells websites for a living as of late, didn’t know what it meant.
Joe Bloggs has no idea about credit card security. Only a programmer worries about typing it into any old weird program because they understand what’s really going on and how they might be ripped off - and even then it’s just pure paranoia, as we know that there are far easier ways to scam CC information than intercepting packets or spending months and months writing software and then scamming your customers.
The real concern is that some dodgy Russian outfit gets hold of your software and hacks it to send the CC information somewhere else and they pocket the money instead. But let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to tell when this is happening simply because your game will generally be available on a bunch of high-profile sites and only idiots below the level of Joe Bloggs actually fall for this scam. If they’ve still got any money after giving it to the Nigerian ex-president’s cousin.
I say again: ReflexiveArcade have made a huge business out of this very feature. So have eSellerate.
Sure, totally valid, but how many of them even know what http means? If you’re really going to ask people, ask them if they think the web is secure? or if they think about it when entering their credit card details when/if they purchase?
Agreed again, but just because Joe Bloggs doesn’t have any idea about credit card security doesn’t mean he’s not afraid of it. Take my dad for instance (please, take him :)), he doesn’t know how credit card systems online work. He’s just plain against using them. When he absolutely can’t get something unless he orders it online he just about trusts web ordering. The point is he’s much more likely to trust something that he’s used before and recognises (read Amazon).
Hadn’t thought of that, good point. (Any reason to target the Russians? ;))
Now as much as I’d like to believe I could turn out any old game, stick CC ordering in it and expect people to buy it by the truck load I don’t think it always follows. I’m sure it helped, but I suspect these people also had good games/marketing/etc…
Maybe the ability to impule buy allowed them to have slightly less quality games (i.e. people didn’t consider whether they’d actually keep playing them), however I would have thought this was quite slight (thinking again, I know).
However, do you really want to produce games that sell because of impulse buying and not because they’re damn good? [Idealistic]
[quote]Now let’s think about Mr Bloggs next door. Does he know what the little padlock in the corner of the window means? No.
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Actually, I’d be tempted to say “yes” here. Every secure site drums into them that the padlock is good, trust the padlock.
However, all this means is that you can probably get them to trust you with the same mantra and an image of a padlock. While the Great Unwashed know about the padlock, they have no idea what it means, so they’re going to have to trust you at some point anyway.
In contrast with Kev, I don’t believe users think the browser is any part of it - the padlock means it’s secure… :
Make it clear that “their credit card number is secure” and reiterate your money-back-guarantee, and I expect most will be happy. For those who aren’t sure, mention then can also pay “on-line” via the website.
And Kev - it’s only got to work once, and then it’ll work again! That’s the beauty of convenience. Once your dad buys one bit of s/w like this he’ll feel entirely comfortable buying other bits of software like this.
And never make the mistake of assuming just because a game is good it’ll sell! The biggest single barrier I have now to overcome apart from getting more exposure for Alien Flux is to overcome the difficulty of buying online. It’s a pain - you’ve got to leave the game, go to the website, find the buy now bit, enter your stuff, wait for two emails, scribble the regcode down coz cut n paste isn’t implemented ;), load the game again, enter your email address again, enter the regcode, and then play. Every step along the way is a chance to get something wrong or give up! Danger Maze is ever so clever because you don’t have to stop - you just buy there and then. I think this will be instrumental in it selling. Once the glitches are fixed
