DemolitionFX

WIP games, tools & toy projects Archived Projects
#1

My entry in the JavaFX Coding Challenge.

link to jnlp: http://www.ecoligames.com/~jamiel/demofx/demofx.jnlp
linkt to blog (no ads) that has some history and gameplay notes: http://demofx.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

(and if you don’t, please be gentle…it’s my first game)

#2

excellent ! (a little slow on my computer but it is playable) very nice, the best javafx demo i have seen :slight_smile:

#3

thnks!

I tweaked the settings to be ‘acceptable’ on as many PCs as I could.
Keeping the animation cycle in step with the physics cycle and the physics iterations all tied together to give good realistic performance was the worst part of this.

I’ll prob release another version where you can set a PC speed level or something to tweak settings for individual PCs.

#4

Before I entered the thread I saw its title, “DemolitionFX”, and though “Cool hopefully it’s a game built with JavaFX, I have been wanting to see what a good JavaFX game looks/ feels like.”

To my delight it was a JavaFX based game! :smiley:

Good:

  • Interesting gameplay.
  • Overall the presentation is very good except for my critisisms below. The Level Summary screen is very well presented (Good font and colour use).
  • The use of physics in the game is very cool.
  • Good use of sound effects.

Bad:

  • My biggest critisism would definately be that many of the graphics seem streached and as a result have bad artifacts on them. For example: The Monkey, Lazer and Screaming Baby images in the Tools. Even the fonts sometimes look streched to me.
  • I don’t like the look of the blue Tool buttons - the use of gradients and highlights looks bad in my opinion, although it’s probably better than a pain blue button.

Bad due to JavaFX (Maybe):

  • Frame rates don’t look very smooth. Example: Tools sliding in or a building falling.
  • Doesn’t feel responsive. Sometimes mouse clicks don’t seem to register.

I may post more as I play the game more.

Overall definately well done on this project!

#5

This is pretty cool, although the gameplay is pretty difficult to figure out at first, and the physics sometime seem weird.

#6

Sorry about the gameplay difficulty. I wanted to keep the instructions page stupid simple (much to my detriment). There are some additional gameplay notes on my blog hopefully to fill the gap (demofx.blogspot.com).

As far as the physics…yeah…I tried really hard to make the ‘weld’ system look natural with the jbox2d prismatic joints. It’s just that if enough force is put on them, they tend to occasionally displace and look ‘odd’ before they break. I also had to reduce gravity to a point where tall buildings with high-density materials were stable enough not to wobble on their own…so buildings don’t exactly collapse as you might see in real life. That’s one of the reasons I moved away from a hard-core simulation to something more “whimsical”.

#7

Nice game idea,

the physic simulations runs fast enough.
My problem is: Only every 15th mouse click is recognized. I have to hammer on my mouse buttons to activate a tool button. The same with using the activated tool. There, it would be very helpful to see a forecast where the the tool item will be placed by clicking. Unfortunately cause these problems, I am not able to place a balloon or a monkey.
The level statistic could be run a little bit faster.

Besides this, its a cool game with nice graphics. I hope you will go on with it!
Greets,
Tobse

#8

“My problem is: Only every 15th mouse click is recognized. I have to hammer on my mouse buttons to activate a tool button. The same with using the activated tool. There, it would be very helpful to see a forecast where the the tool item will be placed by clicking. Unfortunately cause these problems, I am not able to place a balloon or a monkey.”

Well…I know there were some clicking problems…but not nearly as bad as you are seeing. (I did note that ‘hard long’ clicking worked better…) I am assuming this is a javafx thing…as my code is fairly straightforward in using onMouseClicked. :frowning:

“The level statistic could be run a little bit faster.”

Agreed…I almost put in a checkbox to let you turn off the level summary ‘animation’, but I thought the suspense would do people some good. :slight_smile:

" I hope you will go on with it!"

I am actually doing some design on DemolitionFX2 which will include new/different equipment, level designer, better physics and graphics. Please let me know if anyone has any ideas.

#9

I had a similar problem in some of my programs, using onMousePressed instead of onMouseClicked seemed to give the results I was looking for.