Farmer John and the Birds 4K

Contests 4K Game Competition - 2013
#1

Hey all, this is an updated version of my entry to the Java4K contest: Farmer John and the Birds!

Farmer John wakes up to find a swarm of nasty birds coming to eat all his precious corn. Help him kill them all before it’s too late!

Instructions:

Click anywhere on the screen to fire John’s gun at that location. The birds will try to avoid you, so you will have to move quickly. Each level brings more and faster birds.

There’s different bird types that require slightly different approaches to kill. Sometimes the birds drop an egg. Shoot the purple eggs to get 10% reduction in reload time, shoot the yellow eggs to get extra ammo slots.

Here’s an embedded applet; compressed using pack200 its just under 4k:
[applet archive=farmerjohn4k.jar class=F width=800 height=600]

You can also play it on the Java4K site or my site.

#2

Oh my god, those cute birds :frowning:

I … I can’t play this

#3

Oh come on, just shoot them. They’re nasty little pests!

#4

It’s really good.

#5

No wonder you’re number one effective pithiest… ;D

#6

Simple but very polished game.

Nice work.

#7

Good job.

Found 1 bug. Your max shot count is not reset when a new game begins.

#8

Ow thanks, I can fix that.

#9

I fixed the bug, and managed to squeeze out a few more bytes with an improved compression chain (read about that in my blog if you like).

It’s got some extra graphics, slightly tuned gameplay and some more minor improvements.

#10

How am i supposed to shoot them if they are hiding in behind the top border? ???

Also why the score resets every level? ???

#11

What’s with the eggs? I can shoot them, but I don’t seem to get points for them.

#12

They give a bonus to your gun, I quote the instructions: “Sometimes the birds drop an egg. Shoot the purple eggs to get 10% reduction in reload time, shoot the yellow eggs to get extra ammo slots.”

#13

Well, the birds fly away from the cursor, so that may be why they hide above the top border. I’ll see whether I can make it less so.

Also, it seem that the score reset is a bug, sorry about that! I’ll fix it right away.

#14

Okay, the bug where the score reset after each level is fixed and the new jar online!

#15

[quote=“Gjallar,post:2,topic:40251”]
I made them just a little less cute ;D (they no longer look scared when you point your gun at them)

#16

Hi

I got some slowdown the very first time but it worked flawlessly after that. I use Icedtea-web + OpenJDK ;D (who said applets don’t work with them?).

I find it annoying too.

#17

Great stuff. This just oozes style.

#18

I’ve just made a wrapper for my Java4K games and compiled it using Excelsior JET, so that people can download and play my 4K games without internet connection, and without the need to have Java installed. Of course, that means the size has increased by a bit ;D

Download the collection here if you like.

#19

Your take on the so annoying a***y birds is original and really welcome ! One of the best design I have seen in a java 4K game. And I like the gameplay too. Simple and efficient.

A small problem with my last game session : on level 21, the game suddenly froze, then a white screen appeared.

#20

Thanks a lot :slight_smile: Hmm, the freeze is weird, I can’t think of why that would happen. I guess some kind of exception. I’ll see if I can find out how that happens.