Frogma Update (Platform game)

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#1

I’ve updated my platform game, Frogma, quite a bit now. You should have a look at it, here:
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~erlinga/frogma/frogma.php

Be warned, though, the jar file is big (1.71MB :-/), so you should have at least a DSL connection…

Instructions:

Move: left/right
Jump: up
Shoot: down/space

Collect frog eggs (ok, they probably don’t look like frog eggs, but anyway…) and power ups, while avoiding hitting the enemies.
Find the princess to complete the level.

I’d really appreciate some feedback on the gameplay/playability :slight_smile:

PS: enabling the sound enhances the experience a lot!

#2

Nice platformer!

How about making the shot a power up instead of ever present? I thought it was a bit too easy when you had the shot from the beginning.

It would also be cool if something good happened for each extra egg you collect in a level. Maybe the player could buy power ups, extra lives and stuff for them?

I also felt that I didn’t have absolute control over the frog, that could of course just be the keyboard being inferior to game pads and me being used to play platformers with a game pad ;D. I do think, though, that the speed of the frog should be decreased a bit, thus extending the feeling of being in control.

That’s my thoughts on the game and now I’m heading back into it to finish just one more level ;).

#3

I’ve planned having the shot as a power up, just haven’t gotten around to it yet… Same thing with the eggs.

Slowing the player down, however, would make it necessary to redesign all the levels :stuck_out_tongue:
It may be required, though, as most people who’ve tried the game have complained about the controls, I’ll have to consider it.

You’ll eventually get used to the speed, and that’s mainly why I haven’t changed it - after a year of testing, I’m obviously not a good judge of how difficult it is…

#4

Despite the blatant ripoff of music and graphics (which we all do), I loved your game. As a matter of fact, while I was playing, my wife was on the computer next to me playing Dungeon Seige, and she said, “that looks more interesting that what I’m playing.” She’s a big Dugeon Siege fan, of course (and she was mostly kidding), but she loved the part when the princess turned into a frog.

Excellent work. The most complete platform game I’ve seen yet.

#5

Yes very nice, only thing I would point out is the excess amount of control of mr. frog while he’s in the air. That was part of the genius of super mario, a little control of the character, but not too much.

#6

I’m getting this really weird stack trace when the applet tries to load on OS X when “Autodetect Java Plugin” is selected:

java.lang.ClassFormatError: FrogmaApplet (Bad magic number)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass0(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:502)
at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:123)
at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.findClass(AppletClassLoader.java:148)
at sun.plugin.security.PluginClassLoader.findClass(PluginClassLoader.java:168)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:299)
at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.loadClass(AppletClassLoader.java:114)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:255)
at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.loadCode(AppletClassLoader.java:501)
at sun.applet.AppletPanel.createApplet(AppletPanel.java:574)
at sun.plugin.AppletViewer.createApplet(AppletViewer.java:1828)
at sun.applet.AppletPanel.runLoader(AppletPanel.java:503)
at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(AppletPanel.java:292)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:554)

If I don’t select that it works. Very cool! I’m impressed at how smooth the animation is on my Mac, I’ve always had problems running my platformer on it… I’m going to definately look at your sourcecode :wink:

#7

I’ve used the html converter to require the java plugin when you enable the ‘autodetect’. It’s just that it only works with IE and Navigator (the latter not tested) - when I tried having it support more browsers/platforms, it didn’t even work in IE.

I’ll update the page to be a little more informative…

BTW, I tried adjusting the control of the frog (speed, jumping height), but it made all the levels unplayable :-/
Seems I’ll have to stick with it for now.

#8

fun!

  • nice princess in the end! ;D