Gundam

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#6

Excellent quality. The title soundtrack is very good, and the sound response time to key-click on the menu is almost perfect. I’m not getting any fire or explosion sounds during gameplay tho. Not sure if that’s a problem or not. Also, I thought there was a problem with controls while firing, but you implemented a recoil on the gun! That was very cool! No choppyness and extremely smoothe animation, well done. I’m totally totally going to review the code and pick up some of the patterns there, especially with respect to sound.

-Chris

#7

Absolutly excellent !!!
After some time, i had a buffer swap problem, that was flicking as hell, but loved the game anyway.
double thumbs up…

#8

Doesn’t run on Linux:
[14.12.2002 14:44:34] [com.alienfactory.gundam.Gundam] ERROR - FullScreenMode is not supported…aborting GUNDAM.

Well, why doesn’t it run in a window then?

#9

Hello!

I’ve just come across this thread about my game and thought it only polite to say thanks for your praise - Thanks! ;D

With regards to some of the above comments:

No sound effects during the game - yeah, that’s because there aren’t any! I was having problems playing repeated sound effects on demand. I posted an article on JavaGaming about 8 months ago (when I was still developing Gundam!) about the problem but it remained unsolved (hence Gundam’s still a beta release).

I too thought the title tune (Duran Duran) was quite appropriate for the game. It was composed by a good friend about 8 years ago now (along with the rest of the tunes featured in the Equinox section of my Alien-Factory website). Punky (Destruction Mix522) is another personal favourite of the same ilk.

Recoil when you fire - yup. You get a much bigger kick after picking up triple fire (shoot the power up from the exploding spiky pod). The game is largely un-tweaked, you’ll soon find that the speed-up sucks and usually means instant death! I tried to incorporate a lot of physics in game, friction and the like. Other small touches include asteroids bumping into other asteroids and the spikes (from the exploding spiky pods) collide with anything. I tried making everything collide with everything else but the game slowed down far too much.

Linux - No full screen capability? Write once, run anywhere - Pah! Yeah, I did think of windowing the app as a back up. But at the time that I was writing my Full Screen framework, Java v1.4 was in it’s beta stage and was still quite buggy. Basically, I never got round to it, I mean, heh, it worked on my machine!

Anyway, gee, thanks again!

Steve. :slight_smile:

(Slimer :: Alien-Factory)

#10

[quote]Write once, run anywhere - Pah!
[/quote]
The Java VM’s are in various stages of development. The Sun Java VM for Windows is the most featured one because you know 3/5 of the freakin’ world are utterly stupid enough to be running Windows!!! >:( That’s why fullscreen works on Windows but nowhere else for now.

#11

I thought the Sun JVM did support fullscreen on Linux these days?
What about the IBM JVM for Linux? Has anybody got experience with that? Does that one support full screen?
I also heard it’s faster than the Sun JVMs for Linux and Windows. I know in the 1.3 days the IBM VM was quite a bit faster than the Sun JVM on the apps I tried (both windows). I don’t know what’s the story now with 1.4 because I don’t have Linux and IBM doesn’t have a windows JVM for java 1.4

[quote] 3/5 of the freakin’ world are utterly stupid enough to be running Windows!!!
[/quote]
Don’t call me stupid :wink:

#12

[quote] 3/5 of the freakin’ world are utterly stupid enough to be running Windows!!!
[/quote]
It’s not because they are stupid. It’s because they don’t have a choice. Either they can’t afford something better (coughMaccough) or the apps they need to run are only available for Windows.
(I tried to switch to Linux once… and at first I thought it might be feasible… but then shortly after using it for a few days I realized how horribly disorganized unx is… no UI for any of the important settings… VI is your interface to all system settings, so you have no idea how to get to the setting you are after, or what the valid values might be, and how many other files you need to change to keep things consistent etc… unx is still a nightmare for end users. - And I have a degree in computer engineering… imagine the average user!)

The X Windows UI is showing it’s age and original purpose… as a remote graphical terminal on a network… things like high performance fullscreen graphics don’t fit within the original purpose of X Windows… and IMHO X Windows has no place as a standard local desktop UI… as a display addressable over a LAN it is quite cool. But as a interface for a local machine it sucks. If Mac OS X used X windows as the primary display interface I would never have bought my Mac. I just wish X Windows would die the death it deserves so a more natural native display technology could take its place. BeOS and OS X got that part of things right when they choose to use a un*x core.

#13

[quote]I thought the Sun JVM did support fullscreen on Linux these days?
What about the IBM JVM for Linux? Has anybody got experience with that? Does that one support full screen?
I also heard it’s faster than the Sun JVMs for Linux and Windows.
[/quote]
Neither Sun, IBM nor Blackdown offer fullscreen support under Linux.

And yes, IBM’s JVM under Linux is faster than Sun’s. When I tested it when my game was Java2D based, I received a roughly 20% framerate increase with IBM 1.4.1 over Sun 1.4.1. I always use IBM’s jdk under Linux now. Unfortunately the Window’s IBM jdk is still at 1.3.1.

#14

[quote]3/5 of the freakin’ world are utterly stupid enough to be running Windows!!!
[/quote]
I’ll have to raise my hand. Such is life. :slight_smile:

Plus, I’d put it more like 9/10 at least. :slight_smile:

#15

There are also many people out there who have a choice but don’t take it.
If enough people are missing the chance, at one point (in the future - which is now) you actually don’t have any choice - anymore.

This is no offence to anyone (and it doesn’t belong to the Gundam topic; which btw doesn’t run with my Java 1.4.2). I’m one of those, too. Too lazy to kick my Win2000 right now and just using Linux as second OS. When Win2000 dies in the near future I’ll have got a MS free zone anyway, because WinXP or TCPA-Longhorn won’t infect my desktop. :slight_smile: Macos-X, oh, that would be nice…

Aside all this I think it’s a shame that so many Java developers don’t care about platform neutrality at all. I know many people who earn their living with developing business Java but use MS software all day withouth being forced to: they had a chance but don’t take it. Or the guys saying “Hey please test my Java application” and then I click and see that it’s an (Win32) exe - what’s that? For any Java application I’m going to use it’s a must that they run on any platform. :slight_smile:

#16

It’s up to us Java developers to make high-quality platform neutral apps so the choice of OS is given back to the users. As it is the choice IS limited because the quality of applications on non-windows platforms is lower (maybe not so much for Macs, where it is mainly the choices that are less). This makes sense, since the bulk of the skilled developers are pressured to target Windows because of simple economics.

What this has to do with Gundam I don’t know! :smiley:

But inconsistent feature support (e.g. fullscreen) across various Java runtimes isn’t helping Gundam or the adoption of Java in general. Anyway… I think the Linux OpenGL acceleration coming with 1.5 will help the fullscreen issue.

#17

[quote]There are also many people out there who have a choice but don’t take it.
[/quote]
That’s because they simply don’t bother because it’s not worth it to them. I mean, you really have to want to use linux on your desktop instead of windows.
For servers it’s a slightly other story, though. But still, in many situations it makes perfect sense to use windows for webservers and such.

#18

Another point that needs to be considered is of computer users 95% (or whatever) use Windows, of those that use Windows (99%) don’t give a crap one way or the other. A computer is a thing for most people not a way of life where Windows is a sin and Linux is salvation. We represent the minority of the population (thank God).

#19

[quote]Or the guys saying “Hey please test my Java application” and then I click and see that it’s an (Win32) exe
[/quote]
You know for dumb people (most Windows users, sorry erikd:-[)out there, your Windows batch file won’t run on other systems. So to them, you will be contradicting yourself because you say that your java programs will run on other systems but actually they don’t. Why not use a jar?

[quote] Plus, I’d put it more like 9/10 at least.
[/quote]
Holy cow! I am going to die!

[quote]but then shortly after using it for a few days I realized how horribly disorganized unx is… no UI for any of the important settings… VI is your interface to all system settings, so you have no idea how to get to the setting you are after, or what the valid values might be, and how many other files you need to change to keep things consistent etc… unx is still a nightmare for end users. - And I have a degree in computer engineering… imagine the average user!)
[/quote]
Ok here are some tools that come with Linux to help your nightmare.

KDE-Control Center
GNOME-GDM Configurator, Kickstart Configurator, Linuxconf

Don’t ever use X windows alone! use a desktop on top of X windows: KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment

Or use RedHat Linux 9.

[quote]It’s not because they are stupid. It’s because they don’t have a choice. Either they can’t afford something better (coughMaccough) or the apps they need to run are only available for Windows.
[/quote]
It’s all a chain reaction. A group of stupid people in the beginning used Windows, then developers thought that since so many people used Windows then they should develope for it. The crowd thinks that Windows has the most software and thus uses it, which further encourages people to develope software for Windows. BLAHBLAHBLAH.

But you know the Microsoft business strategy is the best even though it is the meanest and most unfair. Sun sucks at marketing, can’t you tell?

#20

[quote]Ok here are some tools that come with Linux to help your nightmare.

KDE-Control Center
GNOME-GDM Configurator, Kickstart Configurator, Linuxconf

Don’t ever use X windows alone! use a desktop on top of X windows: KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment

Or use RedHat Linux 9.
[/quote]
Tried them all… they are a joke. Pretty icons gets you close to nothing in terms of usability. Even finding those config programs is hard enough on Linux.

E.g. A simple thing like changing the desktop display resolution on Linux is a nightmare. I have seen no UI that successfully does that simple thing. On windows a right-click on the desktop takes you to a relatively easy to follow UI. The Linux world still has no clue how to make user friendly software or anything remotely like it. I better stop now… this thread is heading in a bad direction :slight_smile:

#21

I really have to wonder how much Linux experience you have if this is your example.

Not that I’m defending Linux. After using Linux exclusively for 3+ years I gave up and now use Windows 99% of the time (and question everyday why I ever bought a PC in the first place :slight_smile: )

But really, Linux isn’t nearly that bad. All in all, the Linux community has done wonders with what they’ve got to work with.

#22

[quote]I really have to wonder how much Linux experience you have if this is your example.
[/quote]
Well I’ve tried it 3 times for months at a time… it was very frustrating so I just gave up all three times. I still have a machine that boots into linux for testing Java apps, but I don’t use it. (The display resolution is too low :), and it locks up every 24 hours from what appears to be a memory leak in the SCSI drivers.)

I noticed you didn’t have a solution to changing the desktop resolution… let me guess… pull out VI search for some X11 config file, guess at values to put in some tables buried within, pray that your monitor can still sync when you restart X…

–edit-- I see the latest RedHat does have a GUI for this. When you choose to launch this program there is no feedback for about 10 seconds and you wonder if it is going to run or not. Then after changing the resolution it basically tells you that it has edited your XF86Config file for you and you will have to log out and restart the X server for the changes to take effect… Logging out is not enough though… it seems that doesn’t actually restart the X Server although it it looks like it might because the display goes black and comes back. Seems a reboot is required. Hmm. just tried that too… nope, no change, apparently the display resolution GUI is some cruel joke… it still has a long way to go.

Another example: configuring Samba… I spent hours on a linux help irc channel with someone helping me configure that… end result was that the linux expert gave up and blamed Red Hat. Oh, and the procedure - straight to the text files again - no UI, no showing a list of what is on the LAN so I can simply pick the machine to connect too. Just hours of fiddling with text files to no avail.

I can only speak from my months of experience… it is pretty darn frustrating if the installer (Red Hat) didn’t leave it exactly like you want it.

but let’s take this debate offline… I feel guilty for hijacking this thread.

#23

GAGESound gets around this problem by doing its own mixing. The problem with using Clips is that to restart a Clip, the sound thread goes into a hard loop to drain the remaining data. Not a very cool design.

[quote] I noticed you didn’t have a solution to changing the desktop resolution… let me guess… pull out VI search for some X11 config file, guess at values to put in some tables buried within, pray that your monitor can still sync when you restart X…
[/quote]
If your system is configured to allow for more than one resolution, try CTRL++ and CTRL±.

#24

Very nice game! The thing that stands out the most to me is:

  1. the excellent physics

  2. the wonderful gfx; not programmer art here!

  3. overall polish

Very nice.

Now about unx: I’ve played with it, but I agree with swpalmer, its just too steep of a learning curve and me personally, I don’t have the attention span. Another thing; I’ve used mingw quiet a bit and it bugs me to no end the way the unx tools all have 1-3 letter names

And my other main peeve; why does the iDev games pgming contest have to be natively compiled? I’d enter if I could use Java, but since I don’t have a Mac to compile on its not even an option.
[/rant]

#25

Give me a free copy of your game and I’ll build it for you :slight_smile: In fact I’ll go ahead and talk to my partner about just offering it as a free service.