How's everyone getting on?

[princec]

Title says it all, really. How are all your compo entries coming along?

Cas

[blahblahblahh]

We’re 1 week behind schedule, although working hard to try and catch up.

But it will be another week or two before we have particularly “visible” signs of progress.

EDIT: and I’d still like to shoot whoever did Sun’s drag-n-drop systems. Even re-using my own prior code, it’s a complete nightmare (in some ways, even worse than NIO, although at least dnd has a decent Sun tutorial - and it’s MUCH better than it used to be ;))

[Herkules]

Still considering wether to apply at all.

FlyingGuns would be the candidate. Although the project is catching up some speed again, it is still very slow going and SO unperfect… :

[nonnus29]

Heh, the bar on gfx quality is a bit too high for a ‘casual’ developer like myself to even cosider entering…

[Herkules]

ups … was there something written of a ‘bar’ in the contest rules? Maybe I should read them … :’(

[oNyx]

I didn’t planned applying at all.

But my progressing speed right now seems to be rather ok-ish. It looks like I could make it in time

[nonnus29]

[quote]was there something written of a ‘bar’ in the contest rules? Maybe I should read them …
[/quote]
“Bar” is a slang term in this context and you my friend are one the people setting it to a high level…

[admin1]

[quote]Still considering wether to apply at all.

FlyingGuns would be the candidate. Although the project is catching up some speed again, it is still very slow going and SO unperfect… :
[/quote]
Herk, why wouldn’t you participate? It dosen’t have to be a COMPLETE game, just a game…

-Chris

[BugBear]

Things are going well on our racing game. We are right on schedule (which is easy as I made the schedule yesterday ;D ) and progressing nicely.

The bulk of the remaining work is content (tracks, textures and vehicles), some physics tweaking and lots of odds and ends.

[blahblahblahh]

One of the things I want to add to JGF ( http://grexengine.com/sections/externalgames/ ) is some “developer diaries” for in-progress games. If you’ve ever read the diaries by participants in Ludum Dare etc’s 24-hr/72-hr/etc game-programming competitions you’ll have a good idea what I’m aiming at.

I’d really like to get a couple of diaries for entrants in the Sun competition (all diaries would have all the links to sun’s official pages, + encouragement for people to paritipate next year, etc…).

The main aim is to give other people an idea what it’s liek to develop a java game, beginning to end. Secondary aim is to drive extra hits to Sun’s official competition page after the compo is over - i.e. build awarness and interest for next year (assuming it goes well enough that they do it again next year…). Of course, it also provides some additional free publicity for your game / group.

Is this something you’d consider doing? If so, please email me at ceo @ grexengine.com and we’ll discuss; I’m putting together a framework, so that all you have to do is “fill in the blanks” - making all the diaries have roughly the same structure makes it easier for readers to get a feel for the development process of the different games.

FYI, I’ve been keeping everything we’ve done on our game in a version-control system, including all the notes, emails, etc, so at the end I can put together a diary for ours too. Our game is pretty small and simple, so it probably won’t be that interesting to read :(.

[princec]

30hrs in to my 80hr project:

• App init / shutdown / framework complete
• GUI interface coded, needs Chaz to fill in the graphics
• Map screen in & working
• Start new game and spawn in room[4,4]
• Aliens spawn
• Bullets spawn
• Collision detection in
• All alien behaviours coded and complete

Tonight:

• Particle system’s going in
• Collect aliens in a string behind the player ship
• Player death
• Completing the room

WIP:
http://www.puppygames.net/downloads/hallucinogenesis/hallucinogenesis.jnlp
(not optimized for space or anything, I’m just testing my ANT build etc)

Cas

[princec]

Total hrs so far: 35

Achieved:

• particles
• emitters
• debug game mode
• nag screen (partially)
• strobes

Cas

[admin1]

Cas,

Dosen’t work. Crashes and asks me to contact you

Java Web Start 1.4.2_04 Console, started Fri Apr 30 22:22:20 PDT 2004

Java 2 Runtime Environment: Version 1.4.2_04 by Sun Microsystems Inc.

java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException

  at java.lang.System.arraycopy(Native Method)

  at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.write(Unknown Source)

  at genesis.Game.init(Game.java:220)

  at genesis.Game.main(Game.java:359)

  at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)

  at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

  at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)

  at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Unknown Source)

  at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Unknown Source)

  at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.continueLaunch(Unknown Source)

  at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleApplicationDesc(Unknown Source)

  at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleLaunchFile(Unknown Source)

  at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Unknown Source)

  at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

-ChrisM

[cfmdobbie]

[quote]http://www.puppygames.net/downloads/hallucinogenesis/hallucinogenesis.jnlp
[/quote]
Works for me! Win98SE, JDK 1.4.2, GeForce4 MX420, latest drivers (56.64).

Looking good - I seem to recognise the sprites from somewhere… ;D

[princec]

Yeah, fixed it now. The sprites look awfully familiar eh? Chaz has only just started looking at the game. He did some doodles at work:

http://www.puppygames.net/downloads/hallucinogenesis/roughs_1.jpg

No idea what he’s planning for the player’s ship or title screens etc. tho’

Cas

[Herkules]

Since I applied now with FlyingGuns, the project took up some speed again and I update the demo on www.flyingguns.com frequently.

It would be nice if someone could drop by from time to time and tell me about pitfalls, inconveniences, ideas, …

[princec]

Progress update time from the Motivation Club!

Who’s got to where?

Chaz has a bunch more sprites in our game, I’ve done a few more levels, and I’m working on sound effects and pretty colours. The game is basically complete and just needs graphics, sounds, and levels.

Cas

[Herkules]

working on GUI (Swing), architectural cleanups and documentation.
Still trying to make it smooth.

Theres no hope for more graphics (volunteers???) so the focus is on technology.

[DanK]

I’m nearly complete with a game I started quite a ways before the game contest came around, just working on finishing touchups/fixes and building the levels. Being my first opengl game I’m a little low on the graphics totem pole, so far my work isn’t half as purty as some of the work I’ve seen posted by people in this forum (doesn’t help I go crosseyed trying to understand some of the math too hehe).

I’m hoping that my next game will be much much improved graphically (and well, some all around better collission detection for more complicated objects than those in the game I am working on now). I’m going to guess that sun is going to focus on picking the games that have the most visually impressive and fast engines so I feel that the invisible bar is probably pretty high even if it hasn’t been set for this contest, it is being set by the current run of commercial games. After all, java can be every bit as purty as the current run of games, the only real issue is going to be stability and speed (or should it be speed and stability… I worry more about stability myself).

I’m kind of curious how games without an english interface will be handled, I recall someone posting a screen shot of a game they were working on that looked extremely cool (it was an rpg so naturally I was easy to hook) but lacked an english version (since gameplay is a factor and most likely each judge won’t be fluent in 3 langauges each… it’d be difficult for such a game to be judged fairly).

[Herkules]

NE1 has a good idea what actually has to be uploaded on june7?

New version of FG is online BTW, removed old overlay system, Swing-only now…