Jack Flowers (shareware edition) beta tests

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#1

Hi everybody ,

After a month of rewriting and improving, I’m pleased to introduce the new version of
my game Jack Flowers. As you will see, many things have changed, as I’ve decided to polish
the game and try and sell it later this year.

The game is currently around 11 Megs, so I’ve dropped the applet support
in favor of Java Web Start.

Some parts aren’t yet finished, and I’ve used placeholder
graphics/sounds/animations in some areas. in other areas the work is almost finished so
the game experience should be fun enough for those of you who like platform games.

I’d like to gather some feedback on gameplay / style and also collect bug reports
and performance statistics. In fact I’m interested in every comments you will make :slight_smile:

Many thanks to everyone who will download and try it !

EDITED : new links
Here’s the link to the game page and web start Jack Flowers

And here’s a limited JWS link for mustang beta : Jack Flowers (java 6 unsigned version) : this one doesn’t support fullscreen and isn’t pack200’ed

Lilian

#2

I get a splash screen / thing with two check boxes, one for fullscrene, the other the text is half off the edge so I cant read it, and an Exit button.

What am I supposed to do next?

#3

Strange, I don’t know why the layout is corrupted but I’ll upload a patch soon.

EDITED : it should work now.

Lilian

#4

I got an error: :frowning:

com.sun.deploy.net.JARSigningException: Could not verify signing in resource: http://www.javapause.com/games/jack/tests/lib/jackflowers_b1.jar

may the reason be, that a mustang build is installed and not Java 5?

#5

Here is what I got.

This is in the exception tab.


JNLPException[category: Download Error : Exception: java.lang.SecurityException: SHA1 digest error for jackflowers/GameEvents.class : LaunchDesc: null ]
	at com.sun.javaws.security.SigningInfo.checkSigning(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.cache.DownloadProtocol$RetrieveAction.actionDownload(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.cache.DownloadProtocol.doDownload(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.cache.DownloadProtocol.getResource(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.LaunchDownload.downloadJarFiles(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.LaunchDownload.downloadEagerorAll(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.downloadResources(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)

and this is in the wrapped exception tab


java.lang.SecurityException: SHA1 digest error for jackflowers/GameEvents.class
	at sun.security.util.ManifestEntryVerifier.verify(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.jar.JarVerifier.processEntry(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.jar.JarVerifier.update(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.jar.JarVerifier$VerifierStream.read(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.security.SigningInfo.checkSigning(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.cache.DownloadProtocol$RetrieveAction.actionDownload(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.cache.DownloadProtocol.doDownload(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.cache.DownloadProtocol.getResource(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.LaunchDownload.downloadJarFiles(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.LaunchDownload.downloadEagerorAll(Unknown Source)
	at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.downloadResources(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)
#6

Well, I’ve tried it with java 1.4.2 and 1.5 and it worked fine…

I’m going to create an untrusted version (without fullscreen) for those of you with mustang beta. stay tuned.

Lilian

#7

If you want to make shareware, you should wrap it up in an installer.

The player doesn’t have Java Web Start.
The player doesn’t know about Java Web Start.
The player doesn’t want to know about Java Web Start.
The player wants to play.

So make it as easy as possible (for the player!), and deploy some native installers.

* Riven hopes not to have sparked yet another flamewar.

#8

Yeah, I’ll do that for the final release… I’m just entering beta stage now and JWS is very convenient for that.

Lilian

#9

Updated links, with support (I hope so) for mustang beta. (without full screen support).

Any comments welcome !!

Lilian

#10

Tried the game and I had the same Webstart problem as CaptainJester had. I tried both with IE and Firefox. I’m running Java 5.

#11

I’ve found the problem and I’m uploading the new files, in the meantime, the unsigned version (2nd link) should work fine.

EDITED
OK I’ve disabled pack200 and I have to repack the jars and my upload task has to be rewritten.

Download should work fine now, although a little longer :slight_smile:

Lilian

#12

I was using the unsigned version, which worked fine. I’ve played the game on a P4HT@3.2Ghz/GeForce7800GS and on a P4@2.8Ghz/Intel Onboard Graphics machine. While the GeForce managed to output something around 300fps, the Intel one was at 15-20 which seemed to hurt collision detection. I wasn’t able to stand on these orange leafs (the ones that make you jump higher), i always fell through.
It’s a fun game so far with some annoyances (IMHO):

  • The music is nice (reminds me of some old Amiga games) but it’s very repetitive and gets boring after a while
  • I hate it, when i’ve to play the whole level again after dying. But i guess that’s part of the concept, isn’t it?
  • I always lost most of my lives in Level 4 (while fighting the “bee invaders”…cool idea btw). But not on the bees or on the bullets…i died on the flowers i tried to collect. Not all the time and not really reproducable, but when it happened, there was definitely no bullet in range. I just walked into the flower to collect it and died.
  • It would be nice to get an overview (at least partial) of the level on startup. Maybe you could zoom further away at level startup and zoom in while the plants are growing!?

Edit: Played it some more. This time, i obviously entered “immortal mode” when reaching level 4. I suddenly had no lives left (had 2 before), but could always continue after dying. Nice… ;D

#13

Really cool game! Worked fine for me at about 120 fps. Few gameplay issues in my opinion:

  • The hero is moving too slowly and this make the game acion a bit too slow.
  • As already said before, the music is becoming borring after some time
  • The camera rotation is a bit weird since it doesn’t feel real for a camera tracking.

Good job and keep up the excellent work!

#14

Hmm ok odd thing happened with my computer. I tried fullscreen mode on my 2ghz Geforce 6600GT comp, and it listed anywhere from 80-150 fps most of the time. HOWEVER it most definately was not running smoothly. It looked like it was running more like 20 fps, with little sporatic stutters that would last about a tenth of a second. I don’t really know what this would be. It’s not a memory issue because I recently upgraded to 1024 mb of ram and I should hope that would be enough for Jack Flowers.

I’ll do some more testing later but I don’t have time now. Impressive work with the smooth interfaces and all however (no noticeable load times either).

#15

Ok. Runs fine on my home machine.

Windows XP SP2
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
ASUS Radeon 9600PRO
JDK 1.5.0_06

Good graphics and controls. The controls feel natural. Very polished looking.

Only one thing seemed out of place. When Jack gets to the beehive, you do a sort of space invaders thing. They are throwing little balls at each other. It might be better to have the bees dropping stingers and Jack throwing throns or flower petals or something like that. The balls just seem contrived.

Over all great job.

#16

Thanks for these tests and the constructive criticism, I’ll certainly tweak parts of the game based on this feedback.

java version and os please ? (I use different timers depending on what’s available)

Lilian

#17

Running nice and smooth on MacOsX 10.4.
A real facelift since the last version i tested, good job.

#18

[quote]- The camera rotation is a bit weird since it doesn’t feel real for a camera tracking.
[/quote]
Finally this is really interesting. I love it! ;D

I finished the game. It was a great fun!

#19

The path of each level is a cubic curve and the camera is always perpendicular to it (well, if you use pageup/pagedown and + or - , you’ll experience other fields of view (this is for testing purpose, and won’t be left in the final version).

I’ve also applied a smooth movement to interpolate between camera position when they are too far away.

Have you also tried the desert / mountains and pond demo levels ?

Lilian

#20

Yes, I’ve played all the levels.