First of all - I’m new here, so let me say “Hello everybody”.
About a month ago I have started working on Graphics engine based on Java2D with optional JAI (for some extra graphics effects). After all the JRE updates (including 1.6.0_12 and _13) which incredibly increased the rendering speed, I think it’s worth to use for something more graphics intensive than just text and UI. Of course, being the big fan of games, that’s where I started to dig.
To show off what the engine provides I’ve started working on a simple puzzle game, as that’s where I think the engine will be best, not to mention that puzzle games in general look like cr*p, and I would like to change it.
So far looks like the graphics part of the game can be composed of a simple objects provided by the library, and therefore it was only a 20-50 lines of code, which was quite a surprise for me.
I’m very close to releasing 1.2 Beta version of the library, which may (or may not, depending if I finish it in time) be shipped with the sample puzzle game. The library runs best on JRE 1.6.0_12+ but is working on older ones as well, just with much lower graphics performance.
I will keep updating this topic with any changes/revisions, so if you are interested - make sure you watch it.
Feel free to check the project on SourceForge.net:
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/gempanimator