Java 7 comes bundled with JavaFX too. 
Well you did have your chance with LWJGL16k yet look what happened…
Still too lazy to learn…like most of the rest of us… :
Oh, and just to be clear, the contest is always from Dec 1st to end of Feb. ;D
Not so far as I’m aware… it’s pretty much orthogonal in capabilities to Java2D, and of course, you’ve got the use of Java2D too, as well as some potential for shader magic. Might be an interesting thing to try…
LWJGL16k on hiatus (again) due to complete lack of interest But still there. Maybe when I’m not so busy I’ll get on and make something. I can’t really do 4k though, don’t have the obsession to code like I might have done 20 years ago… doing it for a living for your entire adult life sure takes it out of you.
Cas
Good news to my ears! I’ll probably enter again this year 
Regarding the “10 year” thing, here is an idea: on top of the usual competition, there is a special “challenge” for devs, which is to produce a sequel to any previous Java4K entry. Optionally the entrants could not only compete in the normal compo, but also be ranked in this special “10 Year Challenge category”, with specific rankings (based on special criteria ?).
About the judging, while I enjoy the current system, I understand it might be a bit tiring for those judges. My opinion would be to slightly improve it by:
- Asking the judges to write a review for only part of the games (they’ll still have to rate them all)
- Having more judges, so that every game can still get enough reviews - and even more ratings.
So judge A for graphics, B for other, like ludum dare?
I was more thinking, for instance 4 judges would have to write reviews for half of the entries = 2 reviews per game
Could we have a way to view a game’s details without launching the game? It’s a small thing, but with the old web start games you could check out a game without it counting towards the download count (if I recall correctly.) Also, I felt bad that going to my games’ pages to check for comments artificially upped my dl counters. Actually, email notification of comments on our games would be a nice feature too.
Judging seemed to work well last year. I’m sure it was burdensome on the judges, but as a developer it was great to get that level of feedback.
I vote for Java 7 too, solely because I’ve gotten used to some of the new syntax, like generics type inference:
Map<String, List<String>> myMap = new HashMap<>();
I’ve never looked closely at lwjgl, but Google reminds me that it provides support for game controllers. I’d build a 4K space shooter sim if I could use my joystick to drive it!
Yes, LWJGL has quite a few useful thingies that would make life for 4K developers nice, even without using OpenGL. For example OpenAL = reliable sound with very few API calls (and hence, probably less bytes, provided you generate your sound algorithmically). And the game controller stuff and other IO APIs, again, nice and simple. Not to mention stuff like main loops and display setup are all trivial in LWJGL. Food for thought. Maybe could convince appel to try it as an experiment for this anniversary year?
Cas
Wouldn’t the boilerplate be pretty significant with OpenAL/OpenGL? Unless you are using immediate mode, I guess…
Can’t say that there really is a vast amount of boilerplate… and of course the good thing about boilerplate is just how well it compresses with Pack200 / gzip.
Cas
cool:)
so many ideas, so little time…, so little space…!
Could be possible.
There are always crybabies that won’t have it and prefer pure java 1.4 still (you know who you are :P).
Only problem is it might be a slippery slope, next year we’ll allow slick, jme, jogl, and then we’ll lift the external dependencies limit altogether as long as the application code stays 4kb or less…and then we’ll have people making 4k libraries just for the 4k contest that helps them to cheat in implementing their specific game.
But if there’s enough support to allow lwjgl to compete on equal footing as java2d/jre-only then I’m happy to add it.
Or we could split it up into two side by side contests, java2d 4k and lwjgl 4k.
One practical thing to consider is hosting lwjgl libraries on a cdn/cloud, not sure if my datalink allows for thousands of lwjgl downloads per day.
On the other hand, lwjgl.jar contains purely wrapper functionality and minimalism - no actual utility classes. Slick and jme are game frameworks. I assume JogAmp has a jar with just the bindings in and not the utilities somewhere and there’d be no reason not to allow it. Even SWT should be allowed if you’re some sort of masochist. The idea is that libraries which contain code other than APIs to existing OS functions could be generally disallowed.
Cas
I am more for leaving it as the pure java spec as that means that one order of complexity is removed and any incompatibilities from third party libraries too.
If we would allow other “API” libraries then in order for entrants to compete they will need to be across all libraries available. They will need to be able to know that api A can perform function F with less byte code than api B etc.
However I am not vehemently against the idea as long as the core of the competition is kept… 4k jar, no access to remote resources.
It’d be purely optional… only reason I suggested it is because I know absolutely nothing about Java2D and lots about OpenGL.
Cas
Also… doing 3D would be a lot easier than making your own rasterizer.
Maybe a Java4K and Java4K-GL would be suitable…?
The only problem that I can see being an issue is that having two streams (java4k and java4k-gl) is that the entries would be split between the two so there may not be a large variety, turn out for each stream individually… but maybe that is not a big deal…
And of course the bitching about what GL library would be authorized for use in the java4k-gl stream 