Hi everyone, I have noticed that there is now a child board called nK Game Competition - 2015, I have created a new thread within this and I would suggest we migrate to using that thread, as it is within an excellently named child board and anyone who’s interested in talking about the Java game competition may create threads and talk within there :).
The thread I have created for the planning of this competition is within there and is named Planning for Competition of 2015.
If I were to do this, it’s wouldn’t be an assisting role. That’s going to eat way too much of my time. It’s about a day’s work for me alone, but it will drag on for weeks if we’re doing to agree on rules and roles by commitee.
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The code behind this is boring beyond belief. If I were to create the backend, I’m not going to bother cleaning up the code for the sole purpose of spreading knowledge as it’s most likely going to be detrimental to anyone’s learning experience.
Don’t get me wrong - it’s totally up to you all to get this up and running, but if ‘the people’ decide that I’d be the person to do it, it will be a project with a one man team, and the project would be closed source, for everybody’s sake.
Okay, so in essence you are checking to see if there’s any interest in you taking the reigns of this whole idea?
In which you would make the competition opaque and immutable with the rules decided on just by yourself?
I am afraid that if that is the cost of your work then that cost is simply too high, though of course we will have to see what the views of everybody are on this.
I have made web applications before and worked on some simple websites and as I previously specified I do have the constituent knowledge required to string this together and form a web site for the competition. I was simply gauging if anybody would be interested in helping with this, however I did not attempt to imply that I wanted to handover the responsibility of forming this competition and the web site, and I apologise if I gave you this impression.
Regardless of your actions I shall be working on a Java nK game programming competition and I shall continue using this forum to gain ideas and insight into what people want to see in the competition. I am attempting to make a transparent, community driven competition in an attempt to increase popularity and the staying power of the competition so that it doesn’t fizzle out in the future.
To start with we could also use moogie’s idea which was to utilise the my files section of the website to post entries until the web site is complete. What are everybody’s thoughts on this?
I’m unsure how some arbitrary individual just became the guardian of Java4K. Appel completely dropped the ball by announcing one day prior to the start of the competition that it wouldn’t continue. I would have respected his position much more if he’d have given us a few months notice.
Anyway, I just hope that people here know I’m not this dictator that disregards input for basically anything JGO related, so if the ‘cost’ of a closed sourcecode project is too high, then by all means, make it happen yourself. I don’t have the time to make coding this tiny project a team effort. As the backend has no impact on the rules, I’m unsure how it would affect whether Java4K will fizzle out. I just don’t see the relation.
I’m not going to get in the way of ‘the guardian’, so, good luck!
Who cares if the backend is closed source. I love this concept and would like to see it come to realization as soon as possible.
That being said, I think Riven should create was he has offered under his own terms (it sounds pretty neat).
Little stipulations like file size and sh*t can easily be changed as the concept evolves. Right?
I’m Spartacus!
Seriously, just do it Riven, if we want it to be a community thing then by “just doing it” we’ll quickly see who in the community gives a shit whether it’s open or closed source, no?
Look forward to it, I miss doing J4K every year.
Cheers,
Kev
I’m tired of the drama already. This was my last available day for the upcoming weeks, so that ship has sailed. At least I got to clean up the new house and paint a few walls various shades of beige.
Don’t disappoint us Richard!
Yum beige. 
Kev
If there’s no rush, I can make a 2nd attempt halfway January.
Added bonus would be that I could code-sign all your applets with a CA trusted cert. Applets might be dead, but it’d still be a nice alternative for a clunky Launcher desktop app.
well i am all for it: the accessibility to provided by signed applets would be a great boon
Just popped in to see what was going on. End of J4K wasn’t really a surprise, but I miss the competition. The 4K limit also restricted the amount of time required in development, which was handy as free time was (and is) in short supply. Keeping an eye open on this topic.
Edit: Incidentally, applet key up detection on OS X hasn’t worked properly (for me at least) for a couple of years now (JRE 7u71 on MacAir). Effect is that once pressed (key down) keys appear to stick down. Might have to do turn based game for Applet X-platform, or come up with a UI that doesn’t rely on Key Up to stop movement/rotation and then base a game around it. Still, academic at the moment.
It seems mister ‘the cost of you taking the reigns is too high’ has dropped the ball on us. I’ll churn out some Java nK platform in the upcoming weeks if time permits.
I shall not let this community publish less games!
I did give a few months notice, well over a few months notice in fact (Aug 2013!):
But I decided to do the 2013-2014 contest as a one last time thing. The writing has been on the wall ever since.
I have also offered to hand over the torch (the site, domain + code + db) to another reputable person, but no takers.
So it’s not accurate to say “it died because appel decided to drop the ball 1 day prior to the start of the competition”. I’ve not had any request to continue the contest, nor any message from someone interested in continuing it.
The ball was dropped a long time ago, by Oracle. It’s just been sort of being kicked around by a ever decreasing number of enthusiastic individuals.
I just finished reading all your replies on that thread. You sway back and forth between never abandoning it, and being openminded towards potential contributers. This is not a ‘prior notice’ of any kind, especially as you actually continued to host the next context. For a lot of us it came as an absolute surprise that one day before the latest contest was about to start, it was pulled.
There are severe problems with applets but that is not a reason to abandon the contest. Like mentioned in the thread you refered to, Ludum Dare isn’t crippled by the demise of applets: overthere native binaries/executables are OK, get many downloads, high ratings, etc. What’s wrong with Java4K going the JAR route, with optional launcher? Last time I checked Java4K was by JGO, for JGO, just like Ludum Dare is pretty self-contained: only the top 10, maybe 20, is appealing to the general public.
So… JGOers will cope with whatever deployment method we pick. Nobody cares about average Joe struggling to launch our games. We’re trying to have a good time among ourselves here… trying to impress everybody by either our first released game ever, or clever hack.
Regarding nobody asking you to continue Java4K, nor anyone opting to take over… I could say the same about JGO. People tend to assume you continue unless you explicitly state you’re about to pull the plug.
But in any case, there was no outcry in the thread where I announced it. Some sobbed it, but most realized it was inevitable. My perception was that I should not continue it. There was no post about the 4k contest prior to me announcing it, so nobody wondered.
If someone demanded to take it over, it would have taken 5 minutes to create a new contest in the database. That’s always been an offer on the table.
I won’t just close down the door, the site and vanish into thin air without any chance of contact. The site is still up, I’m available for contact, and willing to hand it over. So, I guess if there are no takers then there is no interest, so the whole discussion is pointless 
btw. Riven, you’ve done a great job on JGO. It’s a thriving community and active site despite all odds. I don’t think you get enough recognition for accomplishing that.