Playtest My Space Shooter Applet Game

[vredungmand]

Playtest My Space Shooter Applet Game

Available online at:

http://vredungmand.dk/games/timbuktu/index.html

It is a conventional space shooter with multiple weapons and plenty of aliens to take care of.

I would like some feedback on my game design.

If you play the game a couple of times - then please tell:

• How far into the game did you get the first time you played it?
• Did you get improved weaponry or shield?
• How quickly (if you did) did you loose interest in the game? Did you get stuck?

(These questions help me to get an idea of whether the game has good balance and progression.)

Any ideas for improving the game?

PS: Some of you may have seen this game before but I have thrown in a lot of updates. So give it a try (again).

[kevglass]

Phase 4, got an extra shield, kept my interest for about 10 minutes I’m afraid. But then maybe I’ve got a short…

…
…
…
…

attention span.

Kev

[blahblahblahh]

Never lasted more than 10 seconds, so I lost interest immediately. I tried four times, in the interests of being helpful.

PRoblem is that it paused and skipped lots of frames every time it encountered an unhandled exception, so you were dead by the time it started painting again.

You keep throwing / not handling this exception:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Color parameter outside of expected range: Red
at java.awt.Color.testColorValueRange(Color.java:285)
at java.awt.Color.(Color.java:361)
at java.awt.Color.(Color.java:340)
at java.awt.Color.(Color.java:421)
at Timbuktu$Explosion.draw(Timbuktu.java:143)
at sjg.animation.Sprites.draw(Sprites.java:56)
at Timbuktu$3.draw(Timbuktu.java:888)
at sjg.SJGame.draw(SJGame.java:279)
at sjg.SJGame.update(SJGame.java:221)
at sun.awt.RepaintArea.paint(RepaintArea.java:169)
at sun.awt.motif.MComponentPeer.handleEvent(MComponentPeer.java:405)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Component.java:3678)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:1627)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:3477)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:456)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:201)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:151)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:145)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:137)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:100)

[Orangy_Tang]

Same here, I just seem to keep dying a lot Perhaps because I keep trying to dodge bullets by moving up/down, perhaps you could add that and see if it makes things easier?

On a second set of attempts, I noticed that my bullets kept going either side of enemies as they dropped down on me. The wobbly bullets are nice to look at but it does add a bit too much luck to shooting things down I think. :-[

[vredungmand]

Sorry you guys - forgot to test my latest changes with Sun’s VM (… really sorry). The exception should be gone now.

People kept dying / getting stuck at level 04, so I made it at lot easier.

Did any get the improved weaponery (in level 08)?

[kevglass]

Made it as far as 6 this time, still getting that same exception tho.

Kev

[vredungmand]

The same exception - are you sure? Did you refresh properly?

I have eased up level 6 too. (2 minutes ago)

[kevglass]

Yep, think I did the referesh properly, went to the trouble of doing it the long winded way this time and still got:

ava.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Color parameter outside of expected range: Red

      at java.awt.Color.testColorValueRange(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Color.<init>(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Color.<init>(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Color.<init>(Unknown Source)

      at Timbuktu$Explosion.draw(Timbuktu.java:143)

      at sjg.animation.Sprites.draw(Sprites.java:56)

      at Timbuktu$1.draw(Timbuktu.java:866)

      at sjg.SJGame.draw(SJGame.java:279)

      at sjg.SJGame.update(SJGame.java:221)

      at sun.awt.RepaintArea.paint(Unknown Source)

      at sun.awt.windows.WComponentPeer.handleEvent(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForHierarchy(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(Unknown Source)

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Color parameter outside of expected range: Red

      at java.awt.Color.testColorValueRange(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Color.<init>(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Color.<init>(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Color.<init>(Unknown Source)

      at Timbuktu$Explosion.draw(Timbuktu.java:143)

      at sjg.animation.Sprites.draw(Sprites.java:56)

      at Timbuktu$1.draw(Timbuktu.java:866)

      at sjg.SJGame.draw(SJGame.java:279)

      at sjg.SJGame.update(SJGame.java:221)

      at sun.awt.RepaintArea.paint(Unknown Source)

      at sun.awt.windows.WComponentPeer.handleEvent(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForHierarchy(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)

      at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(Unknown Source)

Kev

[oNyx]

• How far into the game did you get the first time you played it?

Not very far I guess. Level 2.

• Did you get improved weaponry or shield?

No.

• How quickly (if you did) did you loose interest in the game? Did you get stuck?

After 2 minutes.

---

Ok. I know that kind of response won’t help you much therefore I’ll take the route of suggesions

[1]It’s nice that there is horizontal scrolling. However it kicks in too lately. It happens often that you fly directly into an enemy or a bullet wich was just off screen. Imagine a jump n run would behave that way… you would run all the time into enemys.

[2]The bullets need to be brighter. Take a look at the popular shoot’em ups… also players are used to avoid that bright green, blue or red shaded bullets. It’s very important that you can instantly tell (w/o thinking) what you can shoot down and what you have to dodge.

[3]Width/Height aren’t perfect for the scroll direction. Since your game isn’t fullscreen there is no reason to use a horizontal resolution (at least not for technological reasons).

[4]The strafe speed doesn’t feel right. If you take the screen width into consideration it just needs to be way faster. For example the speed would be about perfect if width and height would be the other way 'round.

[5]Autofire is necessary for keyboard controls. Quick tabbing is really tiresome especially if it’s a huge heavy key like space. Tabbing space is also kinda noisy ;). Well, you can also take the route in between - burst fire (eg pressing once=firing 4 times). There is also another option wich is between burst and autofire, but it’s hard to explain (eg a maximum of two “burst chains” can intersect - if that makes sense).

[6]Please take webstart into consideration. Applet->Application (hybrid) isn’t a big problem and webstart itself is pretty easy (if you just take an existing jnlp file and edit it hehe). For any questions that might arise - this forum is the perfect place to ask

---

Oh and welcome to the board.

Btw don’t take all of my suggestions too serious. They are all “IMO” thingies and therefore reflect only the kind of games wich I like (multiple task theory/zoning by brain overload - that is)

[vredungmand]

Kev.

I don’t know what is happening: I fixed the bug in line 143 hours ago and copied the binaries to server seconds later.

Onyx.

Great suggestions.

I implemented brighter enemy bullets and faster/earlier horisontal scrolling right away - it is online (version 1.02) now.

As for applets vs. web start applications: This is an 1.1 applet. Do you know of any statistics on how widespread Java 1.2-1.4 is compared to 1.1?

[kevglass]

I’ve got brighter bullets but I’ve still got that error. Got a bit further too

I also managed to die, and then when the level restart I got 4 of them red things coming down the screen and then nothing else, ever.

Kev

[vredungmand]

I just managed to fix that bug (with the red meteors and nothing else) - it happened when you died in level 6, 8 and 12.

[kevglass]

That exception throwing stuff still seems to be hitting me… get lots of frame jumps…

Tho I’ve now made phase 15, with double shiels and extra cannons. Much more fun…

You could do with introducing:

a) The ability to move up and down a bit
b) A smart bomb of some sort

Kev

[vredungmand]

Yeah - a smart bomb or similar evilness would definately be handy.

Is the exception exactly the same with root cause:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Color parameter outside of expected range: Red

at …

at Timbuktu$Explosion.draw(Timbuktu.java:143)

?

[kevglass]

Yep, thats the one…

Kev

[gregorypierce]

OSX - works great without a hitch and is a fun shooter style game. I do think that there needs to be a better weapons selection or shields or something

[gregorypierce]

To answer your specifics:

yes got extra weapons and shield
Phase 12
Lost interest in 15 minutes or so. There isn’t a whole lot of enemy variety, no real bosses, don’t really go anywhere (most successful shooters have levels that kinda go places), no real weapon selection or customizability.

[swpalmer]

Where’s the sound? That’s what seems to be really missing. I did get shields and a weapon upgrade on my second game… but I sucked on my 3rd and 4th :).
I think I got to level 8?

[SpongeBob]

The lack of sound is deafening. The prior comment about enemy fire coloring is true too. I often died because I failed to notice a round flying at me, especially in later levels.

The horizontal scrolling appears to be a bit of a waste. I guess Im too used to the old formula (Space Invaders, Galaxia, etc).

[nonnus29]

Nice game, especially for a 1.1 applet, I got to level 12. The real test will be on a machine running winME or win98 with the crappy timeing.