Couldn’t agree more. One of the companies we worked at we had a “if they don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude with java. The number of times they told us they were so pleased with the “fast” application, and are glad we didn’t jump on the java bandwagon ;).
Its amazing how good java is when people don’t know its java.
Indeed, we don’t go on about Java at all any more. I don’t even evangelise it much. In fact it’s becoming increasingly untenable using it, as support on iPhone/iPad/XBox/PS3 continues to fail to materialise, and I suspect even Mac OS X might have it removed at some point.
There’s nothing much past level 20 worth seeing (just cut n pasted levels from Earth so the game doesn’t crash in development). The reason it didn’t end is probably because one of the gidrahs has wandered down to map coord 0,0 in the middle of a rock, somehow - it’s top of the bug list.
Cas 
Well true, first I was just gonna say to add it at the end of the video, with a small “powered by java”. So they would see it when they already are sold 
(As all of the comments seems to indicate) I am not much for evangelism, but it would be nice to not have to hide the fact that it is java behind the surface. Products that already are of proven quality can afford to not hide it.
Well we don’t expect to see “written in ANSI C” on a game, or “scripted with LUA” do we. For the user they don’t need to care about what tools we use, and generally don’t. So leaving the java evangelism out I think is the more professional thing to do.
Cas: Don’t you think that openJDK will be enough to keep support for OSX if Apple drop it? Apple is getting very aggressive with lock in these days.
I would dearly love to use OpenJDK for the Mac right now. Does it work yet?
And if I delete all the crap out of it, do I need to distribute the source code to my games if I embed the VM in the .app? Not entirely sure how the GPL works with OpenJDK. My code’s my code after all, it doesn’t/won’t link with OpenJDK.
Cas
I wouldn’t worry about Apple dropping Java on the Mac platform anytime soon. If they did, it’d hurt their attempts to get into the business/server world (which is a market they’re still working on).
As far as I can tell, OpenJDK on the Mac is still a PAIN to try and install.
Hey everyone,
new beta up!
http://www.puppygames.net/applets/RevengeOfTheTitans.jnlp
And there’s a Mac OS X test too:
http://www.puppygames.net/downloads/RevengeOfTheTitans_MacOSX.zip
It’s changed quite radically since the last time you saw it.
Let me know if it works etc etc. We have just a couple of tiny tweaks left to do (icons, Windows build, roads on the Moon, 1 or 2 tiny errors in research/story screens) and then we’re going to release the preorder demo thing if this alpha works.
Windows beta next week (when I get my real dev machine back)
Cas
What I hate about Java Web Start is that it doesn’t show you the true download progress. 90% went by in a few seconds, then the last 10% are taking forever.
Anyway, downloading now
Wow, the game is so much better now. Lots of improvements, much more fun to play I haven’t finished the demo, but will post a list of things (if any) when I’m done.
I like the interface a lot better now. I found the Kiruna level difficult. Though after the first play through I didn’t get a chance to try it again. When I tried to replay the level it would show up and wait a few seconds and then say my base is destroyed. At the same time when I was trying to select buildings to build the graphic wouldn’t show up for placement, but the message that I was building it with the cancel button did show up.
Windows XP SP3
2GB RAM
GeForce GT220 1GB
AMD Athlon X4 2.6GHz
Graphics drivers are up to date.
(Sorry - Replay Level on game over screen is broken)
Cas
The game is better but also much harder. I’m now giving up at level 16. It’s really no point in playing more, there are to many of them and they come to fast. But the interface is good.
I really like research, I’m not interested in things that dont fit my play style. But it’s kind of mysterious what research will lead to what technology and what other research. I would like a more standardized tech tree, really a tree. I want to see what lies ahead and what technologies away. Also, I’m not sure I like paying for research. If things are going bad I will need much money at the start of each level. I think that each completed research should make all other available a bit cheaper. This way there is always a possibility to keep up the techlevel, but bleeding edge still cost lots.
Example:
Efficiency research cost $1000 from the beginning. All research gives $200 discount to all other available. So after researching three others, efficiency cost only $400. After five others I can get it for free.
An alternative way is to give more discont but only to research in the same field.
Also, a “bug”. When a refinery has emptied a crystal, it doesn’t continue with the next until I collect it, even if it has as little as $20. Sticking to the principle of least suprise, this should count as a bug.
The research “tree” is more of a “web” - there are interdependencies - otherwise we would have represented it like that graphically. Instead we’ve tried to give hints in the descriptions about what might lead to what, and left a little exploring up to the player, for fun. You can always go back and try a different research item and see if it helps you win a level more.
I completely agree that it’s far too hard right now. My simple solution to this is:
I should get a new build out at the weekend with these tweaks and the bugfixes in. Win32 build will still most likely have to wait until Monday or Tuesday.
Cas
btw if you were wondering how the difficulty tuner affects the game:
it’s a value between 0.0 (as easy as it gets) and 1.0 (as hard as it gets), which is calculated linearly based on “how well you’re doing” (worked out from how much money you currently have) and a continually increasing number every time you complete a level. Whenever you lose the number drops by 0.25.
The difficulty is then factored by the value of buildings you’ve had destroyed vs. the total you’ve spent on buildings that level (excluding mines and barricades). For example, if you’ve lost $2500 worth of buildings to the aliens and placed $5000 worth in total so far, that scales the difficulty factor by 0.5. This represents “how badly you’re being kicked in”.
This value is then cosined to give a shallow ramp which suddenly gets a lot steeper towards the end. That factor is then applied to the alien’s hitpoints to give a range of 100-200% basic hitpoints (so at maximum difficulty the aliens have 2x the hitpoints) and the aliens’ movement rate (specified per alien, but at maximum difficulty you can expect aliens to be about 50% faster).
Finally the chance of an “angry gidrah” being spawned at the head of a spawn wave from a spawn point is based on the difficulty factor as well. The “angry” ones are the big ones which are souped up in some way (more armour, hitpoints, or special powers).
Cas
I have this problem:
I quickly played right to level 11, or so, with in each level $4000 saved up. Everything was going smooth, and in level 12 I thought I should try to spend more money, and see what level 13 would be like with a tight budget. So I start level 13 with $1100, and it was impossible. It’s a level with place for 1 (one!) refinery, and that’s that. So I spend my first $100 on the refinery, and then I have $1000 left. The enemy was spawning right next to me, so needless to say, my 4 blasters were blown away. I didn’t stand a chance. And the game ended right there, there was no way to continue. Bummer.
So, my advice to you is plain and simple:
On a sidenote:
Why not allow multiple research upgrades per level. If you have the money, why not? Because currently, if you skip an upgrade in 1 level, there is no way to catch up. Maybe this is simply a strategic factor, but I don’t like it too much If you skip upgrades in level 4 and 5, you pay the price in level… say, 100. That’s harsh!
Oh, and by the way:
that bottom bar is a major improvement
You can already replay any level - just go back to the title screen and hit Play again - you get to choose a level you’ve already been to with the best money you’ve started that level at (and your research and powerups along with it). That way you can go back to level 12 and try skipping research.
It’s a deliberate ploy to only allow 1 thing at a time on the research screen. The idea is that you do not necessarily get to research everything in a complete game - eventually you will have to commit to a specialisation of technology as it gets very expensive and see how the strategy of your choices pans out in the defence of your base.
With the aforementioned difficulty tuning tweaks I’m going to put in hopefully it will be less of a glaring issue though.
Cas
I can confirm it now works on linux 64bit now. Nice game… but my broken mouse was pretty frustrating. Will need to try it when i get a new one.
There was an enemy stuck in the corner of a map, and i couldn’t reach/shoot it, even though it was in range of my armor. I had to replay the level.
Here’s a bug:
I lost the mission “Damned cold out there,” and now whenever I go to replay the level it loses again immediately (base has full health, I can never build anything). Otherwise the Mac version works fine.
A bit of critique:
I need to be told that space bar cancels my action.
I shouldn’t be able to build again (as in, automatically cancel) if I don’t have the cash.
It would be nice to see more details on an upgrade before I buy it.
Mousing over some things (instead of clicking) would be helpful.
Crystals need to be more obvious (graphically). When I have only 3 seconds to find them, having some tiny blue things that don’t necessarily look the same as the ones from the last level really doesn’t work well.
The difficulty curve is maybe a bit high - it’s pretty much necessary for you to die on some of the later levels in order to know exactly how the enemies are going to come in. There were plenty of times that I put towers in the middle of nowhere and they never shot anything.
I think that’s all. Quite fun - I’ll be buying it.
Bug: When I restart level 13 (Sinus edam) (after failing) and I click on factory, there seems to be some sort of a bug there, and then I get a “level failed” dialog.