My 3rd 4K game. Instructions on the webpage.
http://valhallawebdesign.com/Joakim/Java/4K/Slalom
http://valhallawebdesign.com/Slalom/
This one is only 3K yet, so ideas for improvement and tuning is very velcome.
My best time so far is 70,712 sec, but you can probably beat it.
48.813 was my best score.
I think it would be more natural if the player moved down the screen rather than up it.
You could also add in some rocks, or other obstacles that would cause the skier to fall over.
Andy
It plays! 
I’m not sure about the control system, feels very uncomfortable to me… maybe it would be better going down the screen like mentioned above.
The skier could do with being two lines maybe? with a blob in the middle (or two) for the little chap.
First go: 76.888… I’m not very good 
It’d be nice if the text was a bit bigger and maybe have something more conventional for start (like Space or Enter?)
Also, if you’ve got lots of room (a whole K!) how about some instructions on what to do?
Very cool tho… I like this better than the Late4k one… feels like I have more control and theres more skill.
Kev
Hmmm… yep, would be more natural to ski down the screen, but the controls wopuld be more confusing. When you press right, should the skier turn right or should he turn to the right of the screen (make a left turn)? I think it will be harder to control the skier, but I could be wrong… Anyone else got an oppinion?
Was 48.8 the time for both runs? I only stated at the webpage that you are doing 2 runs. Having coded two 4K games already, I am very thrifty with messages in game that can be delivered outside the game. Since I have 1K left, I could maybe use some of that for more info on screen. I improved my run to 69,58 (slalom version)
As it is right now, I have two verions, slalom and giant slalom (PgDn/PgUp). I could maybe add one more like free skiing, where trees and rocks appear as well. I guess that could be a snowboarding mode.
Kevglas: I guess I got feedback before I even got to post my Q. Seems like I have to change to skiing down the screen. Liked the rest of your points as well. Should have a look at them tonite, time permitting. 
76.888 is probably very good for a first go. 8)
Late4K… I like the feeling of screaming away at 110% of what you can handle, but I probably brought it up to 180%… Gonna try to make it a bit more possible and less chance.
For non initiated:
http://www.java-gaming.org/cgi-bin/JGNetForums/YaBB.cgi?board=Announcements;action=display;num=1105724937
After feedback I have ended up making all my games a bit easier. Guess I need to work on that.
PS. ap_kelly: Look forward to see your supersprint. Would be really impressive if you can cram it in to 4K.
[quote]Hmmm… yep, would be more natural to ski down the screen, but the controls wopuld be more confusing. When you press right, should the skier turn right or should he turn to the right of the screen (make a left turn)? I think it will be harder to control the skier, but I could be wrong… Anyone else got an oppinion?
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Remember SkiFree? In that game the skier skied down hill, the right arrow made the skier turn to the players right, the left to the player’s left. It was very natural.
My opinion on your game, it seems that turning is too long, gates are too close together, and the player moves too slow.
You do need to go down not up, and maybe a img of a snowboarder? ;D
Also the gates are too close to gether, so you don’t build up speed.
Objects would also be cool.
Fun none the less.
OK, after general demand I have added so that you can configure if you want to ski down (default) or up the screen.
Had never seen SkiFree, but found it on the web. When you press right, the player (skier) turns to his left, or right on the screen. As I see it the opposite of what you are saying???
I kept my game so that pressing right makes the skier turn right. Lemmi now what u think.
Pressing down key makes skier turn quite fast (also to slow down). Gotta be a bit difficult though doesn’t it.
Changed so that you now can choose between 3 types and in Super-G the gates are quite far appart. Hope you’ll like it.
I also speeded up the player a bit. Think that was a good idea.
Most ppl ddin’t seem to read the webpage, so I added some info text to the opening screen. Maybe that is easier, but unfortunately eats up a lot of mem…
Have not added snowboarding yet, but will try if I get time and there is enough mem left to play with.
by “Player” he meant the human player, not the skiier.
When I play the 1, 2 and 3 keys do nothing. I also never see a time displayed anywhere.
[quote]by “Player” he meant the human player, not the skiier.
When I play the 1, 2 and 3 keys do nothing. I also never see a time displayed anywhere.
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OK, does that mean that right - left keys have “Wrong” setting, while skiing down? In my game you are not restricted to have the skis pointing downhill all the time. You can do a 360 turn if you want to, so that means that if you turn around and skis are facing uphill. If I change the right - left keys to the suggestion above, then pressing left, the player will turn right both on the screen (players perspective?) and from the skiers perspective. Dang that was difficult to explain… You probably won’t have skis pointing uphill so often so it might not be important. Anyway, does this feel right or wrong? Guess that is what’s important.
When you press the 1, 2 and 3 keys something happen, you just dont see it right away. After you press Enter you will be in a slalom/giant slalom/super-G race, depending on what number key you pressed first. I am planning to highlight the selected option, but haven’t have time to do so yet.
If you have <=1024x768 you won’t see it because it is too far down. I am going to move the time so that it is always next to the player, and I should probably also change so that the hight of the whole window is small enough to fit in 1024x768.
I will try to get the changes fixed in a day or two, and try to tune the feel a bit, maybe make the skier even faster?
cool! The controls for the skiier are fine in my opinion. I used to play Ski Free all the time and loved it, but when I started this game, I immediately just used the controls correctly. They were completely intuitive.
I think the difference is that in Ski Free you click left to “move” left. The turn effect was kind of just visual effect because if you let go of left, he stopped turning that way. In this game, since arrows ACTUALLY turn, it’s more intuitive to turn correctly where left does counter-clockwise and right does clockwise.
Long story short: I like your controls very much how they are
I agree. I only used SkiFree as an example of how the controls should fit the HUMAN players left-right orientation instead of the game’s avatar.
Nice work.
Cool! 8) Glad you liked the ctrls. Hope that will do it then.
I added an indicator showing what discipline is selected, and made skier a bit faster, skidding a bit more, turning a bit faster and just more more more. Nah, not so much more, but this should hopefully give it a bit better feel.
I had alot of fun, but it was goofing off, not trying to win. It was big hoot to go really fast straight down and then turn sideways. You go screaming off the edge of the screen and get ‘lost’ for a bit. If you play around and turn fast enough, you can go back up the mountain a little.
I’d agree with others, throw in some rocks or something. Maybe show a ski track from where you were as well.
Regards,
Dr. A>
Thanks for all the feedback. I think I might have to make snowboard a separate game.
I have been trying to add some sound to the game, but not really been able to get anything to sound well, or be small… Does anyone have any examples of how to make that happen? I think that generating sound from code should do the trick, but really making it sound like skis against snow, and how to change the volume of it? I have been looking a bit at Defender 4000 sound routine. Think it would be good enough to just have a loop and adjust vol according to how much player is sliding * speed. Any help greatly appreciated.
If I still have some space I will go ahead and add some of the things that have been requested here.
[quote]I have been trying to add some sound to the game, but not really been able to get anything to sound well, or be small… Does anyone have any examples of how to make that happen? I think that generating sound from code should do the trick, but really making it sound like skis against snow, and how to change the volume of it? I have been looking a bit at Defender 4000 sound routine. Think it would be good enough to just have a loop and adjust vol according to how much player is sliding * speed. Any help greatly appreciated.
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A fan of my sound scheme! Well, step right up and I’ll tell you what I know! It’s been awhile since I dug into this stuff, but here’s what I remember:
Non-signed PCM data is encoded in such a way that the waveform will continue to increase until a zero is found. At that point the wave will reverse and begin to descend. Again, it will keep descending until a zero is reached, at which point it will reverse again.
Constant zeros produce silence.
My thought on producing a “skiing” sound would be to produce white noise of a given maximum amplitude. You should be able to accomplish this by producing random numbers between 1 and MAX, where MAX is less than 255. By increasing MAX as you speed up, you can make the noise louder, thus giving the impression of speed. Make sure you insert zeros at regular intervals to ensure the wave stays at a high enough frequency.
That’s my theory anyway. You’ll probably want to rip the Defender 4000 sound code out and play with a few sound algorithms. Keep messing with it until you find something that sounds right. Also, don’t be afraid to ask Google about PCM data, and generating sound effects. Here’s a few links to get you started:
http://show.docjava.com:8086/book/cgij/doc/sound/Oscillator.java.html
Changed the skier to look slightly less hiddeous, and added smaller fix to keep dranonymous in the slope and abort with enter. Mouse left button = faster, rigth = slower. Key ctrl still the same. Still haven’t managed to create any sound that is worth adding to the game… :-/
Also moved the game to:
http://valhallawebdesign.com/Joakim/Java/4K/Slalom
I like this version best! The skiier looks great