Untold Evils, finally webstartable

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#1

Since webstart is all the craze these days, I finally took the time to pursue the option in my little RPG Untold Evils.

NOTE–The interface is all keyboard (left arrow, right arrow, and enter). There is NO MOUSE at this time

www.untoldevils.com/webstart/untoldevils.jnlp
or just check out our website if you don’t feel like playing
http://www.untoldevils.com

The game is still highly in development, and all the “install” stuff is brand new, so I apologize if it blows up.

The reason I post this instead of waiting further down the road is I can not stand the frame rate issues I am having anymore…I know kevglasses’s MiniAdventure gets insane rates drawing about the same amount of stuff I do while I am stuck a hundred fps and far below on average systems.

I have looked over source code from many of the boards games to compare (including the MiniAd) if I was doing something differnently such as image loading. But to no avail…doing the exact same thing as everyone else

The only thing I could think of was either my images were somehow becoming unaccelerated (which I can not imagine how that is happening, I do not access the raster or anything), or the size of the images does not play well with Java2D, or there are just too many images =/.

Also, the “weather” effects right now totally slaughter the frame rate on many systems, so I apologize for that.

So, if you don’t mind, check out the game and if you could give suggestions to anything that you blantly seeing me doing wrong, let me know =p. If you need to see source code or know my rendering process in more detail, I can go into that later.

Anyways thanks, and hope you enjoy…

#2

The ‘install’ stuff blew up…

It looks neat and all, but maybe if it just ran after you run the webstart it would be a better approach? The installed thing seems to kind of do what webstart already does for you, version control, etc.

It did look pretty, but I couldnt ‘download’ the game from the interface, and had to end task it.

#3

I didn’t have any problems. java1.5b1, winXp, gf4, athlon 2.0ghz. FPS never went below 70, though it droped considerably during translucency depending operation like fades.

#4

Liked the installer, very nice looking, unfortunately couldn’t actually get any further than that… “Waiting for download list” or something, had to Alt-Ctrl-Delete to kill it.

Framerate wise, if you’re just blatting BITMASK images to an accelerated canvas it should be pretty quick. If you got more transparency that might get you.

Also, mini adventure relies on a back buffer so the background is only drawn tile by tile now and again. How do you do it?

Let me know if there’s a new version that I can get to play :wink: or if I can help…

Kev

#5

Ok I think i fixed the install issue, it was just a focus thing I believe. If you are still having trouble downloading from the interface, you can just download this jar (www.untoldevils.com/downloads/games/UntoldEvils.jar) and place it in the location you installed in the “games” directory ie (C:\Untold Evils\games\UntoldEvils.jar", and run the webstart link again. Sorry for the hassle, I am eventually going to make a version that already comes with the jar and extracts it for you, but one step at a time, its final week soon at school =p
www.untoldevils.com/downloads/games/UntoldEvils.jar

As far as rendering, I am also only drawing tiles once in a while as well, but after thinking about it last night (always after you cry for help is when you seem to find an answer =p), I think I may know the problem…maybe…but it still wouldn’t explain everything…

I use a Volatile image as a tile buffer. Every frame, the Volatile image is shifted based on the camera movement (if any), and only tiles that are brand new to the display are drawn. So right now I am essentially drawing the tile buffer twice on camera movement, once for the shift, and then the second time time to blit it to the screen. Is there a better way to shift the image on itself that would be faster? or is this even a problem?

As far as the “install”, I have it there so that multiple games that get developed (if any, but its just for learning purposes anyways :-)), they can easily be downloaded and plugged into the game. If the people who were having trouble could do a search for the “install.log” that should be in the same location that UEGE.jar was cached, and print that out to me, that would be really nice, oh and the JRE/SDK you guys are running too.

Thanks a bunch…

#6

[quote]Liked the installer, very nice looking, unfortunately couldn’t actually get any further than that… “Waiting for download list” or something, had to Alt-Ctrl-Delete to kill it.
[/quote]
Tried it just now. I got the “untold evils” appearing in the list, but clicking on it did nothing, likewise the bouncing “download now” text likewise the “done” text. Likewise doubl-clicking on everything.

#7

I got keyboard troubles under linux… like sometimes it lost the focus and I’m unable to press any key ???

#8

I still have the same thing as blahblahblahh.

Im running Windows XP.
VM: 1.4.2_04-b05

#9

bah to focus, and to blahblahblah, there is no mouse, its all keyboard…if you guys could try the instructions I gave above to just download the game into the games directory and run the webstart link againthat would be nice…I’ll work on the focus stuff when I get home, sorry for all the troubles

To avoid bumping the post…
Is it possible to turn of the desktop-integration as I think that prompt is messing with my keyboard focus…if thats not the case, then I am having an impossible time reproducing the loss of focus. I have tried on about 5 different machines with both different JVMs and different OSs and have yet to lose focus. I have tried minimize, clicking all over other applications…I am not denying the bug exists, but its being a pain in the a** to find!

#10

Na, for me at least that wasn’t the focus problem. I playing with the window a bit and eventually I got keyboard focus working.

I like the dialogs (though they obviously need some more testing). Got into the game, moving round was fine, getting about 270fps (Radeon 9000 Mobility 64MB, WinXP).

Went down to talk to the guards at the bottom of the map and got this I’m afraid:



EXCEPTION: java.lang.NullPointerException

java.lang.NullPointerException

      at trta.ue.gameplay.CollisionHandler.checkMapBoundary(CollisionHandler.java:114)

      at trta.ue.gameplay.CollisionHandler.checkMapBoundaries(CollisionHandler.java:72)

      at trta.ue.gameplay.CollisionHandler.checkForCollisions(CollisionHandler.java:52)

      at trta.ue.gameplay.UEGameEngine.run(UEGameEngine.java:294)

      at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:536)

Looking at the rendering, I can’t say there’s anything obviously different to the stuff I’m doing. You are rendering considerably more than me which probably accounts for the fps difference.

Overall tho, great job, looks like its coming on really nicely!

Kev

#11

went to the two guys that aren’t doing anything and the program locked up.

#12

Thanks for the bug find guys, the issue has been resolved and was due to naming a file wow.GIF instead of wow.gif…annoying
If you want to play the fixed version (which is still bugged, but at least doesn’t crash now =p) you’ll have to redownload the UntoldEvils.jar…thanks for your patience

#13

Ok, it worked using the keyboard :slight_smile:

Im getting 250-350 fps.

Unless of course I turn on rain or mist. It’s all about the sunshine!

Game seems to work great. Im tired so I didnt play for long, but I got down to the “weird” shaky place :slight_smile:

Im on an Athlon 1800+ with a GF3 Ti 200, 768mb RAM, 1.4.2_04