Would you be interested in the 100 game web/desktop challenge?

General Discussions
#1

Summary: Community to develop 100 finished web/desktop games. Games must be approved by peers. Games to be listed as Java Game Showcase.

Hi,

I know I’m the new guy here and maybe I’m totally misreading the status of Java as a technology for game development but one of the things I’ve noticed is there is a real lack of Finished Java Games out there for the desktop. I’ve spent a few hours searching for Java games, portals, resellers, and I’m having a hard time finding them.

Here is my own personal survey of the technology:

Web: Probably a 30+ to 1 ratio in favor of Flash.
Desktop: 100+ to 1 in favor of C/C++
Network: Same as Desktop.
Mobile: (not sure; seems like we might be doing well here, but not my niche)
Consoles: Unsupported.

What I know is this. Content is king. Gamers don’t care at all about what technology the game is made with so long as the game is fun and bug free. Developers seem to be drawn to a few different things familiarity, tutorials, speed, flexibility and probably most importantly content (fun). Business folks are looking for development speed, distribution and content. The thread that binds these is the content. And if there are few games out there, not much is going to drive the technology.

I was quite surprised to find Quake getting ported to Java. But then I thought about it more and came to the conclusion that the cool content drove the technological challenge of converting C to Java.

The best way to get Java rocking for development is to develop more content. Again maybe I’m misreading the community but having more people developing would be great thing. It would be nice to see things fixed or made easier for developers (sound and timers for example). I think content could be a driving force for it.

So here is my suggestion.

JGO group members to develop 100 finished games by the end of the year. I was thinking they had to be started this year but not necessarily. We can set up a list of games. For the game to be complete it must have at least three of your peers signing off that is finished and is suitable for our show case. In other words, you can’t just say, “I’m done and put it up.” You can of course stop development; it just doesn’t count toward this challenge unless there is a sign off.

Anyway, that is my idea. Please let me know what you think of it. Seems like a cool press opportunity too.

Cheers,

Darrin

#2

I agree, a end user (unless he is a developer) doesnt care about anything besides graphics and content. It just has to work. We need to have artists though to have great content.

what we could have though, is a person programs the game, then an artist could volunteer after seeing a finished project and make the art for it.

#3

I think something like Java Game Tome is the best solution for now. The thing to do is get as many games on it as possible and make it something people are willing to visit and actually download a newer version of java to play some games. I don’t think rushing out a game is necessarily a good idea, however a game contest is useful once in a while. BTW, I’m not affiliated with JGT other than having one game over there. Also, I think untrusted applets should be the main way games are delivered. People don’t like signatures and downloads, that’s why Flash games are so popular.

#4

I agree with you, it is quite a good solution. However, some games that are not in this website are interesting too, I think about some games in the showcase (Zoltar’s return, Xenplat, Bloodridge, Futuristic Arena, White Hexagon, Hokuto No Rogue…) and some French first person shooters (JWolfenstein, Tesseract,…).

I’m sorry, I’m going to be harsh… Please buy some glasses. When I worked on the Java Game Tome, I found more than 250 finished games, I spent a lot of time in finding them.

#5

I guess it is relative: my glasses must be fogged by number of flash games. In a matter of seconds I found sites listing 2500, 1800 etc. My guess is there probably over 5k+ flash games. Not to mention many with some amazing quality. In a matter of hours, like you, I had trouble finding a few hundred Java.

I still think we need more java games, glasses or not. If you don’t think so, coolio. That is why I asked this question.

#6

I spent weeks to do it.

I agree with you on this point, there are never too much Java games lol :smiley: However, I’m not sure your suggestion can help. Decreeing that we need more Java games won’t give us more Java games, I give you a precise example: I have found a way of resurrecting a famous excellent Java FPS, we estimate we need between 10 000 and 13 000 USD, your initiative in this case does not change anything and does not solve anything.

#7

I’m a little confused on this thread on what you trying to achieve.
People on this site are usually building some kind of game. So I don’t see this ‘challenge’ thing changing anything…
Unless you make make it as a contest and add prizes then that might convince people to start a game or work harder on the one they have…

#8

I’m a bit bummed at myself. Seems like the post was taken as an insult for those that are already working hard at building games. Didn’t mean to be. My apologies.

Inspiration comes in different forms I guess. I thought a team goal would be cool. I know I spent 3 months and created about 25 different new project folders before I got subby off the ground–something super simple but playable! My weakness is not getting things done quickly. People are never going to play what doesn’t exist. For me that includes taking on projects that are too big, too complex, to artwork dependent, etc, projects that never will be finished.

If I had a goal of getting three projects out this year, amplified/echoed by a group of folks, I find it easier to remind myself: “finish damn it.” Dunno sometimes it is fun to be part of something bigger but that is just the way I work. The cross linking/marketing of a 100 fresh games could probably be pretty amazing too.

Other people of course work differently. I look over the details of some the frameworks out there and I’m simple amazed at the lovin’ that goes into them; the focus seems to be to make the most elegant, documented code they can.

As for a contest, yeah that would be awesome. Perhaps Sun can put something up; do a press release. Open it up to other forums.

Anyway it was just an idea. Thanks for responding.

#9

+1 on the java game tome, its already doing what you want.

whats keeping java alive on the mobile is the google phone and the blackberries and most phones that arnt the iphone. :wink:

flash, i hate flash. Its the trash of the internet. Sucks my bandwidth with annoying ads flash things.

#10

It doesn’t seem to me that people should be insulted by what you’re suggesting. There’s often a big gap between what a hobbyist developer thinks of as a ‘finished game’, and what a general audience thinks of as a ‘finished game’. And it wouldn’t be a bad thing if there were more Java games that were ‘finished’ to the latter standard.

That said, I think there are likely to be a few problems with the project you’re proposing.

  1. Surely it would be quicker to make a collection of existing Java games that are finished than to start building ones from scratch?

  2. If you’re aiming for 100 finished games then they’re likely to be pretty small games: pac-man clones, tetris clones, etc. I don’t know how impressed a general audience would be by that.

  3. To echo what h3ckboy said, polished games need artists.

  4. Starting games is a lot more fun that finishing them. Even if you started the project with a lot of volunteers, there’d be few of them still around to do the hard work at the end.

Just my thoughts,
Simon

#11

Thanks for responding. Programmers are like sharks: they swim or die. Just kidding. Progress is important as well as quantity. I personally think there is a pretty slim portfolio out there. Seems to me like a 100 games out this year would actually increase java presence by 30-40%.

This is the biggest market for eyeballs. Some of the flash games have been played 40 million times. Can you get more impressive than that?

Granted I love mmropgs, rts, turnbased as much if not more than the next guy but they can’t be finished in a timely manner and not as many people play them.

[quote]3. To echo what h3ckboy said, polished games need artists.
[/quote]
Yep. So what in the commercial games I’ve made is that art takes nearly as long as coding. Same effort really. Sound is the only thing that seems really fast about game making. Making smaller games means much easier to attract artist. There are a few tricks to getting good pixel arts.

First have good art direction. Explain style and have all sizes and formats map out. Too many times people say make it look good or just give me whatever format. It is much better to says something like make the sprite left to right. Crop each frame within a pixel of the edge. Height should be 70 pixels. Width 100-120. Maximum frames 12. I can handle flips and rotations so I only need one direction. Style wise I was thinking of this image or this image.

Second, have something working to show them.

Third, have something they think can be finished. Ie a smaller project.

Fourth, there are lots of place to hire artists reasonably. Sometimes only a few dollars a sprite. Sometimes even for free for people that want to get a name for themselves or are building a portfolio.

[quote]4. Starting games is a lot more fun that finishing them. Even if you started the project with a lot of volunteers, there’d be few of them still around to do the hard work at the end.
[/quote]
Too true. Last 10% if 50 percent of the work. Can’t get around that. I still have 2 changes I want to make on Subby based on your guys suggestions. I’m procrastinating though. :stuck_out_tongue:

I wasn’t really thinking about volunteers per se. More folks = more work, more risk, bigger project, bigger risk. Besides I think the cool thing about Java is the development speed. But there certainly could be some synergy with the right folks, for example if one person is an expert on sound (mp3 oggs) and the other on jogl… It could work.

#12

I’m not entirely sure I grasp what it is you’re proposing. A support group for developers who find it difficult to finish games?

I don’t know if people (players or developers) would get excited about the project based on that alone. Maybe what you need is a theme or gimmick (like with the Java 4K contests, although in that case it’s a theme that only really appeals to developers).

True in principle. But based on the forum’s attempt to start a Community Project earlier this year, I don’t know how likely it is in practice.

Simon