XNA-like Java Engine?

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hi all,

I’m new here. I was wondering if anyone could recommend what would be a good choice of engine for making a 2D applet and desktop-based game with online components (HTTP stuff, rather than realtime P2P stuff). I gather Slick2D and LibGDX might be suitable choices?

I’ve been a professional JEE developer for about 8 years, but after redundancy from the finance sector a few years ago spent two years out as an indie games developer, where I made Clover: A Curious Tale for PC and XBLIG. I now work on forthcoming indie portal IndieCity.

I had absolutely no idea that Java gaming had come on so much since I was at uni - back then it was midlets or nothing, and performance wasn’t that great. I’m really excited to discover that I can now use my primary programming language for writing games: being able to use Eclipse, Maven, Jenkins and all the tools I’m used to is going to be fantastic.

#2

Welcome.

I would recommend libGdx if you need performance. This will allow easier port to android if you need that later. If you prefer easy and clean api then slick2d is a good choise. If you prefer pure java2d solution you should check pulpcore.

#3

If you wait a couple months I will probably finish opening up: https://www.ohloh.net/p/AllBinary-Platform/

It supports a much larger number of platforms. J2ME, Android, and J2SE.

It supports 2d, 2d/3d, and 3d games. My actions games get 60 fps on less than 40 dollar hardware.

I will probably have half of the code in by the end of next month and then provide my bare bones binary for games by September.

It will be the largest open project for Java only game development available between the 2 repositories I have for it. You could still work in other java libraries and 3d engines as needed.