Argh, I think I may have copied an older JAR into the ZIP file, whilst the EXE has the correct one. Thanks for picking up on this. I'll update it and re-upload.


This is by design. I would implement an option to change to an instant left/right however I'm unlikely to do so as I want to move on to the next project. However If there's anything I've learned from this and the previous requests for an 'instant down' then it's to improve the design so as to make the addition of such features easier to implement.


I must agree that the background is more than just a bit drab. I'm certainly no artist, however I'm going to see if I can find some appropriate free background art. This is one change that should be simple and quick enough to make!


Thank you :-D

Latest version is up, complete with music, at http://www.tastyonion.com/bombblocks/ .

Thanks for sharing Nyhm. I want to re-read this post another time so I'll ask any questions I have later.

This doesn't answer your question, but I'm wondering, have you considered using a Properties file? Is there a specific need to use the registry for this task, or is that you just want to?

*LOL* I only ever mastered one song on guitar. I've tried to write a few songs but aside from one helluva catchy chorus I didn't get far. Kinda feels like where I am with game programming atm: I've written a few nice bits of code and done a couple of things that I thought "oh wow" about, but in reality I've barely set foot on the base of Everest. But I'm enjoying it, and I guess that's the most important thing of all for a hobbyist (maybe indie developer one day).

Thanks guys, I'll check them all out and see if I get some decent beats into the game

In the meantime I also came across http://www.nosoapradio.us/ .

Right, so when you press down it's like 'down to the bottom' straight away?

I can always make this an option. I based the gameplay here on a older Tetris game I was addicted to about 20 years ago. It didn't have instant-down that but allows the player to hold the key down and move the block down fast, allowing for release near the bottom to move it into a notch in the stack.

As for music, can anyone suggest any good sites for free music?

The music idea was one I toyed with. I tried doing a few things but I couldn't come up with anything that sounded better than crap, so I decided to ditch the idea.


What's an instant down button?


OK, I'll see what I can do.

Hi all,

Deep breath now....

OK, here goes. This is a Tetris clone - with bombs - called Bomb Blocks. It's my first ever game and first (alpha) release of it in any way, shape or form to the public.



Simply unzip the archive to a destination of your choice and run the jar file in the Bopmb Blocks directory. Instructions and miscellany are included in the README.txt in the same directory.

Happy to hear any feedback, good, bad, ugly, but as long as it's productive.

http://www.tastyonion.com/bombblocks/

Cheers,
Brionnach

Maybe if you're using a combined command line/quasi-graphical tool like Z-Tree?

Thanks for the tip Cero. I was wondering whether my next game should be an applet and/or standalone. I'll likely go with the standalone option. I'd love to do something in Android but I'll try that some time down the track.

Hmmm, suggesting that if one is to develop a Java game it should be standalone?

Thanks for sharing DreamOfSleeping, all useful points there. 

Admittedly point two is difficult atm. There's just those dregs that need to be done and they've become a big of drag. Still I'm making progress on most days.

Interesting how you mention about permissions with Java applets. I haven't run into that. Did you have any of your testers hit that issue?

Instructions is something I've been wondering what to do about. For tetris it's almost universally understood what the controls are, and I'm wondering whether to bother with them. However you've got me thinking that a trainer tutorial might be the way to go to get users to grasp the essential controls required to play the game.

Hi all,

First time poster here. I've cross-posted this in gamedev.net but I've yet to receive a response there.

When I first visited gamedev I found a thread/how-to/something-or-other about how to start writing games. The author suggested starting off by doing Tetris, and not just getting it working but polishing it right off to the point of being a properly completed product. Well after several false starts over the years I have finally have a fully playable game - Bomb Blocks - a tetris clone with bombs written in Java. I still need to complete the website, documentation, installer, and add a few little touches. But I feel really good having made it this far, especially after all the failures.

Now as I'm going over the code I'm looking at it thinking 'god there is some ugly stuff in there!'. The project suffered from virtually no initial design; it grew organically and has probably suffered for it to some extent. I've ended up redesigning classes, refactoring a heap of code, throwing bits out and writing new bits, but throughout the process - as well as reading books, websites, etc, I feel I've learnt some fundamental things about the process of designing and writing a game, and that the next game will be better planned and written. Hopefully one day I can create something that might earn a few dollars too. It seems there is just so much to learn and I'm really eager to keep on learning.

So over to you. If you have ever completed and released a game what was your experience of doing your first? What successes and failures did you have? What did you learn? What would you have done (maybe subsequently did) better? What did you get out of it? Did you get discouraged to do more or vitalised to build something better?

Cheers,
Brionnach