@princec: Fair point. However most attempts at doing something like that I've seen has other downsides.
For example Maple makes it very unintuitive to edit the otherwise beautifully formatted math expressions.
Sometimes pressing the left arrow 3 or more times are required for moving one math character XD

- Scarzzurs

Interesting read indeed!

It really proves that JavaSound is so poor it should be removed or rewritten entirely...
I want to laugh at it, but I can relate to the authors troubles with it all to well for it to be funny...

 

- Scarzzurs

It's like brushing teeth or using the mouse with the other hand.
I've always wanted to try using brackets on new line.
I tried it for some time, really wanted it to work out.
But in the end I went completely mad and switched back.

However, brackets on new line is really the best choice from an objective point of view, in my opinion, as it is more consistent and separate code from signature, giving a better view of the program structure.
Currently, I will on rare occasions, if argument list is very long or lots of exceptions are being declared to be thrown, switch to bracket on a new line.

It does really seem like a religious question. Interestingly, some "atheists" have removed the brackets from their language entirely. However, it does seem to bring new problems and well, I've become religious I guess XD

- Scarzzurs

I wrote Hydro Hydra - 2nd Dive and all my other java games using Textpad.
Ok, it isn't a totaly plain text editor as it adds a bit of syntax highlighting, allows external tools to be used and jumping to the pieces of code the compiler complains about.
But I'm confident that I could have lived without those features (My current unity working enviroment is in fact missing the last feature I listed).

Whenever I pull up an IDE I always find myself frustrated with how hard simply typing plain text becomes (Monodevelop blocks End-key presses at times!)...
I also find that working in a plain text editor keeps you much more aware of what's going on behind the scene, allowing certain problems to be solved faster and more easily (but of course some might be harder...).

- Scarzzurs

Nice job :-)

Not much game/toy about it though. Atleast I wasn't entertained for that long...
But I guess it serves as a pretty good proof of concept of something exciting to come :-)

Now, I'll return to my Legos

(Btw. I drew a low-res version of my cubic earth drawing )

- Scarzzurs

Just to chip in, I use a tactic very similar to princec:

1) Typed uniform grids for fast collision detection.
2) A long (ordered) list with all entities in the game.

This list has delayed addition and removal of entities (stored in a single queue).
Entities will have their spawn method called when they have become part of the entity list.
Entities will have their cleanup method called when they are no longer part of the entity list.
Thus entities are spawned and removed in order.

Another benefit is that the list of entities is stable throughout physics computation.
It works well under the assumption that the game objects stay in the game for a long time (several iterations).
But of course all methods have drawbacks :-)

I used to use the same approach for all games, but I'm shifting towards more modular and individual designs.
As such my game engine is starting to more and more become a game library instead...

- Scarzzurs

I'm not sure what "IHMO" means, but:
There is certainly an advantage for libraries that change over time, but don't want their users to rewrite their code every time a thing like implementation details are changed.

- Scarzzurs

This is probably not the problem, but it's also worth noting that the Applet JVM usually doesn't shut down right after you close the browser tab (if run in a browser)...

- Scarzzurs

Can't quite make up my mind on this one...
At one hand "default methods" makes me shiver for their invasion on the purity of interfaces.
On the other hand, how are abstract classes any better? To me it appears that they do indeed already emulate the "default methods" behaviour.
I'm kinda thinking, either you discourage people from using abstract classes in the first place, or you support them by language features...

- Scarzzurs

I disagree: You WILL eventually have to read/edit other people code, which means you WILL have to understand it.
If that's not enough, it's a pretty common statement that the best understanding comes from use.

- Scarzzurs

1. Go to "Profile"
2. Go to "Look and Layout Preferences"
3. Select "Don't show users' avatars"
4. Click "Change Profile"
5. Profit!

I've been upset by the all kinds of aspects of user avatars over time (depiction, animation and so on), this seems the only and best solution :-)
That being said allowing users avatars allows for easier identification of who is actually posting and makes the forum a bit more colorfull...

- Scarzzurs

I gotta chime in on this one. I also feel that while it is good to showcase the games, it pretty much changes what should otherwise be designed for best forum experience.
I definitely think both should be there. It would be really nice if it was easy to change on the fly too (on the same page), but otherwise it's still an improvement :-)

- Scarzzurs

Found some strange code appearing on my "Profile" -> "Look and Layout Preferences" page.
I'm not sure of the severity, but now you know...

- Scarzzurs

Ah thanks for the list, I'll give it a try :-)
A non browser-specific payment method would be really nice.

- Scarzzurs

So, while I DID sell "one or more copies", it is not exactly because I'm proud I'm going to put this down, but:

Here are some things I have learned:

1. You don't get ANY advertisement for free:
The Chrome Web Store does not favour new games in any way, so if you're not Big Game Company(tm), you get no downloads just because you're in the store.
I can scroll the game category for minutes without finding my game. All in all the store is pretty much just a payment method (that requires a certain browser) for me right now...

2. Direct download of .jnlp is a bad idea:
The store is made for websites or things that appear that way. This means that not only does it seem weird to the user when you instead supply them with a jnlp, but there are some problems that seem to have gone unnoticed: Sometimes the jnlp download disappears after you have clicked the app in the browser, leaving only the browser unsafe download security dialog. My solution to this problem is to simple redirect the user to a download page on my website, where I can then explain what's going on to the user. It is my hope to add the game as an applet on this page directly, but I seem to have struck a lwjgl bug with this approach.

Finally the part you have all been waiting for:

Was it worth it?!:
Yes and no.
On the positive side the store serves as payment method for my game, leaving me without many worries. It was also good to experience actually selling a game for the first time, no matter how ridiculous the sales count is.
On the other hand, I have sold only 3(!) copies after two days in the store, and all was from reletives / friends. This means I have almost broken even, in terms of the one-time payment you have to make, but so far, I actually LOST money, when taxes are collected. Hopefully this will change in the future, but my expectation are lower than ever now :-(

I'm still very much considering direct payment from my own website, but that depends on the hassle I have to go through and the time I have at hand...

I hope my experience has come in handy for someone else...

- Scarzzurs

Very cool feature indeed!

However, I did notice that some of the topic images have been scaled poorly.
I guess the author can adjust their images accordingly, but in that case I'd be nice to know how the scaling works / what resolutions are the most optimal. :-)

- Scarzzurs

This is definitely a good idea if you have many non-colliding objects and have profiled your application and found it to be slow in this area(!).
However for it to work, you must have some kind of data structure that allows efficient lookup of nearby tiles, for example a equality spaced grid.
In my game Hydro Hydra - 2nd Dive I have used such a grid to sacrifice some amount of memory in exchange of performance.

However I don't think I can stress this enough:
Unless you have no deadlines and do it for the fun of it, avoid premature optimization! :-)

- Scarzzurs

Thanks a lot

Hmm, I have very low expectations.
However should I sell one or more copies, I'll probably be to proud not to talk about it anyways


It's the same jnlp, which means both auto-update to the same game version...

However the updated version does contain:

• Some minor tweaks
• Performance boost
• Parasite notification
• Instant "clear data"

Nothing really game changing...

However, if the game gets some interest, I might add another creature/stage.
I'm also considering porting to android (which should be simple, if performance is adequate)

- Scarzzurs

The game has been released on the Chrome Web Store. You can buy it here: Hydro Hydra - 2nd Dive



A big thanks to everyone for helping me reach my first commercial game release

I'll be very grateful for every purchase, rating, like, +1, comment and so on

- Scarzzurs

Hmm, seems a lot like "Java for people that doesn't like the core values of java".
But if that's the case: Why not change language entirely?
Aight, I guess you could argue that this way you get to keep your libraries...

Sounds like a goods decision to compile to java files, although they are hardly as readable as what a good java programmer could write. :-)

Anyways, it's not for me, I'm not an IDE-guy :-)

- Scarzzurs

Aight, got to try it now. Here are some comments:

First of all, this is hardly a game as is. Unless I'm getting this wrong, you can only interact between rounds?
(And right now you only have 3 options that hardly makes any difference nor are balanced)
I won the game after a couple of rounds, but it really felt more like watching a procedurally generated movie then anything else.

Right so that aside, I think the simulation part seemed to have some interesting logic underneath the hood, but it wasn't displayed to me.
The simulation seems quite too large for my likings with far too little emphases on the individual zombie / person.
The simulation logic also seems unbalanced in nature. If you are winning, the game becomes easier?

My project Hydro Hydra (2nd Dive) suffers from some of the same issues (simulation vs. game),
so I know how hard it can be to make this type of game work XD

All in all, it seems like an interesting project, but it's far from being a game. Hope to see it updated :-)

- Scarzzurs

If you remove the need for me to trust you, I'll give it a go. :-)
(Sorry to be of so much trouble, I just can't be bothered at the moment)

- Scarzzurs

I've been using C# for a few Unity3d projects so far and the more I use it and learn about it, the more I think it is bloated.
It has some nice features here and there, but there's so many and a lot of overlap.
Reading through C# libraries seems quite hard as well, as everything is done in unique ways.
Also, I find myself writing worse code in C#. My choices seems to be based on how short I can write things, rather than readability.

If Unity3d supported Java, there would be no reason for me to use C#...

That being said, you should probably ask the question in a more neutral forum, if you want fair answers. Or perhaps ask in both camps for fairness :-)

- Scarzzurs

Hey guys. Just a quick update on what's going on :-)

New "How To Play"-screens (click to enlarge):








Your comments are most welcome :-)

Shaders:
I'm working on adding optional shaders to the game.
I've had some problems with upside-down shaders on some machines, that I am working on fixing.
The current version of the game only has a "water ripple warp"-shader for the green foreground thingies enabled.

Future plans
My schedule holds a few more things now that I've begun at the university again, but hopefully I will still be able to work some more on this game. :-)
I'll try to look into the "game-slowdown during menu" idea and add/adjust more audio later this week.

- Scarzzurs

A bit more information about the problem would probably help us help you :-)
What does the program do, what is the architecture?

Normally (in a single threaded program) you would let the exception propagate to a place where it is reasonable to handle the exception and initiate a display of the non-cryptic error message you describe. If you really feel this is in your class without reference, you can try to make the error-handling method static or hand a reference to the error-handler object.
In general, I would suggest letting the exception propagate and be handled further out (by declaring that the methods in questions throws the given type of exception or a super-type).

If you're in a threaded environment things often become a bit more complicated, so again more information would be nice.

Edit: Remember that your program will normally shut down when control returns from the main method (there are some exceptions, especially using Swing)

Hope it helps for now :-)

- Scarzzurs

Good to hear it's been brought up to date again. :-)
In my case it probably won't do much difference though, as I've come to prefer LWJGL.

- Scarzzurs

But... it looks weird...

<.<

>.>

Also I find it hard to justify package protected...
When is it actually good code to use it? (Stop me if I'm going off road here)

- Scarzzurs

I actually had a similar idea, which I have already implemented. Didn't quite stand out enough, at least I'd suspect and hope the player would be occupied with survival at that time rather than noticing the colour effect. Well, I'm guessing it can't hurt :-)

Yes, you are right. I tried out a new cursor, didn't seem much better though...
I will try making it blend in more for my next experiments, though I have the same concerns about it.

I tried out changing opacity and lightness of the background object. However it appears they help against sea-sickness, so they must not blend too much.
I have made minor changes to the opacity computation of the green creatures, but I don't expect it to change much. So all in all, I am still not sure what to do...

I tried out implementing something similar last night, but the menu system wasn't general enough to allow such modification. Hopefully I will be able to test it soon. I still think a more smooth transition to menus is the best way to go for now. I will see what I can do :-)

I'm glad you said this. My girlfriend also had the same comment, so I think the creatures secrets will remain safe for now :-)

Aight, I catch your drift, I'll take it into consideration for future releases.


Again, thanks a lot for your time. Glad to hear your thoughts, whether I decide to go with the suggestions or not :-)

- Scarzzurs

How about:

• Allowing non-java-programmers to the website. My audio designer couldn't get access due to having minor programming knowledge (the Captcha). I still think he's a valuable asset to me, and could perhaps be to others as well. I suspect some graphical people might also come in handy for many of us without artistic skills in that area...
• Making the website become more alive with an instant messaging service like used on gamejolt.com? Maybe someone could write an front-end to the JGO irc channel (Which I'm the only one lurking in at the moment :O)

- Scarzzurs

Haha, it's quite alright, I didn't see it as such.
Maybe it was my response that seemed too negative XD

I often prefer the negative feedback as it seems to put focus on the things that can break the game.
Anyway, I interpreted the fact that you played for 30 mins and took the time for the comments as a positive comment in itself. :-)

That being said, I'm still interested in your further thoughts about the game and my comments :-)

On a side-note, I've received more audio to be implemented today.
Hopefully it will improve the game further :-)

- Scarzzurs