You guys are absolute legends!
Thanks for all the useful help. I decided to go for Rectangles for my player and the tile map. From my understanding I can use the methods getMinX, getMaxY ect to my advantage for checking collisions, ie. if (player.getMinY < block.getMaxY) I can move.

Now I'm just stuck on figuring out which Rectangles in my tile map I'm testing against :S is this what getIntersection() is used to figure out? or should I use a function which returns the players current position in the tile map?

Sorry about all the questions! For some reason this is a tough concept for me to get my head around. Honestly you guys must be actual geniuses for understanding all this!

Wow! so I can just apply a Rectangle() to my player, and use that for my collisions?
With my previous game all collisions were handled with Rectangle's .intersects() method, but for obvious reasons this wont work with a platformer which requires collisions for specific sides of the player.
So then how would I separate the players left, right, top and bottom with a Rectangle?
This is so magical.

thanks for the help! It is amazing getting some sort of direction after weeks of trying to get this working!

Ok cool! thank you.

Just another question regarding the same thing. When it comes to the players 'bounding box' how should i go about setting that up so that it works with the collision detection?
Should I just be testing collisions with the players position +/- his height or width?

Hey guys!

I know there are A LOT of collision detection topics all around here and the internet, but I am really struggling to get my head around it even though there are so many resources (I'm not a very clever guy).

I think my main issue is that I'm not understanding the logic behind collision detection with tiles. From what I've read so far, it seems as though what I want to do is:
-get the players current position,
-check if the next position will be a solid block,
-move the player if it isn't.

Is this understanding correct?
Sorry about another collision detection topic!

hahaha, sorry about that. I accidentally published before adding the photos and the link!
Hope the game works for you.

Hey guys,

I uploaded an earlier version of this a couple of weeks ago in WIP. I think I'm done with the game now so I thought I'd upload where I got to with it.
Just shoot the green things before they get past you
two kinds of random upgrades drop randomly from green things too.
Game + Source code: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xws220cgqg1rkze/Splatter.zip

Ps. I really want to try to make a side scroller next but have absolutely no idea where to start in terms of building the tile maps and collisions! Would REALLY appreciate any guidance
Thanks!

CONTROLS

Move -LEFT and RIGHT
Shoot normal weapon - SPACE
Shoot special weapon - CONTROL

Wow thanks for the great feedback guys! I am absolutely loving this community and it blows me away seeing what others have done/are working on. It is so fun writing games, very addictive! I look forward to learning more and making better games in the future. I've been inspired by all the amazing work you guys do!
Thanks again!

Thanks for the tip! I guess it's pretty important to have a creative name 

Hey guys!
I've been trying to learn java for about a month now and I've made a very basic game which I kept adding to as I learned more and more about java and game development. It's nothing special at all but I am pretty proud of it.

Here's the zip file with source code and the jar. Would love feedback and tips anyone has any. Hope you guys enjoy it!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xrvvla7f4sfs04v/Game.zip

Space to shoot normal bullets, Ctrl to shoot powerups, left and right keys to move around.