Code obfuscators and server-side security.

The high performance javascript engines put the language at a usable speed for gaming, and the language is flexible enough to code in whatever style you want.  But, the main reason is to make a plugin-free browser game.  That seems like a strange or silly thing today, but we're thinking forward.  Two years from now that might not sound so strange.

I'd really like to see google make their java/dalvik compiler in gwt more independent and robust.  Google and Apple have a shared vision of a plugin-free future for the web, and I don't really see any faults with if html5 can survive the politics intact.

GWT has a very rigid project structure that integrates tightly with the webpage.  Supposedly, you can use the java-to-javascript compiler to independently convert a module, but I've never been able to get it to work.

I've been playing around with the HTML5 canvas this weekend, and I'm really impressed.  I hope this survives the politics and makes it into IE9.  WebGL would be nice too, but I don't think it has a chance.

It's something I had read secondhand, and turned out to be untrue when I looked it up for you.  Sorry about that.  By the PCGA 2009 report, it looks like the MMORPG market is dominant.

On home computers C/C++ games generate less revenue than web based games written in Flash.  This trend is increasing.  Games are polarizing between hard-core big budget console gaming and light, casual, web-based pc and mobile gaming.

The days of client side Java are clearly drawing to an end (if they weren't already there).

What are all of your next-step plans?

I'm focusing on ultra-light dumb-clients for my games, that can easily be rewritten in flash/html5/iphoneOS/whatever.  I plan on sticking with Java on the server-side.

Webstart isn't a viable deployment strategy. When I tried it over facebook, only 40% of users were able to launch my game.

If your game is deployed as a downloaded application, build a stable updater that does what you describe. Then use classloaders to launch your app.

The advice given about Vista is spot on.  I just have the patcher sit in the applications folder, and download the entire game to a folder in their documents tree and run it from there.

Applets aren't bad, but they have an annoying habit of caching old files.  I've yet to find a setting that will reliably force browsers to update it.

Making a game is fun for about two weeks.

Then it becomes rewarding hard work for about two months.

Then pain begins. Burnout sets in, and you'll start to hate the game and wonder if there are better ways to spend your time.

My advice is: make a game you will finish.  If you don't think you can survive the burnout phase, build something you can finish in two months.  Once you've completed it, the satisfaction justifies all the suffering, but when you're on the road you'll have to keep reminding yourself that believe it.

I've recently deployed my game Zatikon to facebook.  Previously, the game used a downloaded installer bundled  with a jre, but the world of facebook has forced me into the scary world of applets and webstart.

My first attempt was using deployJava.js with createWebStartLaunchButton. Only ~10% of users who visited were able to successfully launch my game.

Next, I used deployJava.js to only check the java version and prompt a new JRE installation, and used a regular html anchor to launch my jnlp file.  This improved the success rate to about 40%.

Frustrated with webstart, I abandoned it and created an applet version, again using deployJava.js's java detection and a traditional <APPLET> html tag.  Now my success rate has reached ~65%.

Anyone know any tricks or techniques I can use to bump this higher?

You have to create a subclass and override the draw methods.

From my own testing, you can safely override display but overriding paint prevents the GLCanvas from functioning.

I don't recommend using GLJPanel. I've gotten comparable performance using software rendering.

Does the applet version work: http://dev.catluck.com/launch.html

And if that doesn't work, these two might:
http://dev.catluck.com/launch2.html
http://dev.catluck.com/launch3.html

Launching as an applet might fix the blank screen bug:

http://dev.catluck.com/launch.html

I haven't played EV since the 90's, but I may have subconsciously remembered the choice of music.

If I tell you the controls, I can't test how intuitive they are

Handling your game in a single thread is fine, as long as you don't perform any operations that block.

I've got <property name="sun.java2d.noddraw" value="true"/> within my jnlp file.

Heya,

I've got a compatibility issue with my game ( http://dev.catluck.com/launch.jnlp ) where an XP system with an Intel GPU refuses to draw anything on a GLCanvas. No exceptions are thrown, the game engine runs, but the GLCanvas is blank.

On these systems, I also can't run any JOGL2 demo found on their new website. This isn't surprising though, since I used one of their demos as my template.

Anyone have any insight into this? I've done a number of debugging experiments and several hours of google searching to no avail.

edit: I should also mention that I've successfully run my game on the same hardware running Ubuntu and OSX.

I ran into that blank window problem on the xp asus nettops at my work. I can reproduce this problem with any jogl2 demo on these machines.

Has anyone successfully run it in XP?

Great engine! I retrofitted my game with it in under an hour.

Maybe I didn't see it while scanning the documentation at turbo speed, but I couldn't figure out where to place the sounds in my jar until I looked at how your helicopter demo was built.

I implemented Paul Lamb's sound system, which at the very least has greatly improved the sound quality. Have the crashes gone away?

Those crashes are from the sounds launching their own threads to play in (which is probably a really bad idea).

I'm also cross developing an Android client, but it needs more tuning.

http://dev.catluck.com/launch.jnlp

This is another symptom of an overall branding failure by Sun.

I'm not sure if they realize that Java is, for the vast majority of users, the only face they see of Sun Microsystems.

What message does Java give? It's a mysterious software package that the user never directly invokes, but supposedly gives them access to other programs. During installation, it tries to trick them into installing other software. When they search for it, they're confronted with a creepy, eyeless mascot that shares a nickname with feces.

My game uses a modular rules engine, and I've been thinking about porting it to other platforms, or even running it as JavaScript from within Java. The only parts of the API it uses is java.util.Vector and java.util.Stack.

I was experimenting with Java2Script, but this looks even better.

Has anyone tried using this?

Aside from who plays first, the initial conditions for the two players in chess completely mirror each other, so the comparison isn't relevant.

The kind of game the OP is discussing involves unalterable differences in the initial condition, like the race choice and placement on the map.

In a game like Chess, the player begins the game with all the resources they'll ever have. Modern RTS games involve investing in distinct, divergent paths. If this content isn't relatively balanced, the "best path" will be quickly solved reducing the amount of playable competitive content to that subset. If the differences between the paths are simple enough for their balance to be provable on paper, they're not complex or divergent enough to be interesting.

Your plan sounds great.

Keep in mind, ideas during the 0th design iteration (preproduction) suck compared to the ones you'll have after a month of playing your game.

I'll be there at JavaOne this year.

Game Name
Zatikon

Platform requirements
Low end Win/Mac. Linux performance is a big sluggish.

Description
Online turn based strategy game, a mix between chess and a collectible card game.

Screenshot(s)
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_1.jpg
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_2.jpg
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_3.jpg
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_4.jpg
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_5.jpg
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_6.jpg
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_7.jpg
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_8.jpg
http://www.chroniclogic.com/image/zatikon/zat_9.jpg

Developer's Name
Gabe Jones & Chronic Logic

JNLP Link
http://zatikon.com/zatikon.jnlp

Download Links
Windows
http://s159260531.onlinehome.us/demos/zatikon.msi
Mac
http://s159260531.onlinehome.us/demos/zatikon.dmg

Your game will never be balanced. If you can prove it is, the game isn't complex enough to be very interesting.

To get as close as you can, you can use design tools like charts or stat costs to make good guesses, but "proof" only comes out of exhaustive play testing. Log everything your players do, and have the ability to break down the data in a lot of different ways.

Being totally free of bias in making balance decisions is difficult. Don't lock yourself into any system of thinking. If something sucks or is overpowered, have the emotional discipline to take a step back and admit it and make necessary changes.

Either master your own game, or keep a hawk's eye on everything the players who master it do.

Be prepared to constantly update your game, even after release.

And lastly, and most importantly: be prepared to disagree with everyone.

I love autocompletion and refactoring tools, but the "project" abstraction annoys me. There are decent single document based editors like ScITE, but I'm faster on a command line, so I only use them for big copy-pastes or find-and-replaces.

Plus, I love being able to ssh to my home computer from my phone and edit code.