I've uploaded a new version with a minor change, but I have no idea if it works now. If not, I guess F5 will have to do the restart job.
I'v also tested the game under Damn Small Linux but there I couldn't reproduce the bug either.

Edit:
@Christopher
I've also tried to make the counter large for the last seconds, but unfortunately it didn't fit in the remaining space and now with only 2 days left I don't want to mess up the code too much^^ But still thanks for the idea

I'm still not sure what the problem is but I might have an idea. On Sunday or Monday I should be able to try fixing it, I hope I'll find the bug in the few days that are left^^

Edit:
Oh, and one more question: Which OS do you have?

Hmm, that's weird. Unfortunately I can't reproduce the bug. Does it happen all the time? What happens if you press Escape (during the game to abort it) and then R?
Since I'm on vacation right now, I don't have the possibility to change anything, but I'll see what I can do when I return in a couple of days.

@Christopher
If I have the space left I'll test how it looks

@jimeowan
Blonde Redhead? I actually hadn't heard of them until today^^ An inspiration for the title was rather the Battlestar Galactica episode 33. But gameplay-wise I wanted something between 20 and 25 seconds, so I chose 23 because it's prettiest of those numbers^^

@Nate
Aargh, I just got 434060 points, so close xD And I lost all my lives in a row too.

By the way: if anyone else posts his highscore I'll make a list in the first post

OK, I think this is the best I can get: 131



It's quite surprising how challenging this game can be, even without any other challenge beside the timer

134 seconds Now I'm satisfied^^
Old Highscore (134)
What I was wondering though: Is there always the same amount of wood on the planet right at the beginning? Because it seems to me as if some times there would be a bit more than other times.

I've tried it many times, but it's always something around 150. This is the best I've got:
Old Highscore (147s)
I guess I have to change my strategy^^ But I have absolutely no idea, how you can get close to 116...

My record right now: 168 seconds 

Really cool game Perfect controls, charming graphics and it feels very polished. The only thing I'm missing is some kind of conflict (beside the timer). Too bad you don't have space left for fights.

And at first I had troubles too finding the other planets^^ Although I assumed it had something to do with the direction of the rocket. So some hint would be a good idea in my opinion

What a awesome mix of old arcade games. Great job
But I agree with the people saying that it lacks an end. Especially because for me the AI was perfectly balanced, so it would have been a tight match.

Very cool game
And the space monster is much less frustrating now. The only thing I was wondering about: Sometimes I have one star that produces red instead of green ships. Bug or feature?^^

@Nate
Hehe, sorry, I hope it's consoling enough that right now nobody is coming close to your highscore^^
By the way: If I'm looking at your screenshot I'm really wondering if it was worth spending so much time on the background

@sproingie & ra4king
If I used an ArrayList, then I'd start with a certain min. capacity (let's say 4000 bullets), use that like a fixed array and only change the array size dynamically if someone is going over that limit (of course, also possible by manually reallocating a fixed array, but this needs more code). Adding/removing every bullet from the ArrayList that appears/disappears would be a performance killer I guess (since this happens very often). A LinkedList wouldn't work very good either in this situation.
But right now I have still a few bytes left, so if I won't add anything else I'll use those to check against the array size and avoid that the game crashes (I strongly assume that with 8000 bullets on the screen, you won't realize if there are a couple of them missing in a pattern^^).

As someone who's mostly programming in C++ (I hope you can say that on this forum^^), I'm used to do things on a lower level and as memory efficient as possible, so I prefer to use arrays instead of ArrayLists, etc. (although with a simple game like this there would of course be practically no differences in the performance, but well, it's a habit)

With enough testing things like that shouldn't happen. But in this case I just estimated the number at the beginning and later never tested how close you could actually get to it. My fault^^

Wow, you Sir, have my respect. You actually caused an overflow on my bullet stack... which was made to hold 2000 bullets! I didn't expect anyone to survive 2000 bullets at once on the screen...
Well, I've increased the array size to 8000 now. I hope you won't freeze it again

@ReBirth
I love the Touhou games, so of course that was an inspiration^^

Really cool game. Even if there isn't much to do, it's still quite fun to watch the chain reactions. And I managed level 20 faster than I would have expected after the first try^^

But I agree, the right sound effects could add a nice touch to the game.

Oh, you're right, I actually had a wrong number in the code, so that the shown countdown was half a second ahead of the actual countdown. It's fixed now, thanks.

Releasing a bomb immediately is an ineresting tactic, because I always tried to herd as many enemies as possible and thus make use of the multiplier. Your method has the advantage that it's easier to survive, but in average you get less points per enemy because the multiplier isn't used as much (my highscore's 277,800 by the way).

And to explain the multiplier a little bit further: For every bomb you release, the multiplier starts at 1. A single enemy is worth only 100 points. But with every enemy you destroy your multiplier gets doubled (this goes up to 64). So starting from the 7th enemy you destroy at once, you get 6400 points for every additional one.

I'd also like to have sound in it, but unfortunately I don't have enough space left. Besides I got to admit, that I have never done anything with generated sounds yet^^

Very cool game, managed to get down to -6, but there I didn't survive too long^^
I really like the graphics and all the different enemies. And the game feels very polished

At first the graphics for the ships were only placeholders and I wanted to give those too a 16-Bit look later. But after some time I thought that they didn't look that bad after all and so I decided that it might be an interesting mix, to have 8-Bit ships with a 16-Bit background and bullets.

Besides, the ship simply reminded me too much of Space Invaders (which I love), so I just couldn't part with it^^

Really cool game. The controls were a bit weird in the beginning and when I jumped I often didn't reach the spot that I wanted (and instead landed right in front of a guard, hehe^^) but once you're used to them they're OK

Pretty cool idea and I really like the graphics.
Unfortunately so far I've only managed to survive 1 minute, but still the game didn't feel unfair. OK, sometimes you get a bad position to start so you'll only survive a few seconds, but maybe this isn't a problem once you know the map.

Many thanks for the comments

@pjt33
Oh, right, I actually made the ship invincible for 2 seconds but forgot to show it. It's now blinking during that time.

And I was also able to add some particles flying away if you graze a bullet.

Thanks for the feedback. Especially because I couldn't decide whether or not I should include such a countdown and thus waited to see what other people think^^ I've added it now.

And yes, dodg'em up/dodge sim describes it pretty well.

Hey guys,

since last year was really fun, I decided to enter the contest again and well, here's my game:
23 Seconds



It's a shoot'em up with the only difference, that you can't really shoot. You can only bomb. And your bomb needs 23 seconds to reload.


[size=12pt]Highscore List:[/size]

1. Nate - 437 620
2. jimeowan - 144 560
(Developer's score: 434 060)


Instructions:
Arrows: Move
X/Space: Bomb
Z/Y: Speed up
Left Shift: Slow down

You can score by destroying as many enemies as possible at once, grazing bullets and collecting items. Right now I don't have much space less, but I haven't really tried to compress it further, therefore I should be able to get a couple of bytes more out of it. So I'm open to any feedback and suggestions to improve it

Ah, I'm glad to hear that it runs on a Mac

About the controls: I wanted to give it a slight "low-gravity-feeling" so it might feel a bit weird at the beginning. If it's too hard to get used to it I might consider to make it more usual.
But what exactly do you mean with the mid-air boost? Because a double jump is possible right now, so you can jump once more when you're in the air. I've just tried to add another jump but then it gets too easy. I could practically jump straight upwards all the time and cleared it in 60 seconds.

Thanks for all the comments

@Morre
Yeah, I tried to make the black squares a little bit prettier but in the end I found the simple black design better, so I left it that way^^

@teletubo
That's good, 30 fps is what it's supposed to run at. First I had it at 60 but my netbook didn't manage that and so I was glad when I realized that it runs smooth enough at 30 fps too.

Thanks for the comment.
Yeah, there might be some situations where you fall unintentionally through a block (jumping right before one or falling down at full speed) but I had this problem extremely rarely so I didn't fix it.
But if you're holding to the border of a block you can jump upwards, away from it or, well, "through" it. So if it's that what you mean it's not a glitch, it's a feature

And about z/y: OK, that's probably out of habit since I play mostly shoot'em ups on the computer and there z/y is the standard key for shooting. Besides I like that position since you can have your hands further apart.

Hey everybody,

so, here's my first 4k game. And what should I say, it was a great experience developing a game with this limitation
I hope you enjoy it and that everything works fine.

Description:
Like every morning you got up too late and missed your bus.
With the sole difference that today the bus wasn't your schoolbus but one of thousands of space-arks used to evacuate the Earth
after Martians attacked it to filch all the trees since they ran out of them on Mars once wooden furniture became the latest trend.
So grab your hoverboard and climb up the falling debris of destroyed spaceships to catch up your ark.

Instructions:
LEFT/RIGHT: Move
Z/Y: Jump
DOWN: Fall faster
Double jump and wall jump possible.

http://www.49-6-dev.net/md4k.htm

Amazing water effects and good gameplay too. It's nice how the alligators look at you, although this makes it even more heartbreaking to run over them.

Very cool game.
But I agree that the controls are a bit too sensitive, even if it's kinda fun to rush through the cavern like a bunny after eating a basket of chili peppers.

Awesome game. Feels very smooth and just great as you go faster and faster.
And I really like the birds and the breaking glass effects.