It completely breaks if I try to switch over to a applet/webstart

It's not anything bad, I promise 
I guess I also did some pretty bad stuff like using Scanner to read/write text save files though

the button should work if either you or the guard steps on it

A masters (or even just a bachelor's) in CS/CE will almost guarentee a well-paying job after getting out, and if you find out you like that kind of stuff then more power to you.
But for the indie route, let's just say not everyone becomes a notch 

An example would be this: http://staff.washington.edu/shinyy/martygame.html
Sometimes it works fine, other times it freezes and even more weird sometimes the fps goes way out of wack.
Anyway, I was probably going to look into learning how to do that or possibly switching to flash(though I probably shouldn't talk about that here should I?  )

try stepping on the button
if thats not working then dear lord we have a game breaking bug here

A few quick questions here.
How do you do level design and storing of the actual levels for any games that this would apply to?
Do you use some sort of graphical level editor, or do you type out a level in ascii?
Also, what is your process behind designing/testing a level? Do you make it one room at a time and test everything as you go along?

updated with my new website, http://staff.washington.edu/shinyy/


I've actually had a lot of trouble with applets using Slick, lots of bugs, freezing and not working on mac/linux. Any experience with this?

Hi, here is a game I've been working on for a while. It's about finished.




download link:
http://staff.washington.edu/shinyy/SaveThePrincess/SaveThePrincess_V_RELEASE.rar
or
http://www.mediafire.com/?5mgzkbygiuycg9l

and my website: (its pretty fancy)
http://staff.washington.edu/shinyy/

Grats to anyone that can beat it-it's definately on the hard side.
Any comments/suggestions?