Thanks again!


The non-opengl version doesn't require any 3D acceleration, so it generally runs faster.

It is possible that the OpenGL slowness is caused by the TextureRenderer class I'm using.  This translates 2D drawing operations to an OpenGL texture.  I've seen that it runs slowly on some machines.  However, it should only be slow when scrolling.  I tested it on an older apple and noticed it ran at erratic speeds.  It was slow when scrolling but reasonably fast (using 3D acceleration) when not scrolling.

Another possibility is that there's a software fallback problem with wrapping NPOT textures with your card/drivers.  See for example this forum:

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=457993

Here's a version where I disabled use of NPOT altogether:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~borisvs/dingbats-nonpot/dingbats.jnlp


I'll try to fix that.


No, sorry, should have mentioned this.

Thanks for the feedback! 
I should do something about that window, and about the mouse cursor being invisible too much too.  You can also exit immediately using Shift-Esc by the way.
The webstart tip also comes in useful.

Brackeen:

Which version of the games ran slowly on your apple:
the opengl webstart, the non-opengl webstart, or the applets?

Which resolution?  What machine did you run them on?

Ah, accursed performance!     The engine is made to use graphics acceleration even on a 10 year old NetBSD machine running a remote X server, but, oh well, somehow, the surprises never end.  Did anyone notice that a JOGL applet runs slower than a JOGL webstart??  Mine do.  Any ideas why?

Boris van Schooten

My first OpenGL (JOGL) 2D game.
The graphics are made up entirely of typographical ornaments, aka dingbats, and
some web tiles, mixed together with gratuitous blending, fading, zooming, etc.

The game is fully functional but still beta. I've tested it on some different computers
but still need to test more.  I am much interested in any kind of feedback:
does it run smoothly enough, does it run at all,
do you like the graphical effects and the gameplay, etc.




Instructions:

Click to lay markers to blow up the dingbats.
Earn clicks by blowing up multiple dingbats in one go.
Watch out for the alarm timer, if it goes off the dingbats will come after you!

640x480: http://www.13thmonkey.org/~boris/jgame/JGame/dingbats-640x480.jnlp
800x600: http://www.13thmonkey.org/~boris/jgame/JGame/dingbats-800x600.jnlp
1024x768: http://www.13thmonkey.org/~boris/jgame/JGame/dingbats-1024x768.jnlp
fullscreen: http://www.13thmonkey.org/~boris/jgame/JGame/dingbats.jnlp

Boris van Schooten

Well, no, it's definitely not anything like Flash-style scripting, if that's what you mean.  It's also definitely not like a content creation system, where the game mechanics are essentially fixed and the developer basically creates levels and graphics.  It's more or less a regular programming API/engine, in which I'm trying to find the essence of "best practices" in 2D game engines.

I do happen to be interested in ways to create prototype games by basically filling in parameters rather than coding.  I'm trying to implement this on top of the JGame engine (I call it the Gamegen engine).  All I have to show now is a simple Web-based form version which is limited and buggy, but I'm working on a Java version that works by specifying a list of plugins and filling in parameters for each plugin. Right now Gamegen has background generation plugins, object plugins, and event plugins.

Hello everyone,

I have two things to present here, namely a game engine and a collection of games.

I've been working on my own game engine for the purpose of writing 2D "classic" games as quickly and easily as possible.  I started off with 3 example games--that was almost 2 years ago--and by now I have 13.  I am particularly interested in making interesting modifications to classics, or creating original game concepts.  The games are all "casual" games.  The game engine itself is fully documented so it should be quite useable for other game programmers.  It's meant to be a "high level" engine, delegating as much of the "boring but time consuming" (for me at least) part of game programming to the engine, so one can concentrate on the game concept.

You can find the JGame project homepage here:

http://www.13thmonkey.org/~boris/jgame/

The games can be run as applets here:

http://www.13thmonkey.org/~boris/jgame/games.html

Kind regards,
Boris van Schooten