Burning Man

[SquashMonster]

http://www.java4k.com/index.php?action=games&method=view&gid=302

Here's my second submission for the year, near the last minute.  I hope you like it.

[StephR]

This is just crazy, funny and very well done ! From where did you get the idea ?

[TFRC]

VERY cool!

I don't like the controls so much though--too easy to change direction in the air. Makes it hard to judge jumps.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Momoko_Fan]

Yeah its really awesome but I would like the controls to be a little smoother/ more responsible. Right now they feel a bit delayed.

[SquashMonster]

StephR:  Thanks!  I had this heat distortion code lying around, and I realized that I could cram that into a 4k game.  So I was looking for game ideas where there's lots of fire, then there was this idea that you were on fire, and the rest came from there.  It started with just wood/water/stone, most of the special objects came from me trying to figure out what would be needed to add the most depth to the game.

TFRC: Thanks!  That's the first time I've ever heard of someone wanting less in-air control, heh.  Hopefully it's not bad enough to stop you from finishing the game.  The only part of the controls that I don't like, personally, is that you fall as soon as half your body goes off an edge.

Momoko_Fan: Thanks!  The controls should be instant, but the entire game is probably lagging.  The heat distortion effect is pretty rough on a computer.  It's almost unplayable on my laptop if I'm not plugged in.

[Ranger]

I get:

1   2

load: class F.class not found. java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: F.class

I noticed on the Java4K site, if you update your description, you must also reupload your pack200 file, otherwise you get that error.

[SquashMonster]

I'm not getting that error.  Can someone else confirm it before I re-upload and potentially disqualify myself?

[Nate]

Yep I get that error. :/

[CommanderKeith]

Cool game, very fun and creative level layouts!

It took me a while to figure out how the blow-up boxes worked.

Particle effect graphics are really nice too 

[Nate]

Win!

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Eli Delventhal]

Wonderful fun, very creative levels and great gameplay. This is going to be a good contender for a top place this year.

[Alan_W]

Original and dynamic fun 

[steveyO]

Like it.. Cool gameplay.. One of the best so far!!  Didn't manage to figure out the tactics behind the first bomb level, but managed to somehow complete it..

[Abuse]

Cool game, though runs like a lame dog on my netbook.

[TheAnalogKid]

What a fantastic and cool game! Very original too. A small issue for me is the level difficulty which might be too hard but I didn't play for long time.

How do you generate the fire? And the floor tiles? Do you mind sharing this?

[SquashMonster]

Thanks everyone!

Answering questions...

The second bomb level (most common place people get stuck on) is really simple.  I recommend just wasting a few lives poking around and figuring out what does what.  You're probably making your job more complicated than it really is.  Actually, that applies to most of the hard levels.  Only a handful really require precision, if you figure out the tricks.

The fire is a simple particle system; particles cycle through an array of images I've generated ahead of time.  Each image is a color fading to transparent in a circle pattern.  The fire particles have a random direction and velocity, with the velocity skewed to be faster if their direction is up.  The particles all slow down by just multiplying their speed by some constant.

The floor tiles:
Stone is a bunch of randomly sized circles in a clever color palette.
Wood is a brown, then two passes of stripes are drawn with y varying pixel-by-pixel to get the grain texture.
Acid and water are just solid transparent colors.
The bombs are... complicated.  It's a lot of math and per-pixel stuff.

The background is drawn using a giant heap of math.  I started out with a spiral, which is (cosine of arctan of angle to center)+(distance to center) with constants added.  Then my girlfriend played with it a bit and I have no clue what she did to the spiral.  Then I took every pixel and multiplied it by some value based on how close to a diamond pattern it is, so there'd be a consistent texture to make the heat distortion more obvious.  In retrospect I would've preferred if that diamond pattern was a bit more pronounced; one of my older (uglier) ones did a better job of showing off the heat distortion.

How the heat distortion effect works will have to wait until after judging.  I want to leave a little bit of mystery until then .

[DzzD]

awesome !

[icza]

Very fun and creative! Congratz!

[Markus_Persson]

I gave this game another try and got really hooked. Very nice game!

[Gudradain]

Yup nice game. I finally beat the 2 wood tower at the end

[kappa]

just noticed this game on the front page of reddit

http://www.reddit.com/r/WebGames/comments/bbyjq/burning_man_youre_on_fire_you_had_better_fix_that/

nice job

[SquashMonster]

DzzD, Gudradain: Congrats.  Don't get too cocky though, I might release a pack of levels I rejected because they were too damn hard  .  Or I can at least release the level editor.

Markus Persson: I was wondering why my number of downloads doubled overnight, then I saw that it was on your blog.  Thanks!

kapta: Yeah, a friend insisted that I post it.  I didn't realize quite how many downloads it'd get me though, I might have to go post BugWar too so it doesn't get jealous.

[icza]

I found the levels challenging enough, ofc I passed all.

Can you release those "hard" levels outside of the 4k competition? It's fun to play this game.

[appel]

WINNER 2010!!! EXCELLENT GAME!!!

Here's your reward

[TheAnalogKid]

Well done SquashMonster! 

A great reward would be to have great publicity on big sites such as articles and interviews.

[SquashMonster]

Thank you, everyone.

[appel]

Did you ever get around to making a "beyond 4k" version of the game?

[CyanPrime]

Daemon reference?

--SPOILERS FOR DAEMON-----
There's a character in Daemon called Roy Marret, and he ends up running through Mathew Sobal's Mansion on fire and gets nicknamed The Burning Man.





---END SPOILERS---
Was this game inspired by that?

[SquashMonster]

CyanPrime - Nope, never even heard of it.  The actual process behind the game's concept goes something like this:

Me: Hey, I have this really sweet fire effect, and I bet it would be easy to port to a 4k environment.  Hey Ben, what's good excuse for a game to have tons and tons of fire?
Ben: What if you are on fire?
Me: Oh man, you could like... burn through wooden platforms.  It'd be great.

Appel - Sorry I took half a year to respond; I made that "Game of the Year Edition" version but that was actually 4k again.  I might go make a full version.  A friend and I are starting up a business, so there might be a full version for Android sometime in the next few months.