Cave4k

[Damocles]

Here my work in Progress on Cave4k



Its a 3D "Collect+Survive" game, playing on many different locationa of our solar system.
You fly a ship in underground caves, planets and moons.
The goal is to collect energyfields to recharge your hyperdrive, and try to avoid a collision.

Its not optimized yet, but the pack200 archive is within the limits.
Please have a try + some feedback

http://damocles11.byethost9.com/cave4k.html

[SimonH]

I like this! The graphics are really well done.
Cuppla points: The controls are way too twitchy - a short tap on the key swings you a loong way!
You could cheaply add eye candy by having pools of water on the floor - just flatten polys below a certain y and make them dark blue?
Keep going - a bit more polish and this'll be a top contender I reckon.

[Damocles]

The turning is very fast, but on the later levels when the thrust-speed is very high, you need
enough steeringspeed to maneuver. I can try out a slower yaw speed though.

I had water polys before.
Unfortunately the water looks quite  blocky then, as the terrain is build on a regular grid.
And transparent polys drain too much FPS.
Maybe I add some Fog/Smoke and clouds on the outdoor levels.

How is the Performance?
Is the game running smooth enough?
So I can increase the viewdistance then.

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[pjt33]

I couldn't work out what the goal was. Do I have to get the energy bar up to max? Collect n of the glowing things which run away through walls? Find an exit?

[Damocles]

Collect as many Energyparticles as there are slots on the top right corner shown.

When you have enough the ship will "jump" to the next level.

The Energybar drains over time, resulting in the level getting darker.
The energyparticles fill up the energybar. So you should not stay idle for too long.

[jojoh]

Great!

Very cool environment, and it was fun to just fly around a bit. It would be nice with some larger caves. I assume they are just procedurally generated, so splurge on size there if possible. It is too often that the blobs escape outside the play area. 

I think that the turning is OK, but it seems like the ship (or whatever it is) rotates around a point below the viewpoint, and that makes the view jumps a lot when you turn. Rotate around the center of the screen and I think that the turning will be better.

It feels like one should fly a bit lower on the planets.

Really nice game!

[Damocles]

The roll-rotation is actually in the center of the screen, but I have no acceleration-delay in rotation to the side, making it
look different than a classic flightsimulator.
I can try to put a delay in the rotationspeed.

The size of the levels is more a question of performance actually, if it runs smooth on all systems I can add up on
the levelsize.
Right now there are 10.000 polygons to be processed in the first clipping step.
Dont know if the performance will drop noticably with twice as big levels, as my computer is quite fast.

[bainit]

Very nice looking game, keep working:)

Map or radar, to point out where to seek energyparticles , would be helpful.

[moogie]

good work, it even plays quite smoothly on my atom based file server ( my main pc is broken at the moment)

[ra4king]

Great game! I have always wondered how you make these 3D games using Java2D! :S

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[CaptainJester]

Nice job. I was pretty fun.

[Groboclown]

Well done.  The keyboard took a little getting used to, because I'm used to so many of these games using the "WASD" layout.

[Mads]

Great game! I have always wondered how you make these 3D games using Java2D! :S

Psst. Decompile 

[moogie]

decompilation does not really help to understand what is happening in beyond the immediate operations and potentially the preceding few. This is because any helpful comments, variable names, code formatting etc have been stripped to help the entry fit within the 4k limit.

That is, unless, you are able to read such code easily... i cant say i can

[Damocles]

Decompilation/Refactoring of obfuscated code can take as much time as writing the code.

I can upload the source when the all entries for the competition are in.

Its basically good old vector-Math resulting in triangles to draw using Graphics->fillPolygon()
The advantage over the raycasters is the better speed on large screens.
The game should run acceptable even on old machines.

[fruitmaze]

Really nice game! Quite atmospheric. I liked the lighting effect.

[princec]

This is great! Just needs a bit of sound.

Cas

[Fokusas]

This is great! Just needs a bit of sound.

Cas

I agree. It really need some sound effects but I think this is almost impossible because sound files are usually quite big.

[princec]

Synth sounds ftw!

Cas

[Morre]

Very cool stuff! Nice work

[ReBirth]

Nice game! miss the blinking effect on mars level.

[Damocles]

Yes, I took it out for Mars, and 2 other moons/planets
It was supposed to look like an outdoor level, where the elumination is too strong to see the flash.

The energy particles are dark there. to keep the contrast.
(Dark Matter if you want)

[StephR]

Very impressive rendering, and the potential for a really great game. But it is so difficult to catch these energyfields ! It would be better to make the first levels far much easier.