HungerGamesBoardGame

[Sammidysam]

Current Version: Version 1.1.0 Pre-Release

Introduction made in August when I first made the thread.
Hello everyone!  This is my first game game that I'd like to show to everyone.  I started working on it in late April I think, and I started learning Java in February 2012.  I feel like with my age (13) and experience so far that this is pretty good, but I'm not sure.  I haven't seen a huge amount of other games.  If you see any bugs or crashes, please report them to me, and I will fix them.  The controls are mainly mouse clicking, except for some buttons on the keyboard to advance in menus or add items to your inventory.  The keys to add stuff to your inventory are 1-0 on the keyboard (no numpad), and q and w.  I use TinySound as my sound library.  I got rid of the features list because it was extremely long and most things said are pretty basic anyway.  Besides all of that, enjoy the game!

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/Sammidysam/HungerGamesBoardGame

This game was finished on November 2, 2012.

Here are some screenshots (taken in Pre-release V0.4):





To-Do List/Bug List:
None!

Change Log:
http://sammidysam.github.com/HungerGamesBoardGame/changelog.txt

System Requirements (as far as I know, could be true or false):
To play game:
Java 7 or higher
To have music/sounds:
Java 7 Update 7 or higher

Game Launcher Download: http://sammidysam.github.com/HungerGamesBoardGame/Launcher.jar
Soundtrack Download: http://sammidysam.github.com/HungerGamesBoardGame/Soundtrack.zip

To get playing:
Double-click on launcher
Click yes when it prompts you to update (clicking no will result in no game being launched because it must be downloaded first)

[Jimmt]

To be sure, that is one long-ass explanation.  

Anyways, I guess it's a pretty decent first game(ish), but you need to either get an artist or work on your image art. I'm 13 also, but decent at artwork. Good work on the tiles, but it's important not to just represent the player with a dot, so I suggest you implement that first. Even 2 generic images for one boy and one girl would be fine. As for multiplayer...unless this is going to be peer to peer, I don't recommend buying servers to host games and whatnot. Because you only started in February, and because of the stage the game is in(no offense, just saying I can sorta tell how good you are) I don't think it's worth it to run servers, try running servers after you get a game that is really good.

[TheCodingUniverse]

I think it's amazing how you've done this with so little knowledge of Java. Good job!

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

[Sammidysam]

To be sure, that is one long-ass explanation. 

Completely true. 

Anyways, I guess it's a pretty decent first game(ish), but you need to either get an artist or work on your image art. I'm 13 also, but decent at artwork. Good work on the tiles, but it's important not to just represent the player with a dot, so I suggest you implement that first. Even 2 generic images for one boy and one girl would be fine. As for multiplayer...unless this is going to be peer to peer, I don't recommend buying servers to host games and whatnot. Because you only started in February, and because of the stage the game is in(no offense, just saying I can sorta tell how good you are) I don't think it's worth it to run servers, try running servers after you get a game that is really good.

I agree with the art.  Really only the sword image looks good, all others are decent, except for the coat which is really bad.  That's my opinion though, I assume to other people only the sword is decent, and all others are really bad.  I'll look into images for the players, but I'm not sure if I can get that to work while maintaining a different color for each character.  I never intended on buying servers for the game, I was hoping that I could program something where a person hosts a game, people join, all remaining slots become computers, and they play.  I doubt that it'll even be necessary since I doubt many will play this game.

I think it's amazing how you've done this with so little knowledge of Java. Good job!

Thank you

[Jimmt]

@Sammidysam
One person hosting it still requires a server, unless you want the person to host it on their computer, which would be difficult to program for multiple users (imho). But your choice.

[BCoding]

You definitely need to work on tile art. It's just a color square, nothing to look at. But this is very good for your first game.

[Sammidysam]

I have started working on adding enemies.  It's going to be long, hard work.  I probably should've updated to v0.2.2 before I started adding enemies, but I might just pack along some really bad enemy AI in v0.2.2.  Of course, most of the enemy AI will be dumb anyway, based on my coding ability.  I'm really excited to work on the enemy AI more though!

[Sammidysam]

UPDATE!  First one in quite awhile.  I now have music!  The music, even in .ogg format, takes up 30 MB of space, which is pretty annoying.  I will focus on finishing this game and it will hopefully be done around October or November!

[Sammidysam]

Update to v0.3!  Game is now winnable against opponents, but quite hard.  I think the game will be done somewhat soon, but I have no idea when it will be done.

[Sammidysam]

v0.4 is now out.  I have decided to call it Pre-Release v0.4, because it's before the release of the first version.  The game should be done very soon now!

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

[Sammidysam]

Once again, an update.  Right now I feel like this game is almost done, so I am just going to get my friends to play it, bug test it, then as long as all bugs are fixed I will hopefully have the full version done in about a week.  I'm pretty excited.

[Riven]

The work only starts once others are going to play it! Don't give up

[Sammidysam]

Another update.  I found a few bugs throughout my playthroughs, fixed them, and got a new soundtrack for the game.  There are a few changes I want to make before I release the full version, but I really believe that my next update will be the full version.  I also added a download link for the soundtrack, in case any of the songs you liked.

[Sammidysam]

My current update is everything that will be in the final version, but my friends are just doing some quick bug testing before I release the final version.  I'm pretty excited!  

I'd also like to record the game sometime, but Fraps doesn't recognize it as a game (or at least focus on recording it for that matter).  Do you know anything I can do in my code to make Fraps recognize it as a game?  I tried getting Camstudio and it really sucks, and I'd much rather use Fraps.

EDIT: Wow, the bug I've been trying to fix for awhile is just there with old Java versions.  Now I just change my system requirements slightly, and I'll put up the full version in a few hours or tomorrow (my bug testers gotta finish going through the game).

[Sammidysam]

The game is finally done!  Thus, I request a move to the Showcase forum.  I will hopefully update it with a few changes once every 2-3 months or so, as suggestions roll in.  I feel like this is a very good first game, and I'm excited to get onto my second game!

[Riven]

Moved to showcase!

[masteryoom]

@Sammidysam: I hope this isn't offensive, but IT DOES NOT WORK!!   Even after I unzipped it! And all the txt files are in the same folder! Iwas looking forward to the game...  
EDIT: I have Java 7 now 

[Jimmt]

@Sammidysam: I hope this isn't offensive, but IT DOES NOT WORK!!  Even after I unzipped it! And all the txt files are in the same folder! Iwas looking forward to the game... 

Run it through the command line, see what errors/exceptions you get.

[masteryoom]

What's the command line?

[ctomni231]

What's the command line?

It is Command Prompt on Windows, Terminal on Linux and Mac.

[Sammidysam]

I know for a certain that a Java version below 7 will not open the game.  To get the music to load, you need Java 7 Update 7 or higher.  If there is some different error going on, I do not know about it.  If you could run the game through the command line, I would really appreciate it, and while you're at it, check your Java version and make sure it's up to date.

[Apo]

I get the java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space exception but with more heap space it works [tested with -xmx512m].

[masteryoom]

I know for a certain that a Java version below 7 will not open the game.

Oh, I have Java 6 (I think ) or, its not the latest update .

[Sammidysam]

I get the java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space exception but with more heap space it works [tested with -xmx512m].

How much memory was allocated before you added more heap space?  I've done some testing for my game's memory usage and it is quite high.  I'm putting in an efficient garbage collection system for V1.0.1 and after lots of testing I should finish that soon, which will hopefully cause the game to use less memory.

[Jimmt]

Yeah you need to fix that. If big games like BF3 and MW3 don't run out of memory neither should a small game like this.

[Sammidysam]

So as I was working on lowering memory usage, I thought that changing lots of int to byte when necessary would reduce memory usage (heap space).  Is this true?  I looked on Google but didn't get a definitive answer.

[Agro]

A byte is 1 byte and an integer is 4 bytes. 1 byte can go up to 255 value. So yes.

[Jimmt]

Won't make much of a difference, honestly. Fixing the biggest memory leak in your game will probably be more efficient than fixing tons of small ones.

[Sammidysam]

Alright, thank you.  I'll worry about that later then.

[Sammidysam]

I got the memory usage down to about a max value of 343 MB where before it was upwards of 600 MB.  I think this is still a bit high, so I will probably make some more Integers into Bytes when necessary to see if I can lower it more.