Alien Flux Alpha Test 3

[princec]

Once again, at http://www.shavenpuppy.com/downloads/jarbuild/alienflux.jnlp

More displaymode fixes. OpenAL might still not work for Toby. It won't for Elias either, because he hasn't actually got a soundcard in the machine he tested it on

The next person who asks for keyboard control is going to get a mouse up hi

Cas

[jbanes]

The next person who asks for keyboard control is going to get a mouse up hi

Here's a thought:  if gamers are asking for keyboard control, maybe your customers will too? And what are those poor saps on single button Macs supposed to do? (First thing I'll change if I ever get one...)

BTW, a pause function would be nice as well.  

[princec]

Your wish is my command A pause button will be appearing soon.

And I will be putting an option to redefine the keys - including the mouse buttons for those with Macs and learning difficulties .

By the way, quoth my wife a few minutes ago:

I can't believe what pussies those blokes on the internet must be

She got to level 3 on her first go just now.

And remember, she's just a girl.

I'm going to slow down the player ship 20% and reduce its acceleration by half; and I'm adding 20% to the jelly mutation duration. Does anyone think I need a mouse sensitivity slider control on the options screen?

Edit: 10 mins later - adjustments made. 28kb download. Hurrah for webstart. You probably need to run it twice still though for some reason. Boo for webstart.

Cas

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

[jbanes]

Oh yeah?! Well... well... I'll bet my wife could beat up your wife! (Or at least make better Chinese!)

Seriously tho. The game is a lot of fun the way it is. I was just pointing out that you want to make sure it's as close to perfect as possible if you want people to separate from their hard earned cash.

BTW, did you see my comment on the thread in "Business Discussions"? I'm betting that with a few more games like this one, you could easily go to a subscription model and then contract with other game programmers to bring their games on-board. If it works out, you wouldn't even need to make new games! All the other "garage game companies" will be pounding on your door to be included in your distribution model. (Where's the smiley with dollar signs when you need it?)

P.S. I be careful mentioning your wife that way. Mine would kick my ass if I said "she's just a girl".

[augusto]

Yes on mouse sensitivity.

I tried Alpha 2 and seems to work on my desktop.

With the latest one, I'm getting this:

Java Web Start 1.2 Console, started Fri Mar 21 17:37:41 EST 2003

Java 2 Runtime Environment: Version 1.4.1_02 by Sun Microsystems Inc.

Logging to file: C:\Documents and Settings\Augusto\Desktop\webstartlog.txt

Failed to reserve AGP ram.

org.lwjgl.openal.OpenALException: Unable to load function pointers to openal.

     at org.lwjgl.openal.BaseAL.nCreate(Native Method)

     at org.lwjgl.openal.BaseAL.create(BaseAL.java:77)

     at com.shavenpuppy.jglib.openal.AL.<init>(AL.java:122)

     at xap.Game.init(Game.java:386)

     at xap.Game.main(Game.java:229)

     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)

     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)

     at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)

     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.continueLaunch(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleApplicationDesc(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleLaunchFile(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Unknown Source)

     at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:536)


I have a PII 400 Win2K (serv pck 3) 256M with an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420. AGP 2x 64MB, Direct X 8.1

[ap_kelly]

Still can't get it to work using Web start, the screen switch res a few times then returns back to the desktop. However, if I grab the jar files from web start and run them myself using a bat file, everything works fine.

Excellent work!

Andy.

[princec]

Hehe, my wife did karate when she was younger* and could beat me up! She reads everything on these forums though so she's aware of my musing...

Once A.F.'s out the door I'll be all too keen to publish other peoples' games So get writing. And make sure they're even more brilliant than A.F. is I've got 3 other games planned (yes, planned and already fully designed) as it is for the next 2 years.

Cas

* she's only 24 mind you**
** yes, I was a cradle snatcher

[princec]

augusto, just copy OpenAL32.dll to your system32 directory wherever that is.

OpenAL32.dll is zipped up in this jar file: http://www.shavenpuppy.com/downloads/jarbuild/OpenAL32.jar


Cas

[princec]

Oh one last thing - the .exe version's been updated too (6Mb) - if you've got a nice speedy connection I'd appreciate it if you tried that version too.

Get it here.

Cas

[elias]

Once again, at http://www.shavenpuppy.com/downloads/jarbuild/alienflux.jnlp

More displaymode fixes. OpenAL might still not work for Toby. It won't for Elias either, because he hasn't actually got a soundcard in the machine he tested it on

Cas

I seriously don't know where it went. It was there a few hours ago, and then *poof* no soundcard to be found. It still doesn't work on 50% of my soundcard bestowed machines, though*.

* make that 33% - AF now now runs on my linux box!

- elias

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

[jbanes]

Hehe, my wife did karate when she was younger* and could beat me up! She reads everything on these forums though so she's aware of my musing...

Ok, fine. I guess I'll have to settle for better Chinese!

* she's only 24 mind you**
** yes, I was a cradle snatcher

Hah! Gotcha beat! Mine's just turning 22 this month!

P.S. My wife is laughing her ass off at the two of us. She thinks we're like a couple of kids.

[rgeimer]

Worked great on my nForce Athlon mb with integrated graphics and audio, though I died too quick. That's what I get for playing with my 1 year old asleep on my shoulder  .

[mill]

Oh one last thing - the .exe version's been updated too (6Mb) - if you've got a nice speedy connection I'd appreciate it if you tried that version too.

it's pretty good. what's in the extra megs? (must be blind or have crappy hearing)

[William]

The 6 meg version immediately posts 'java.lang.NullPointerException' in the console and shows a popup saying that I need a OpenGL compatible card to run the game. I've got a Geforce2MX card with 32 megs of ram and the Java3D OpenGL version runs just fine. Both the lwjgl.dll and the openal.dll have been deposited in both the windows/system and windows/system32 folders (I'm on Win98, 1.33 Ghz Athlon processor, 256 meg ram).

[princec]

Agh! Get those dlls out of your system32 directory! They shouldn't ever go there*! Delete them! Find them all and deletel them!

I have no idea what's in the extra megs A tweak here, a tweak there...

Before anyone tells me, I've found a few bugs myself already:

1. If you die and the game ends during a jelly incursion, the jellies continue to incur when you start a new game

2. If the game ends with a screen shake in progress it continues to shake when you start a new game

3. Yes, I know about the fact the light shoots off to 0,0 just after you die

4. During the invulnerability flashing your shields are ineffective and you can't pick up powerups.

5. When all your Blobs have died, on the next level all the Bubbles should in fact be Jellies. But you weren't to know.

Cas

* Actually OpenAL should but only if you install it properly from the OpenAL redistribution package

[oNyx]

The 6 meg version immediately posts 'java.lang.NullPointerException' in the console and shows a popup saying that I need a OpenGL compatible card to run the game. I've got a Geforce2MX card with 32 megs of [...]

same here. the 2 other versions worked. webstart and the latest zip version show me that msg :]

[princec]

Aha, if Webstart's doing it too, could you please grab a log of the stack trace and post it?

Cas

[William]

The webstart version ends with the same result (except that I never get to see the console). There really is no stack trace posted in the console of the 6 meg version, only the the line 'java.lang.NullPointerException'.

Btw, the webstart install goes really quick (on 2.5 mbps adsl) and smooth. I guess not everyone can be expected to have Webstart 1.2 already installed though.

[princec]

You can enable a log file and console output in Webstart by running Webstart and finding the preferences menu.

Cas

[princec]

Oh by the way - anyone with either SPGL or LWJGL in their lib\ext dir may possibly have some trouble, as well as those with dlls in their system32 directory.

Cas

[cfmdobbie]

As previously mentioned, the only GeForce box I own is Win98SE.

I've had no luck getting any versions to work on that box yet - any idea what I can do about it?  I'm now downloading nVidia's 41.09 drivers.  Got any other ideas what might help?

[darcone]

Hmm.. the .exe version (alpha 1) worked just fine, webstart version won&acute;t start at all .

Geforce ti4200 AMD Tbird 1.4

[William]

Ok, here's the stack trace:
java.lang.NullPointerException
     at com.shavenpuppy.jglib.Display.getAvailableDisplayModes(Display.java:49)
     at xap.Game.init(Game.java:359)
     at xap.Game.main(Game.java:229)
     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
     at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324)
     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Unknown Source)
     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Unknown Source)
     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.continueLaunch(Unknown Source)
     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleApplicationDesc(Unknown Source)
     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleLaunchFile(Unknown Source)
     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Unknown Source)
     at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:536)

[WVM]

The webstart version worked right away here, even though I have LWJGL installed. ( I have the dll's in java\bin instead of \system)

It's a fun game, this page was loading so slow I just took another shot at it! Yeah! I saw some new black sludge thingy . Which killed me right away

If you'll take em, a few remarks about the game

- a small sound that plays when the game is done loading
- a sound (when seeing the menu) that plays when the mouse enters a button, so the button acknowledges it can be pressed.
 Right now you have new game blinking All the time like I just selected that already.
 So, when you rattle the mouse over the buttons without pushing any, you hear a lot of button thumping.
- pressing Esc bringing me back to the menu instead of ending the game.
- not double checking for 32 bit if it is already selected,
 at least I think that is why going back from options to main menu is taking as long as the First time selecting 32 bit. Which for me, is
 about 8 seconds. This might become annoying if you display the buttons there also, and I'm checking which one is which again.
- aiming is a bit funny, I feel like I have to shoot just behind_ something.

Question : is the smart bomb the only way to get rid of those yellow bubble gunners when they're tailing you?
They are quite impossible to escape from when they are RIGHT behind you, and you can't turn to fire anymore.
Maybe you have some flying backwards option which I didn't find.

Which brings me to the next question, how do you fire a smart bomb?

[elias]

I think it's space that fires the smartbomb. You could also use the shields with left shift.

- elias

[princec]

When you are a Jedi, like me, you will simply scurry away from the Jellies and flip the mouse back and fire off a few rounds at them. It's just like playing QuakeWorld, except overhead

I'll put some sounds in the GUI one of these days but it's not so important right now. ESC is still a kill-it-quick option for debugging but will ultimately end the current game.


Moments later: awwwww, maaaaaan, I've just found the bloody bug and guess what I can blame it on my Danish minions! There's a huge bug in Win9x display mode determination. Fixed now. A special LWJGL dll is available on the site. Just unzip it over the top of the old one. The full distribution and Webstart have also been updated.

Cas

[bedelf]

I don't really want to read through this thread but in case this is useful to you, it pooped:

Java Web Start 1.2 Console, started Sat Mar 22 20:58:45 PST 2003

Java 2 Runtime Environment: Version 1.4.1_02 by Sun Microsystems Inc.

Reserved 8388608 bytes of AGP RAM

org.lwjgl.openal.OpenALException: Unable to load function pointers to openal.

     at org.lwjgl.openal.BaseAL.nCreate(Native Method)

     at org.lwjgl.openal.BaseAL.create(BaseAL.java:77)

     at com.shavenpuppy.jglib.openal.AL.<init>(AL.java:122)

     at xap.Game.init(Game.java:386)

     at xap.Game.main(Game.java:229)

     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)

     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)

     at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)

     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.continueLaunch(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleApplicationDesc(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleLaunchFile(Unknown Source)

     at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Unknown Source)

     at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:536)

[oNyx]

[...]A special LWJGL dll is available on the site. Just unzip it over the top of the old one.[...]

yea that helped. works now again

[princec]

Cool.
Bedelf thanks for having a go - try downloading the AlienFlux.zip  instead (now 1.5MB smaller!). Webstart's a bit strange with DLLs and Brian's still testing the fix for OpenAL.

Cas

[starlord]

running webstart versio give's me error:

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: <init>         at org.lwjgl.Display.nGetAvailableDisplayModes(Native Method)         at org.lwjgl.Display.getAvailableDisplayModes(Display.java:96)         at com.shavenpuppy.jglib.Display.getAvailableDisplayModes(Display.java:3 6)         at xap.Game.init(Game.java:359)         at xap.Game.main(Game.java:229)         at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)         at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl. java:39)         at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAcces sorImpl.java:25)         at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324)         at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Launcher.java:768)         at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Launcher.java:730)         at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.continueLaunch(Launcher.java:615)         at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleApplicationDesc(Launcher.java:342)         at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.handleLaunchFile(Launcher.java:167)         at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Launcher.java:135)

but that's lwjgl problem i downloaded 0.5 and Display.getDisplayMode() return's array of size 0

running amd 1.2, gf4, suse 8.1