I don't know about what failure your code is encountering, but I'm guessing it's a NullPointerException when trying to access the applet Graphics.  For me, it looked like my code was stopping when it encountered the applet not being ready, so nothing was rendered other than the default update() routine.

I agree with that. There were lots of discussions of what is the best template and I couldn't realise which was the final product.

Also, we have several 4k resources spread in different sites, like programming tips, compressor tools, it'd be great if we have everything in the same place. I'd suggest to have everything in java4k.com site. Not sure if it'd be too much work to set a wiki section where we could contribute with documentation.

We could have sections like: Templates (both applets and app (last competitions)), Programming tips, Compressor, Tutorial (could add stuff from http://www.ahristov.com/tutorial/java4k-tips/Visual-effects-index.html), Games (this one we already have) - also in this section we can have a link of the source code of the games whose authors allowed it to be published)

Any other thoughts?

Very good point. I think the templates on this page aren't even Mac OS X -  compatible, so 90% of the games are unplayable. It would be good to get these tested and figure out what actually works for everyone.