runs a bit slow here, guess the mass of System.out.println()'s don't help performance.

Does use a lot of cpu, but does run for me.
I found it easy, boss was no challenge but guessing this is only the start... Keep up the good work.

Totally unplayable here.  It just continually jumps around all over.

Windows XP Pro
Java v1.6.0_06

Added new controls.

Cool graphics, but like the above, mouse aiming is weird since the bullet doesn't go where you click.

I like the way there's no security dialog and it just works. How did you do the blur etc? Just using java2D?

Great work,
Keith

added in new enemies, and made endboss not suck.

It worked for me, but it was quite jerky. I recommend you try one of the openGL bindings if you would like to get smooth vector gfx. I also had the mouse deviation problem. The control system is unusual but interesting -- you should persevere with it. I am not sure what the blur is trying to achieve, it just seems to confuse things.

cheers

josh

Cut health by 1/4th.

I can conferm the aiming. It's a bug I've been after for weeks now.  someday it WILL be fixed.
Also, I will be adding the power up notification to the next version.

The first time I played this was on my work computer.  Now that I have played it at home the playability has improved a bit.  However I think the biggest performance hit is having all those ghost trails for everything.  It really makes the game hard to follow.

You might want to scale everything down a bit too.  With the size of my ship and tha bad guys, the control system makes it hard to not run into everything.

Runs a bit too slowly to be playable (Ubuntu Linux, Java 1.6.0_10, old Athlon XP 2600+). I'm not a big fan of the controls, they feel awkward somehow, but perhaps it just needs some time to sink in.. As for the graphics, nothing wrong with using vector/line graphics, but I think you should pay some attention to the choice of colors. A more consistent color scheme would make the game look nicer. Currently some of the color choices contradict each other and it looks more amateurish than it actually is.. But if the graphics are just place holders -- ignore everything I just said.

Whaaaa?

yeah, that is one reason why he wanted to switch to opengl.

... You need to fix the mouse aiming. Should be your priority.

Otherwise the game idea is good, but still need some tweaking on the gameplay. While the blur might be a cool visual effect it doesn't help the gameplay, much rather the opposite.

So overall I would say this has a good potential. Good luck.

Nice start!  I died fairly quickly, but it ran okay on my computer, at least until things got crowded.  The blur is probably causing some of the slowdown, but I suspect some other graphics slowdowns lurking somewhere.  In any case, I think it's worth seeing how it runs/plays without the blur, I agree it gets a bit distracting, and not in a more typical Robotron-clone manner.

One suggestion: try playing with the color scheme a bit.  Yellow/red is a tricky combo to make work, I don't think it's probably the best choice for a retro shooter, especially when you've got blues as well.  You might also want to rethink the stroked polygons - single pixel non-AA strokes tend to look pretty bad, see if you can figure out how to get them anti-aliased (depends how you're drawing), and it will be an improvement.  If that's not feasible, you might consider leaving them out or doing something else to add graphical interest to the ships

...then again, I'm saying this after spending too many hours fighting with my iPhone to hack anti-aliased fat lines by texture mapping (no AA line support on the chip, alas), so maybe I'm a bit too focused on smooth lines at the moment to be taken seriously...