kevin's blog

Toupety - Abraão Isvi

Sat, 17 May 2008 15:30:03 +0000

Abraão Isvi is working on a cool looking platformer in Java. Toupety appears to be the name of a small green blob whose explores caverns with a trust ray gun. Check out the Toupety site for videos and screenshots.

License: Unknown
Developer: Abraão Isvi
Status: Work in Progress

Hydro Hydra - Scarzzurs

Fri, 16 May 2008 20:26:25 +0000

Guide your undersea creature around the Hydro Hydra world absorbing microbes to increase the length of your tail and give you access to upgrades. As the game goes on new enemies attack and dodge you, biting off parts of your tail. The game is certainly reminiscent of Flow in it's gentle graphical and audio style. Try it out and see how beautiful Java 2D can be.

License: Freeware
Developer: Scarzzurs
Status: Complete

Incredibuilder - Jerome Blouin

Fri, 16 May 2008 19:54:16 +0000

Looking at the initial screen shots you might think this is another tetris clone, however with Incredibuilder (webstart) Jerome Blouin seems to be attempting to deliver something different. Your job is to assemble the tetris like pieces into a pattern shown to the left of the screen. You can do this by pushing the falling pieces around or by cutting up the fallen pieces, costing you money. It's still a work in progress but the current playable version is pretty interesting to try.

License: Unknown
Developer: Jerome Blouin
Status: Work In Progress

Whats happening!

Thu, 15 May 2008 12:01:59 +0000

As you can see Coke and Code has a new look, but really thats it. Nothing's changing. I felt like having an arty night so I spent a while (with a lot of help! you know who you are) fiddling around with the theme and CSS. The terrible logo was of course created by me.

There have been a lot of Slick fixes and extensions over the last few days so I may let that soak for a while and get back to the Putty Puzzle.

In other news my Wife has finally had the injection in her foot to relieve the pain, and is currently suffering. Meg is running around the garden every night and generally having a great old time - isn't speaking much yet though, anyone got any tips for encouraging young'uns?

Oh, and BBQ at the weekend at the Kev Homstead. Woo.

Snowman Village - Orangy Tang

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:51:49 +0000

The venerable Orangy Tang brings us a bizzare and challenging game in Snowman Village. Guide your snowball across the frozen landscape dodging spikes, birds and bushes and collecting decorations. Once you get back to the village you can build, decorate and name your own snowman to remember your journey.

License: Freeware
Developer: Orangy Tang
Status: Complete

Brick Dropper - Alex Jeffrey

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:45:18 +0000

Brick Dropper is one wierd game based on a classic(?) from the past. Move your player to avoid the blocks dropping from above while climbing up them to reach the top of the towers introduced at the start of each level. Read more on Alex's blog.

License: Freeware
Developer: Alex Jeffrey
Status: Playable

Milpa - Pulp Games

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:32:05 +0000

This is a bit of old news now I suppose, but Milpa is still a great game from Pulp Games. Swap the fruits around to make matching sets by click to rotate sections. It initially looks similar to other puzzle game mechanics but is actually quite unique. Beautiful presentation and all implemented in purest Java.

License: Freeware
Developer: Pulp Games
Status: Complete

Game posts...

Wed, 14 May 2008 21:20:03 +0000

You might notice I've started posting some game related posts. I'd like to post a lot more but I don't really have the time. The blog here is going to continue as normal, but I'll be splattering in game posts all filed under "Java Games". Why?

Well, tbh, I'm just so impressed recently. There are so many great games coming out of all parts of the Java game community at the moment. Such a high level of polish and some really good artist pieces - and I just think it's worth shouting about. It's been really amazing to watch us go from having to hack anything and everything to get any sort of quality game out the door, to now being able to use standard tools and libraries to produce fantastic fun games so very very quickly, leaving us plenty of time to think about the actual content.

Yay Java Games Community!

HHexen - HamsterOfDeath

Wed, 14 May 2008 21:09:36 +0000

HHexen is a work in progress over on the JMonkey Forums. The author describes it as "a little game to mess around and kill some bad guys" which sounds just about perfect to me. The procedural dungeon generation looks particularly interesting. Note that although the game looks like Hexen/Heretic it's not intended as remake.

License: Unknown
Developer: HamsterOfDeath
Status: Work In Progress

Attack of the Meeplings - Tiny Frog Software

Wed, 14 May 2008 20:49:28 +0000

This applet shooter is retro gaming at it's purist. Wave after wave of enemies, with the odd boss, coming flying at you - bullets filling the screen. Just when you thought you'd won, the whole thing repeats only faster. A must try for shooter fans.

License: Freeware
Developer: Tiny Frog Software
Status: Complete

UFO - Matthias Mann

Wed, 14 May 2008 20:36:05 +0000

UFO (webstart) is an all action shooter placing you in control a futuristic jet defending an sparse landscape from incoming alien attack. The 3D graphics (Worlscape Engine) don't hamper the arcade feel of this shooter which is a hell of a lot of fun. We just need to convince him to add multi-player and full UFO Unknown style campaign mode!

License: Freeware
Developer: Matthias Mann
Status: Playable

Multitris - Group 23

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:06:20 +0000

Five students from Sweden are working on a multiplayer tetris game. However, unlike your multiple arena/well based multiplayer tetris this one is co-operative and all in one play area. Everyone appears on the same screen moving their own piece around trying to slow into the over all shape. Seems to work pretty well across the net, server set up and join are really simple. It's surprisingly fun and well worth trying out (via Webstart)

License: Unknown
Developer: Group 23
Status: Playable

Fade - Kappa One

Wed, 14 May 2008 18:42:15 +0000

KappaOne is working on a new stylish vertical shooter. The interesting thing about this one is that the graphics are drawn with the SVG tool Inkscape giving it a cool vector look but still keeping pretty. As I understand it the SVG is rendered to images which are used as sprites. I hope, as a pure geek, that eventually it renders using the original SVG.

License: Unknown
Developer: Kappa One
Status: Work In Progress

Droid Assault - Puppy Games

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:53:20 +0000

Puppy Games brings us another all action shooter, this time based around the classic C64 game Paradroid. It removes the transfer mini-game from the original and increases the focus on dodging and shooting. The visuals and sound provide the feeling of an old school shooter while maintaining the upgrade progress of the original game. The game is available for $9.95 from the Puppy Games Website

License: Shareware
Developer: Puppy Games
Status: Complete

Game Specification

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:35:39 +0000

When working in a team of developers, or even when hoping to succeed with a single developer project it's important to have an overall common shared concept of what the final game is going to be like. Of course, this being games development, this is open to change during the creative process, but the specification of the game describes what the game is, how it's going to work, whats going to make it fun and what's going to keep people coming back. This is especially true when working with distributed group of contributors.

Before the Java folks start jumping around, I'm not talking about software design/specification here. For small games it's often not worth worrying about software design documentation since the majority of it is just following known patterns that most capable developers don't really have to think about. For larger ones software specifications are still only largely interesting to the developers. The game specification sets the mood/feel of the game which should feed into every aspect (art, sound, development, etc.)

Anyway, this came up due to yet another conincidence. Yesterday someone was asking about how to write them, and today I was hopefully joining a team thats developing a game which needs a specification. So, while I'm not terribly proud of them here's the examples I have of some game specification:

Two reasonably complete ones from a while ago :-

Retailopia

Battle Scape Armada

And one that I posted recently thats still in progress :-

Into the Expanse

They might not be great but at least they might stir some mental juices.