10 replies to this topic

[CygnetGames]

Well, it's done: my first java game is finished and online.

It's a pong clone with a tennis theme, called Tong. You can play Tong on my website - Cygnet Games.

All comments are appreciated - I would like to know what people think of it. It's only a simple game to test my game engine. I have plenty more in the pipeline and the next one in development. :)

[v0id]

The applet works fine for me.
Pretty nice little game, though the graphics could be better.
Personally, I'd think it will be better if you could steer with the mouse.

[CygnetGames]

Jordan said:

In FireFox I get "Loading Java Applet Failed" and in IE I get Applet gameEngine/Game notinited. Maybe I have the wrong Java Version installed?

That sounds like it could be because you have an old version of java. If i've used a feature that's not in your version of java, I could see it showing a "notinited" message.

v0id said:

The applet works fine for me.
Pretty nice little game, though the graphics could be better.
Personally, I'd think it will be better if you could steer with the mouse.

Mouse steering - that's a good suggestion. I was considering making a "version 2" if there are enough things that could do with changing. Mouse steering is certainly going on the list of things to implement.

[v0id]

Nice to hear!
Let's know when the new version is ready.

[Sionofdarkness]

That was pretty good, and for being made by an individual, I think it's great.

[CygnetGames]

Sionofdarkness said:

That was pretty good, and for being made by an individual, I think it's great.

Thanks very much - It's good to know that people like it.

I'm currently working on the next game - in flash this time - I found out that people pay you money to make flash games but not java ones :D

[Lop]

lol, good motivation for switching to flash! Can't wait to see this one.

[CygnetGames]

Lop said:

lol, good motivation for switching to flash! Can't wait to see this one.

It's being entered in a competition which closes at the end of November, so (hopefully!) it will be finished by then.

It has some cool fire and water effects, but that's all I'm alowed to reveal at the moment :)

[Sionofdarkness]

I've made a Flash game before, it was pretty basic and it had some problems but it kind of worked. I didn't know people didn't pay you for Java games, I mean, if it was pretty good it seems like you could find some sort of audience.

[CygnetGames]

Sionofdarkness said:

I didn't know people didn't pay you for Java games, I mean, if it was pretty good it seems like you could find some sort of audience.

It's because there are loads of huge websites around that serve flash games - Crazy Monkey, Arcade Town and all the rest. They are all set up for flash games, and flash is the most user-friendly format.
You can pack all of your flash program into one swf, but still display a loading screen to the user. With java you either have to have two jar files - one for the preloader and one for the game data - which annoys the website you're serving it from because they have to keep track of two files for your game, or you have it all in one jar but then you can't make your own loading screen - you're stuck with the default java one.
Also, java has an annoying pause when the jvm loads, that freezes your web browser until it's loaded.

I think it's fair enough that they don't pay for java stuff - flash seems to be the way to go.