Asteroid Dodger

[combatking0]

I've been going on about this for ages, but now it's almost finished.

Please may somebody suggest a good genre of music to go with the game, or a piece of music in the public domain?
You can test it at
http://gbc.barcodebattler.co.uk/play.php?t=Asteroid_Dodger&w=640&h=512&v=8

Please ignore the Submit Score button - it isn't installed on an SMF Arcade yet.

[Shockwave]

I like the sound effects a lot and it feels great to control too.

The only thing that doesnt appeal to me is the graphics, but I think thats probably just a matter of personal preference, as far as the game is concerned the controls feel nice and thats the most important thing.

[combatking0]

As far as the graphics go, I was trying to keep within my limits. The consistent simple design looks better than anything I try to draw with a greater level of detail, but the colours could do with some adjustment.

The controls were designed to represent the difficulty of manuvering through 2D space with a single thruster.

I might put WASD controls in for those who prefer them - they'll operate along side the arrow keys without the user having to configure anythings.

Most of the sound effects were taken from public domain sources which will be credited in the final build - I did edit them for length and volume though.

And so far it is less than 100KB. 

[Shockwave]

Thats nice for the size

[combatking0]

Most of that is from the sound effects. I think the code and graphics are about equal - it's hard to say.

I'd hate to see the size increase from adding music, but it's needed for atmosphere.

[Shockwave]

When I am looking for games for the arcade I tend to stick to games t hat are below 600kb wherever I can, there are about 2 or three exceptions to this, those are games like metal slug and cash beast.

I don't know if that helps but I dont think many webmastrers would baulk at 600kb or even a meg.

[Shockwave]

I think that playing tracker songs in activex should be possible..

Mandrixx did something similar with plotbox..

http://plopbox.net/

Dunno if he used a java player, java games work with smf too.

[benny!]

Yeah. AFAIK plopbox uses normal java applet stuff.

I also tested some open source music replayers in my
applets (1, 2, 3 ).
They all use different mod players. If you need any info
on them I am glad to help out.

[combatking0]

The final version is a massive 650KB
I'll see if I can squeeze some of the detail out of the sound effects - the background music is already at 16 KBPS.

I've never programmed Java but an aquaintance of mine tells me it's free to obtain the compiler/interpreter/whatever it uses.

I have decided not to change the colour scheme - my attempts to do so were unpleasant.

[Jim]

The JDK is free from Sun.   java.sun.com
Jbuilder is a good IDE http://www.codegear.com/products/jbuilder

Jim

[combatking0]

Excellent. I'll have a play with these.

[Hotshot]

You have done well to make Flash game

[benny!]

@ck0:
Ja. But apart from some issues I wouldn't really recommend
Java applets - at least not know. The integration of applets
in browsers is ... well how can I put it ... not very sexy. At
least from my point of view.

Guess that's also why there are zillions of flash apps around
and just a few of java applets.

Nevertheless, java is a great language and definately worth
to have a look at.

[Clyde]

Combat King, that is really grand effort you've done with your asteroid clone. I double like this as it has it's own style.

Btw, how do you move forward?

Cheers,
Clyde.

[combatking0]

Press the space bar to move - but don't move too fast or you'll crash!

Thanks for that - the guys at Weebl's Stuff are starting to vote for it too, so I must have done something right this time (ego starts to inflate).

Now I'm looking for another original concept to develop.