Discovery Shuttle Defender by FatherGoblin

[raw]
made by FatherGoblin for LD19 (COMPO)
Hello.

This is my first Ludum Dare Compo, so please go easy on the less than constructive criticism. Please give me suggestions for next time.

This game is programmed in Java 2D Swing extending JFrame. I started with a small amount of code that is a collision detection tutorial: http://zetcode.com/tutorials/javagamestutorial/collision/
No fancy IDE, just textpad.
Artwork was done using MS Paint.
Audio is seriously, intentionally a joke.

I put about 12 hours leisurely into this game.
If I would have had more time, I would have put more effort into the collision detection(right now the boundaries are the sprites dimensions) and figured out some transparency on the sprites so that when they overlap you don't see the corners of the sprite.

To play the game, you'll need to modify the run.bat file to point to where java.exe is on your computer. Honestly, this is where I would like suggestions as to how to distribute a binary. Complete source is included on zip file on MediaFire link.

To play the game is as simple as space bar to fire, arrow keys to move.

Ratings

Coolness 5% 105
Overall 2.10 211
Audio 1.75 158
Community 1.67 202
Fun 2.20 183
Graphics 2.20 201
Humor 2.50 83
Innovation 1.70 228
Theme 2.50 182

Feedback

toadfrogs
21. Dec 2010 · 07:50 UTC
The game doesn't work for me...
Smudge
21. Dec 2010 · 10:49 UTC
Couldn't get to work...
thristhart
25. Dec 2010 · 03:37 UTC
I got it to work. It's not too complicated, it's just more effort than people were probably willing to put out. The graphics were actually not too bad, and the audio was charmingly low quality. Unfortunately the gameplay was decent at best. Overall, I give it a three out of five. Good work!
Endurion
25. Dec 2010 · 16:42 UTC
Nice little game there.

Constructive critique:

1) Deployment. Do not hardcode your local paths (your batch files). Ever.
2) Your sprites are not showing transparent. Java should be able to apply color keys to images.
Tom 7
29. Dec 2010 · 04:16 UTC
Welcome to ludum dare! You'll get more people playing your game if you make it easy to run. Java was actually on the path for me, so it wasn't so bad, but if it wasn't on my list to rate I wouldn't have bothered.

I found it very funny to hold down the spacebar, because I shoot an enormous missile laser that way. If you start after you're already holding down an arrow key, you can sweep it across the screen, I guess depending on your key repeat settings. I like the graphics and I had a good chuckle at the explosion sound. :)
jolle
29. Dec 2010 · 14:37 UTC
Java should be available in the path, so just writing 'java Discovery' should work, or so it does here -- maybe helpful for those that can't get it to run.

The shuttle moves a bit slowly.

If you hold down space, you keep spamming missiles until you press another key, creating a whole barricade of them.
ACodeGerm
01. Jan 2011 · 00:09 UTC
Don't know if it works for everyone but even if your bat file is just

java discovery

Not too bad for the time you spent on it.
Martoon
10. Jan 2011 · 21:01 UTC
Looks like a decent first effort, but the hoops required to run it did put me off.