Jar file ? Too bad, not to allow as many people as possible to try?

The enemies are super creepy and I really want to shoot them all. I would like to see what this game would be like after developing it further.

A couple of points of feedback for you:
1. I think this would be better with mouse controls rather than just keyboard. Along the same lines, the enemy hit boxes seem too big. I think changing to mouse controls and tightening the enemy hit boxes will go a long way toward improving the feel of the game. If you want to keep keyboard controls, consider adding some smoothing to the motion.
2. It gets repetitive pretty quick. Understanding that this was made in a very short time, if you develop this further, I recommend adding more variety of enemies, weapons, etc. to keep it interesting.
3. The transitions are a little harsh, particularly when the scene changed. Also, I think the boss fight could be improved with some signaling to let the player know what type of attack is coming. When it changed from the sweeping attack to the targeted attack, there was no indication that the behavior was going to change. As a result, it felt a little cheap when I got hit by the first targeted attack.

I can't open it.

@tasakasama and @colinweiss ah, wasn't aware people would have issues running a jar file. Is an executable/fat jar, so I would have thought it would work for most windows/mac/linux users. Thanks for letting me know.

@csimpson thanks for the feedback. I think those improvements would have been great, had a nice idea for a scene transition, but time didn't allow for it :upside_down:

Having trouble running this one. Double clicking isn't working. `java -jar ./Watching.jar` doesn't work either, since I have the wrong java installed:


Error: A JNI error has occurred, please check your installation and try again
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: Main has been compiled by a more recent version of the Java Runtime (class file version 55.0), this version of the Java Runtime only recognizes class file versions up to 52.0

Good luck, but I think I will need to pass on this one.

I do agree with others that sending the game as a jar isn't the best choice. After around 5 minutes of trying to run it, I finally got it working.

I liked the gameplay, the art was really interesting, but after a while it did get repetitive. Of course, that is bound to happen to jam games considering the short time frame. The scene transitions, or lack thereof was noticeable but it didn't ruin anything.

Overall an entry I enjoyed after getting it to run!

@tasakasama @colinweiss @sirlich @calcopod Thanks for making me aware of these issues, if any of you would mind sharing which platform you're running on, I would appreciate it. I may not have packaged certain native files. Will see if I can fix in a post-jam update if I have the time.

Same issue:
java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: Main has been compiled by a more recent version of the Java Runtime (class file version 55.0), this version of the Java Runtime only recognizes class file versions up to 52.0

I'm using Windows 10, Java 8. Hopefully that helps?

The game gets repetetive really quick. You can just sit anywhere on the screen, not moving while spamming space, and still kill all monsters. Some varying in enemy movement patterns, obstacles to restrict player movement and a weapon cooldown are easy ways to prevent this. The boss surprised me, then I actually had to move.



While I personally did not have any problems running the game, it seems most people only have Java 8 installed while you compiled it with Java 11 (which has class file version 55). If you can, I recommend uploading a Java 8 version of your game to allow more people to try it. Making a game in Java already heavily limits how many people cam play it - I've been there too...

@ugly-robot @floke thanks for the information, I think the issue with most people being on Java 8 is the most likely culprit. Likewise, thanks for the feedback @floke , varied attack patterns would certainly have been a good addition, the first section was evidently way too easy and repetitive.

For future players, the game has been recompiled in Java 8. I think. I'm pretty sure I have. If any further difficulties are encountered, I'd be grateful for information (:

I can't vote I get the following error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no lwjgl64 in java.library.path: [/tmp/natives-226904674]

An executable or one that could be played in the browser would be great.

This was an interesting entry to this jam, the idea is clear and nice and the mechanics are simple to understand, I like how if you die you respawn without loosing progress, I wish more games would do that! the whole time I was like "wait a minute is this 3d?? no it's 2d that looks 3d.. no way this is 3d.. is it though??" I honestly don't know if it's 3d or 2d but the ship and level perspective definitely makes it look 3d which is incredible!

one point that I see other mentioning as well is the jar file, I know people can be a little harsh about it but you never know what you're downloading from the internet, I don't mean to distrust you, hell you even have the source code available but I had to use anti-virus scan just to cure my paranoia. the issue is that jar files are like python files there are executed by another program so you can run quite the capable malware without admin privileges which can make people skeptical, it's not that big of a deal for most of us, I ended up playing the game anyway but there are people who don't want to take the risk, maybe a web build if you can would be great next jam. but all in all I think this is a decent game, and I hope you had fun making it because in the end that's all that matters!

@milq yeah, looks like a jar file was not the best option for a submission. Thanks for trying anyway.

@0x-void-x0 Thanks, glad you liked the more forgiving death stuff and 3d effect. I'm not 100% sure myself if it counts truly as 3d or 2d. In practice, its 2d sprites scaled towards the centre of the screen based on z value, with the exception of the ship being an actual triangle.

As for the format, I'm pretty sure in future jams I'll go for web submissions. Looks like Java is a bit more hassle than its worth. Thanks for the advice on that front. And of course, it was good fun to make and I'm glad a few people have been able to play it :thumbsup: