May I just say: Minecraft spin-offs (even fan-games) are a bit over done. You could have made this game way better just by changing the creeper to literally anything else threatening and the player to any other design.
The first thing I noticed when opening this was some SERIOUS lag - seems like it's in the game logic loop rather than the render loop. Without looking at the source, I'd guess maybe related to the coins jumping around constantly (poorly optimized randomization)?
The coins jumping around also seems a bit odd - I couldn't really discern enough of a pattern to really boost my score, other than staying away from the creeper. I'd suggest either having coins that move along random paths, or just having a timer as the score.
Some of the graphics were a bit odd, too - I'm fine with the simple graphics, but if you're gonna use a creeper, you should really add at least ONE frame of an explosion ;). Also, it appears that the trees aren't actually obstacles? That surprised me quite a lot - misleading visual cues.
Well, if you hate the graphics, I suppose you could edit them yourself. Just edit the player.png and creeper.png files if you want to. I can/will upload alternate textures.
@joppiesaus: Have you extracted ALL the files? If so, run it from the console and see if there are any errors.
@harley77: I've been getting this problem. Make sure you don't have any applications like Minecraft (which use OpenGL) open, then try running it again. If the problem still persists, run it from the console and see what it gives you.
Tutorial on running it from the console:
Windows: Click Start, click on or search for a program called "Run", and type in cmd and hit OK. Once in CMD, you need to find the game on your hard drive. To do so, type cd <directory name>. For example, if I stored it in the Downloads folder, I would type 'cd C:\Users\John\Downloads\Escape The Creeper'. Once you're there, type 'java -jar EscapeTheCreeper.jar'.
Mac OS/X: Go to Applications > Utilities and double-click on Terminal. Then, cd to the directory and type 'java -jar EscapeTheCreeper.jar'.
Going off what Soron said, the game was extremely laggy. At first, I thought you had to continuously tap the movement keys to make the player move. You should really look into some optimization.
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CodeNMore13 Dec 2014, 01:49
The idea fits the theme, but it is terrible controls and waaay to much lag - not by the computer but from the game.
Not working on OSX, just a blank screen. Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-466.1-11M4716)
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Cake&Code13 Dec 2014, 02:20
Agreeing with the others about the lag, you might be running everything too quickly. I took a cursory look at the code (also found you wrote the engine behind it too!) I saw you had an update call at the end of the paint call. That's a pretty big potential pitfall. What you usually want to do is run the paint loop and the game loop separately, this lets you get away with smoother renders with potentially better simulations.
As far as the game itself is concerned, the randomness of the coin movement doesn't lend itself to strategic play which makes the bulk of the game simply avoiding the creeper. While not entirely un-fun, it lacks layering. You always want game mechanics to supplement each other, so having the coins move in linear paths would make it possible to develop strategies: "if I move this way I'll put myself in the path of the coin AND avoid the creeper!"
Hope you keep on developing it! There's always a ton of potential in simple games :)
P.S. Not sure why you opted to let us vote for the game on Humor, it's not exactly geared towards being a funny game. My 2 cents~
Enjoyable, but has a few issues: 1) Player moves very slowly, multiple keys down at the same time seem not to register (on Linux, anyway). 2) Collision detection uses the entire sprite, so colliding with the player's head is possible.
I'm not really sure why you randomize coin locations every tick, but I love the concept :) Pontential future update recommendations: - Allow multiple controls (e.g.: Left and up at the same time) - Separate render loop from the logic loop :) - Make some collision check against the trees ^^ Anyway, it's a nice start :)
This game was pretty good. However, are the coins supposed to move every repaint of the screen? The coins were teleporting all over my screen and it was lagging up because of it haha. :D Overall, this game has a pretty good feel, I liked it.
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The coins jumping around also seems a bit odd - I couldn't really discern enough of a pattern to really boost my score, other than staying away from the creeper. I'd suggest either having coins that move along random paths, or just having a timer as the score.
Some of the graphics were a bit odd, too - I'm fine with the simple graphics, but if you're gonna use a creeper, you should really add at least ONE frame of an explosion ;). Also, it appears that the trees aren't actually obstacles? That surprised me quite a lot - misleading visual cues.
@joppiesaus: Have you extracted ALL the files? If so, run it from the console and see if there are any errors.
@harley77: I've been getting this problem. Make sure you
don't have any applications like Minecraft (which use OpenGL) open, then try running it again. If the problem still persists, run it from the console and see what it gives you.
Tutorial on running it from the console:
Windows: Click Start, click on or search for a program called "Run", and type in cmd and hit OK. Once in CMD, you need to find the game on your hard drive. To do so, type cd <directory name>. For example, if I stored it in the Downloads folder, I would type 'cd C:\Users\John\Downloads\Escape The Creeper'.
Once you're there, type 'java -jar EscapeTheCreeper.jar'.
Mac OS/X: Go to Applications > Utilities and double-click on Terminal. Then, cd to the directory and type 'java -jar EscapeTheCreeper.jar'.
That's all I can think of right now.
Thank you for your entry!
Funny and cute textures too! XD
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-466.1-11M4716)
As far as the game itself is concerned, the randomness of the coin movement doesn't lend itself to strategic play which makes the bulk of the game simply avoiding the creeper. While not entirely un-fun, it lacks layering. You always want game mechanics to supplement each other, so having the coins move in linear paths would make it possible to develop strategies: "if I move this way I'll put myself in the path of the coin AND avoid the creeper!"
Hope you keep on developing it! There's always a ton of potential in simple games :)
P.S. Not sure why you opted to let us vote for the game on Humor, it's not exactly geared towards being a funny game. My 2 cents~
Fun enough to play a few minutes !
1) Player moves very slowly, multiple keys down at the same time seem not to register (on Linux, anyway).
2) Collision detection uses the entire sprite, so colliding with the player's head is possible.
Good overall, keep up the good work!
- Allow multiple controls (e.g.: Left and up at the same time)
- Separate render loop from the logic loop :)
- Make some collision check against the trees ^^
Anyway, it's a nice start :)