Amateur Game Making Night

[ihavefivehat]

Speaking of arrays, is there anything that makes ArrayList a bad choice? I've used it in Java a few times with no issues, but I rarely see it used or mentioned by people online.

[osmosisch]

In general it can be a super good idea to take an idea from functional programming and just see your data as immutable, and only making changes by copying the old states into a new state that has the desired change.

[Twig]

Nice! I like the variation in environments. The game play is appropriately frustrating.

 

One small criticism, I can't really get a clear view of the main sprite because it's always rotating. Thus I don't have an image in my head of what the bird actually looks like. Probably putting a still version of it on the menu screen it would fix that issue. Also, I was hoping for more actual poop in the game itself.

Yeah, the menu will have a larger version of the bird.

 

There was going to be a pooping effect coming out of the birdbutt, but more and more I'm like it as it is without the poop. I dunno. Maybe we'll try something, just to see how it feels.

[clyde]

I am really enjoying my new hobby.

[aperson]

You can get some really wierd bugs from removing or adding items in an array when trying to loop through it, that's for sure.

 

If you want to loop through and remove elements from an array/list structure that slides elements down when you remove them start at the end and move towards the head. Simple tip.

 

That said, removing things from an array/list (rather than a linked list type structure) can be expensive due to that sliding behavior, so it's something you want to think carefully about if you are doing it often or on long lists.

[Twig]

Yeah if you're going to be constantly removing things from the middle of a list, seriously think about using a linked list. It's much faster. But then access time can be much longer on a linked list. TRADE OFFS TRADE OFFS TRADE OFFS!

 

All that said, if the list is guaranteed to be super small there's not really much reason to worry. At a small enough scope, it's all done so fast you'll never notice the difference in speed. Note that super small here could actually be pretty "big" in terms of what you might expect if you're not a programmer. A list with a thousand items has about the same impact as a list with a hundred items. Obviously the bigger list takes longer, but the difference is likely to be negligible. Unless you're constantly SORTING or constantly REMOVING AND ADDING or whatever. And that's just the surface of your efficiency concerns.

 

This is why there are multiple classes teaching this kind of thing when you get a computer science degree!

 

Algorithms is fun!

 

...I probably made it worse, didn't I? So much for trying to help!

 

Also this...

 

In general it can be a super good idea to take an idea from functional programming and just see your data as immutable, and only making changes by copying the old states into a new state that has the desired change.

 

Is only really true if the data you're copying is fast to copy and small to copy. If it's an entire list, that can be super bad. If you're talking a single object, that can be fine. If you're talking an entire list that's very short.... that can be fine.

 

...Again, it really just depends.

 

Programming is fun!

[BigJKO]

After some boring refactoring and making sure the car can't drive when upside down, I made a vine of what it looks like from the ground-level. https://vine.co/v/MmzQ6ebpYtZ

[BigJKO]

Put a first rough prototype of a Pool Table track in! https://vine.co/v/MmMJhBxpTTh

[ihavefivehat]

Haha, the kids got into the billiard room again! Dad's going to be pissed when he gets home!

[mike]

Anyone want to help me playttest a thing? Flappy Jam ends on the 24th so I guess I'll release it tomorrow?

 

http://mantiseyelabs.com/games/flappyjam2014/0223/

(lazily tested in Chrome, but it seems to work fine in Firefox aside from not playing a lone WAV file... IE11 chokes on it entirely)

 

Flappy Jam ends on the 24th so I guess I'll release it today/tomorrow? Any input at all is appreciated!

[BigJKO]

I can totally report the very useful fact that it does not work on a mobile!

..I'll check it out when I'm home on the computer, though.

[Lu]

When I restart the game after my 2nd death, it doesn't actually refresh the game screen and I'm stuck on that 2nd death, even though I can hear the game playing in the background.

[Forbin]

Anyone want to help me playttest a thing? Flappy Jam ends on the 24th so I guess I'll release it tomorrow?

 

http://mantiseyelabs.com/games/flappyjam2014/0223/

(lazily tested in Chrome, but it seems to work fine in Firefox aside from not playing a lone WAV file... IE11 chokes on it entirely)

 

Flappy Jam ends on the 24th so I guess I'll release it today/tomorrow? Any input at all is appreciated!

 

My game got frozen on a death screen after a few runs.  Sorry I can't be more help tracking down the source of the problem.

 

I feel like you're going for a retro vibe, but things are a bit too smooth.  I think if you picked a target pixel size and made sure all the assets stayed snapped to those bounds it'd feel a lot better. Also if all the assets were designed with a consistent pixel size I think it'd feel a lot more cohesive.

 

Good work.

[elmuerte]

Played it for about 5 minutes, reached a highscore of 4 I think. Either way, it worked for me on Firefox without any issues.

[BigJKO]

Didn't seem like it works in Safari, but who uses that, amirite?

[ihavefivehat]

My game got frozen on a death screen after a few runs.  Sorry I can't be more help tracking down the source of the problem.

 

I had the same issue. Using Chrome.

[mike]

I just updated Chrome and it seems to be happening for me too. At first I thought it was an audio issue but it seems to happen even if I remove that code. Infuriating.

 

 

My game got frozen on a death screen after a few runs.  Sorry I can't be more help tracking down the source of the problem.

 

I feel like you're going for a retro vibe, but things are a bit too smooth.  I think if you picked a target pixel size and made sure all the assets stayed snapped to those bounds it'd feel a lot better. Also if all the assets were designed with a consistent pixel size I think it'd feel a lot more cohesive.

 

Good work.

 

Well the art (of which the only thing is really the bird) is like that because I am a terrible pixel artist, so I just went with something super simple. The pixels on the bird are pretty huge though (he'd be 10x8) so it might feel kind of jerky. I think I know what you're saying though, which is I should make the game like 80x60 and scale it up. Which is something I haven't quite figured out how to do smoothly!

[mike]

Okay double-post but I totally fixed it and uploaded a new version: http://mantiseyelabs.com/games/flappyjam2014/0223/ (you might need to do a hard refresh)

 

For anyone curious the issue seems to be Chrome changing how the 'canplay' audio event was fired. It seems like it now fires the event every time a sound can be played and not just the first time it can be played. I was using that event to track when a sound asset was loaded and increment a counter. If the expected asset count equaled this counter then all assets were considered to be loaded. However, the event firing additional times caused the counter to go up even higher and the asset check was making sure the counts were equal. Barf.

 

And then in the main loop if assets weren't yet loaded the drawing operations weren't run, which is what caused the issue you all saw. Anyway I made the asset loader a little less naive so it should work now. HTML5 games, the future of sadness

 

Thanks for everyones help!

[Dewar]

Looks good to me. I think the Unity plug-in is somehow broken in IE11, as a few different games that people have posted here have bombed out in IE11 but worked in Chrome for me.

[Vasari]

I've submitted my Flappy Jam game!

 

There are a couple of things I'm not happy about. I spent far too long wrestling with the UI, the art is ridiculous and there isn't any audio, but apart from that I'm pretty pleased with it.

[mike]

I've submitted my Flappy Jam game!

 

There are a couple of things I'm not happy about. I spent far too long wrestling with the UI, the art is ridiculous and there isn't any audio, but apart from that I'm pretty pleased with it.

 

I like it, though  I learned I'm not a fast enough typist to be very good.

[clyde]

flpa

flp

alfa

flpa

falp

falf

alpfa

[Forbin]

I've submitted my Flappy Jam game!

 

There are a couple of things I'm not happy about. I spent far too long wrestling with the UI, the art is ridiculous and there isn't any audio, but apart from that I'm pretty pleased with it.

 

I think it'd be a lot more fun if you were just listening to keystrokes for each flap rather than requiring the full word b typed.  It'd still be pretty hard to keep your mind thinking about what letter is next.

[Forbin]

Also, i'd ditch the textbox

[Coods]

I've submitted my Flappy Jam game!

 

There are a couple of things I'm not happy about. I spent far too long wrestling with the UI, the art is ridiculous and there isn't any audio, but apart from that I'm pretty pleased with it.

 

It's novel for like 5 seconds, but I do like the idea of taking a game as difficult as flappy bird and then putting another layer of crazy bullshit difficulty on top of it.