Thread: Ludum Dare

Ludum Dare

Ludum Dare is a pretty popular programming competition that's held every once in awhile- basically, a theme is announced on Friday, and you have only a single weekend to create a game around that theme. The next one starts tomorrow!

Is anybody participating? I might, if I don't have anything else to do. I know JavaPF is always looking for ways to promote the site, and this might be an opportunity for that?

Anyway, just thought I'd let people around here know about it, since it's a pretty cool event. Of course you're allowed to use Java in the competition!

Full disclosure- I am in no way affiliated with the competition or the people running it, and I've actually never entered it. I've just seen the results of past competitions, and it's almost scary what people can come up with in 48 hours.

Looks good Kevin. I will keep my eye on this!

Unfortunately I am away this weekend.

Ah shucks, oh well. It might still be interesting to other people, either to enter or just to watch. Even if I don't end up entering, I'm going to check back to see what people came up with. They're usually pretty impressive.

Any update on this? I found it too much of a competition for my puny Java skills.
Has anyone tried their hand at this competition? If so...Giiiivee details :p

Originally Posted by newbie

Any update on this? I found it too much of a competition for my puny Java skills.
Has anyone tried their hand at this competition? If so...Giiiivee details :p

I managed to find about 12 hours to devote to the competition, and this is my entry: Escape from Monster City

I'll be uploading a "post mortem" as they call it, as well as a page containing some development screenshots (some people do full timelapses, but I just took occasional screenshots to show my progress) to the Ludum Dare website later today.

My game does contain one show-stopping bug that occasionally shows up, but that's almost to be expected given the timeframe.

Originally Posted by dseidl

I made my own little game based on Java for the Ludum Dare contest, it's called "About Julie's Escape" and can be found here:
click here

Looks good! I'm at work now, so I'll have to play it later. Did you do anything special to get Kev Glass to comment on your game? He strikes me as one of the big deal guys who would be too busy to leave comments, so it's pretty cool that he comments on other people's games.

Also just out of curiosity, how'd you find these forums? I see this is your first post, so I'm wondering what brought you here? Welcome!

Originally Posted by Sean4u

That looks good - I like the suspense from the monsters in the edge of the gloom.

Thanks! That's awesome to hear, because that's pretty much exactly what I was going for.

Very nice entries!
I'm amazed at the quality of yours Kevin, a neat little game made in just a few hours whilst learning to use Processing.
Heck, I've spent more time on a few Uni assignments to achieve less.

Originally Posted by newbie

Very nice entries!
I'm amazed at the quality of yours Kevin, a neat little game made in just a few hours whilst learning to use Processing.
Heck, I've spent more time on a few Uni assignments to achieve less.

Heh, aww, thanks! I really enjoyed diving into Processing, it reminds me of why I loved learning Java in the first place- the excitement of finding out what all is available to you, and letting your mind go nuts thinking about what to do with it all. Reminds me of when my friends and I would come home after school and just mess around to see what we could make.

I'll probably make a separate post about Processing in the next few days, but I might be a convert. And it's built on top of Java, so it doesn't count as cheating on my favorite language!

Originally Posted by KevinWorkman

I'll probably make a separate post about Processing in the next few days

It would be great if you could do that, it's definitely something I'm interested in knowing more about.

Great results.
I downloaded the bits and pieces of it to see how it worked and having a problem figuring out how JNLP works. I ran the html that used the jnlp you set up and then renamed the .jnlp file to .jnlpXXX and then reloaded the html and it still worked??? The jnlp file must be cached somewhere. I went into the browser and asked it to clear its cache and no change, it still found the jnlp and the jar file. I edited the files and renamed all the components by adding a suffix to the files and it worked with the new renames. I then renamed the .jnlp file again so it shouldn't be found but the browser still found the renamed version of the jnlp referenced from the js in the html page.
I've done a search for .jnlp and have not found the Escape...jnlp file.
Do you know who caches it where?
Thanks,
Norm

Found the answer:
Running a Java Web Start Application (The Java™ Tutorials > Deployment > Java Web Start)

Originally Posted by Norm

Do you know who caches it where?
Thanks,
Norm

Found the answer:
Running a Java Web Start Application (The Java™ Tutorials > Deployment > Java Web Start)

Ack, sorry I didn't see this earlier. I should add a disclaimer that the web start and applet versions were created by me, using the files created by Processing.

To get a better idea of what Processing actually gives you, check out the processing applet or one of the OS-specific executables.

I should also say that I sympathize with your cache issues entirely. I still haven't figured out a reliable way to guarantee that clients always get the most up-to-date version of an applet or web start. I know it's supposed to be easy, but I can't get anything to work!

Originally Posted by dseidl

I made my own little game based on Java for the Ludum Dare contest, it's called "About Julie's Escape" and can be found here:
click here

I just played your game, and it's really neat! Awesome work on the sprites.

One thing you might want to look into in future games is how you handle keyboard input- I bet you're changing the player's position directly from a keyPressed() method, right? Instead, set some booleans (one each for up, down, left, and right) in the keyPressed() and keyReleased() methods, and then change the player's position based on those booleans in your game loop. That way you don't have to worry about different people having different key repeat rates, and you can listen to multiple keys at the same time.

Originally Posted by Sean4u

I got round this problem on a recent applet by referring to it in the HTML source as "/applet/Fantastic.jar?v=12" - and just updated the part after the ?v= each time I couldn't figure out why my latest changes weren't apparent I tried to send cache-busting headers, but the 'version parameter' is the only thing that has ever worked reliably for me (when I remember to change it!)

Yeah, renaming the jar with a version number is the one solution I've seen used pretty often. But remembering to rename it can be a PITA, especially for somebody as forgetful as me. Plus, I like to link to the Jar version of things pretty often, so that would break links I post on the internet.

For example, say I make a game, and I make it available as an applet, a runnable jar, or a webstart -all using the same Jar. I can change the name of the Jar to fix the applet and webstart cache problem (I think), but then any links I've posted or given out that go directly to the Jar are broken. I could have two copies of the same Jar with different names, but that seems gross.

So yeah, caching has been an enemy of mine as well!

Originally Posted by newbie

It would be great if you could do that, it's definitely something I'm interested in knowing more about.

Check it out if you feel like it: http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com...html#post40552