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Java Programming Entertainment Games IT Technology

Sun Sponsors Java Game Development Competition 54

Posted by CowboyNeal from the network-is-the-game-console dept.
Sim9 writes "Sun (among others) is sponsoring a $50,000 Java games competition, with the competition page explaining: 'With Java technology, developers are enabled to simplify their development process and create richer games reaching across a multitude of devices and platforms.' In my humble opinion, Java still has a ways to go in the gaming industry, but the competition could greatly help if skilled people enter."
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Sun Sponsors Java Game Development Competition More

Sun Sponsors Java Game Development Competition

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  • DigZone (blatant plug) (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HRbnjR ( 12398 ) <chris@hubick.com> on Thursday March 25, 2004 @12:36AM (#8664307) Homepage
    Heh, I wrote my Java game DigZone [hubick.com] for fun, and to give something back to the internet which has given me so much, but 50 grand would be ok too I guess :)

  • Puzzle Pirates, again (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @12:40AM (#8664324) Homepage Journal
    I used to think java had no place in games. It's "slow" and the 3d isn't the greatest. Then puzzle pirates changed my mind. That's the kind of game that java does well, that and Yahoo! games type stuff. It's really great playing Puzzle Pirates in linux and windows and mac. Lots of open source in the pirate crew.

  • Java as a game development platform (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Java as a game development platform. What's the deal? Is it good, or is it whack?

  • fps (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SurgeryByNumbers ( 726928 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @12:43AM (#8664345)
    Java, in the process of adding all that compatibility, adds extra layers of abstraction and insulation between the game and the hardware. That means more CPU work... which means lower framerates... which doesn't fall in line with many gamers' (including myself) picky standards.

    Now, if performance is not an issue, Java can certainly be a good choice. That might also mean that some good will come out of all that hardware power from chip growth in the near future, but consumers don't really have a need for yet.

  • Puzzle Pirates should have already won... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jeblucas ( 560748 ) <jeblucas@@@gmail...com> on Thursday March 25, 2004 @12:45AM (#8664357) Homepage Journal
    If you haven't yet tried out Puzzle Pirates [puzzlepirates.com], then you should. That's about the best use of Java for a game that I've seen or really expect to see. Works like a charm cross-platform and takes advantage of the -ahem- chunky graphics to deliver a great gaming experience.
    • Il-2 Sturmovik. It is not entirely in Java but it has a lot of Java inside and it is the most popular war plane simulation out there (forget MSCFS)
      • Only in the most tenacious sense:

        avsim.com [avsim.com]

        "Next urban legend says, that IL-2 is coded in Java. Again, this assumption is based on rumors only, and has no substance. Java is used in IL-2, but just in small part. C++ is mostly used in coding this baby."

        rolemaker.dk [rolemaker.dk]

        "Uses dirty Java by mixing Java with C++, such that logic and part of the game engine is in Java but all the graphics are in C++."

        According to another writeup (which I've been unable to track down again), it essentially used a homebrew Java

  • J2ME (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dr. Bent ( 533421 ) <<ben> <at> <int.com>> on Thursday March 25, 2004 @12:47AM (#8664374) Homepage
    Apparently, the entry rules allow games developed for J2ME, of which there are quite a few [midlet.org]. These games are also fairly simple to make (harkening back to the glory days of my 8-bit 2D sidescrolling youth).

    I think the entries for this contest could be pretty interesting. Mobile gaming is one of the few markets left where a lone wolf developer can make an innovative, even radical game and still have a decent chance of it being a hit.
    • I agree, J2ME is a great platform for making small and wide-available games. I have 3 already developed games with J2ME, and even i'm a C (not even C++) "fan", i liked it. [ www.tuzsuzov.com ]

    • Re:J2ME (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kardamon ( 54123 )
      Here's a guide [jasonlam604.com] to writing games in J2ME.
  • But I suppose the games can.

  • Java is a great language for games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KNicolson ( 147698 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @01:23AM (#8664575) Homepage
    On mobiles at least. In Japan (I don't know about the rest of the world), iMode/iAppli phones all run Java on lots of different flavours of OSes and chip sets, so one code base runnable on many phones makes a lot of sense for the developer, and the iMode micropayment scheme makes it easy to get some return for your investment.

    • Re:Java is a great language for games (Score:5, Informative)

      by BortQ ( 468164 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @02:16AM (#8664873) Homepage Journal
      I don't know about Japan, but in North America every phone manufacturer ships JVMs that are different enough that you must port your application to each one. So, yes, you can do it with just one codebase, but you will have to have a whole bunch of branches for different handsets.

      The consensus out there is Sun just wanted to get java put on every damn phone that they could. So they didn't do as stringent a QA process on the JVMs that they should have.

      This is supposed to get better with MIDP version 2.0. However that probably won't be in large scale use for a year or two. Even then there will be plenty of older handsets, so the problem isn't going to go away.

  • I am definitely going to enter my game in this. Right now it uses Apple's cocoa-java extensions so it is tied to OSX, but a pure java port is already in the works.

    Forget about winning, it would be awesome to get some free publicity care of Sun.

  • Crappy Prizes! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Asicath ( 522428 )
    What the crap!? I was contemplating how cool it would be to make a game to enter into this and maybe win some money... but there is no money. The first place "Prize" is as follows: Grand Prize: One (1) Grand Prize winner will receive a full GameSpy SDK license for one title and one (1) ABS Computer System and a copy of the Java Desktop System. Approximate Retail Value: $45,000. The only cool prize here is the glory of winning the their damned contest. It reminds me of the joke: Q: What is better than
  • After messing around with MUD way back when, that was the first thing that came to mind when I first heard about Java, all those years ago. One of the problems with MUD was that even though you could bring your character from dungeon to dungeon, none of the artifacts or special objects you found in one GM's dungeon had any effect in someone else's, because the code to implement that artifact couldn't go with you. If all the little MUD objects were implemented in bytecode, then everything would be portable,
    • But you really need some kind of standard. At least one base class. But for this, as standard, you could also use a simple scripting language. Or XML, but that achieves the same ends, and XML can be very choosy about standards adherence.

      On the other hand, I find the scripting taht Stratagus uses to define its units looking kind of scary. But I didn't really try hard to understand it.

      So, in fact, looking not only at single objects but at maps, it would be cool if ALL games could share their data, so you

      • I don't think I have any time at the moment to help out. But for the moment, I'm happy to think about what such a game might do.

        re: game balance, and worlds where powerful magic items are plentiful/mundane vs worlds where they are scarce - perhaps we should take another step back. Treat GMing/world design as another player type, with bonuses and advancement for passing certain milestones. Have the game system allocate limited resources to each world, e.g. "you can define as many cool artifacts as you like,

  • Bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @05:12AM (#8665408) Journal
    Sun is apparently trying hard to prove that Java works well in all areas by getting some proof-of-concepts in gaming. The problem is that, really and honestly, for most genres, Java is a really lousy choice.

    Performance matters in games.

    Memory usage matters in games.

    Bugs are more acceptable in games than in any other genre of software. I might learn to live with a painfully slow backup system if I knew that it was rock-solid, but with a game, "painfully slow" is unacceptable. I can live with having to reopen a game three times over the course of playing it, even if I don't like having to do so.

    All this is going to do is drive home to people how poorly suited Java is for most game development. It hasn't worked well for horizontal-market app development either. Java is *already* big in custom and vertical market work, where it shines. I just don't see the point in Sun doing marketing when they *don't have the product to fill the need they're aiming at*.
    • Performance matters in games. Memory usage matters in games.

      While that is somewhat true, remember: we're not necessarily talking about Half-Life 2 or anything here. I'm thinking of games more along the line of, say, Scorched Earth [classicgaming.com] or something like that. After all, if you could play a spiffy-fun game written in assembler or C back in the days of the 486, then *surely* we can run a spiffy-fun game written in Java on your 2Ghz+ system, even if you burn a few cycles in the process. And there were some fun ga

      • So if they are so fun, why not reimplement them in a language that doesn't have the memory, cpu load and other problems of Java (ie: write it in c or c++) and then either use less power or have the cpu cycles spare for running other things in the background?

        I've never, ever managed to understand the whole "it doesn't matter if the language we are using is bloated, hungry and generally shit - the hardware can handle it" mentality. Faster hardware should allow you to do new things the old hardware couldn't s
        • I've never, ever managed to understand the whole "it doesn't matter if the language we are using is bloated, hungry and generally shit - the hardware can handle it" mentality.

          I think it's more a collision between two different types of software developers.

          Group (a) is smaller, but their software is used by many more people. They write games, word processors, spreadsheets, P2P clients, web browsers and image editors. This is horizontal market software. A little bit of extra effort on the part of develo
    • Sun is apparently trying hard to prove that Java works well in all areas by getting some proof-of-concepts in gaming. The problem is that, really and honestly, for most genres, Java is a really lousy choice.

      Performance matters in games.

      Memory usage matters in games.

      Java is fine for small games. recreating UT2004 obviously wont work, but anything cloning from the NES days and before works fine. Have you used Java for game development recently? (even a small one?) It's much better than it used t
      • Haven't looked at it for some time.

        Have they done anything that would allow you to access a joystick? I'd love some retro games that might work out in java if you could control them.

        I agree that if you aren't talking about cutting edge games, that java could work IF you can get access to controllers.

    • I am not sure, but I have heard that the game Vampire the Masquerade [activision.com] used Java, combined with a graphic engine coded in C. Therefore, they could get the speed of C code and ease of coding of Java.
  • Just remember, if you write an invaders clone, please don't call it Java Invaders [cmdrtaco.net] or Sun will sue your ass. :-)

  • sponsors (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mwheeler01 ( 625017 )
    I think it's interesting that AMD and the Tapwave are helping sponsor this contest. Also I think that as computer's get faster virtual machines will become more viable as a cross platform solution for porting games. Imagine taking a java game from your PC-CDROM and popping it into your console of choice when your friends come over.

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