Oooh, nice, I always enjoy free-form. In Light of Altair I just wanted to have one of those open-ended games where I went where I wanted

Curious to see where this will go!

For java, everything works from the get-go using an IDE: interactive debugging, nice understandable compiler warnings, faster compilation, etc etc. In general, not only do I program a lot faster in Java, but the entire development process speeds up. It's also a more enjoyable experience, and more easily multi-platform.

I did forget to say I like the state-based framework for game programming that slick2d gives you. It's nice, and it probably needs that separation into update(), render() and init(). I'm not sure how it's implemented, but it's probably a loop that calls update and then render. You can do that trivially yourself.

I don't have much experience, but I can see myself wanting to launch a thread for AI, a thread for the underlying physics engine, another for event-based input and stuff like that.

I've recently started trying to use Slick2d, and I'm not particularly happy with it. I dislike the documentation, and the tutorials/manuals are fairly basic - at least those that I've  found.

I really, really wanted to use Java instead of C++ for game development. I was using SFML (with C++), which I find is simple, wonderful and well-documented. I have to admit I haven't really programmed anything too complex, just some simple tech demos.

For instance, it seems like the majority of the classes/methods in the slick2d API should have been protected or private, and not show up in the documentation. Slick2d feels like a straightforward aggregation of the underlying libraries, rather than simplified abstraction. For instance, I haven't found a way that doesn't issue a compiler warning to use fonts and draw them on-screen. The interface is some complex underlying library, whereas in SFML it's something like sf::String s("My String"); s.draw(x,y);

It also forces the general framework on you. You don't define the application loop. You implement update, render and init functions. Not sure how that works with multi-threading and whatnot, but it seems like it's fairly restricted.

In all, I feel it's rather idiosyncratic, complex, forceful, and ill-documented. It's also the only library that seems to be supported, active, and with interesting features for Java that I have seen. If you find something else, please let me know.

I'm probably coming off as a horrible person, but I guess I was used to SFML's simplicity and I'm frustrated at how hard it's being to get something going with slick2d. I'm thinking about reverting to C++, or taking the plunge to LWJGL, which raises myriad problems.

Ah well, sorry for the rant!

Howdy!

Just tried it! It's really hard to deal with such unresponsive left-right controls, but I think if you give ever so slightly more control it'll become difficult to control but awesome. I like the vertical acceleration, which is just (un)responsive enough!

Maybe I didn't really understand how to play it, 'cause there's some strange yellow things that seem to pull you. It's also strange that you can just keep dropping bombs and get essentially what amounts to an engine.

Perhaps you could have air currents that change slowly over time, and that's what would allow you to float left and right

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Or maybe have limited fuel to pump some propellers to move you left and right. When you stop the propellers, maybe they turn with the wind and regenerate energy.

Just throwing ideas out there for horizontal movement!

Struggling with that too... I'm at that stage you were where you got the wireframe drawings and basic physics, but I can't seem to think of a way to make all I want data-driven. I think I'm just trying to make everything too moddable from the get go, and it's really not helping!

Still, not having to compile in order to make different gasbags is totally neat. That's what I'd like to have Don't give up on the project!

Ooooh, Box2d and C++?

Also, the name of the game is epic, and I'm really liking what you have so far

Do you have any more concrete ideas about the gameplay?

I guess I'm just afraid both players will be kind of stuck in the back of the screen because they don't want to get machine-gunned. Unless there are back MG's too!

I played some more yesterday! Took me ages to get past the convoy level, where 8 Yaks attack. I finally realized that there's a lot more depth, and that the planes aren't equal at all. It seems like the one I was flying was based off the P38 and was a much better climber than the Yaks. After I figured that out, I managed to take'em all out.

Perhaps these differences could be made more apparent? The briefing could let you know not to try to out-turn the Yak, but use boom'n'zoom tactics? That would definitely help!

I also miss some sort of information about how well I performed each mission. Times attempted, times completed, time it took, etc etc. Stuff like that! The mission selection screen just seems awfully empty at the moment.

The alt-key felt "OK". Slightly strange, but understandable. You could definitely do with a longer loop if you allowed zooming out while this was done. Might decrease some of the strangeness of such a tight loop!

Triplane Turmoil (again, try it!) dealt with planes flying apart in a very simple way. Machine gun bullets simply disappeared not too far ahead of the plane. This makes it so planes constantly have to be together. It could be implemented by making weapon damage decay severely with distance. They the planes WILL try to stay close together. Another thing was having bombs. By dropping one at just the right moment - as the enemy passes below you - you could destroy him. But again, that requires you to be very close!

Perhaps just prepend "aerial" to the name, so there's a reference to the air? Aerial Skirmish in the Manner of Canines should be slightly more evocative!


I'm really looking forward to whatever comes out of this :D

And out of curiosity, how hard is Unity to get into? I'm currently trying to work on something similar to this/triplane turmoil in C++/SFML/Box2D and integrating everything is a bit of a pain

I really, really like the feel of the flying! I am slightly disappointed that it doesn't feature a map, and being able to turn around (kind of like the awesome oldie, Triplane Turmoil - play it if you haven't! ) and have more freedom of movement. That said, I'll just repeat that I really like the feeling of the current movement.

The player movement seems slightly strange, but that might just be the programmer art - hehe. Of course, you shouldn't be able to jump as many times as you want through the air by just pressing space again. And also, perhaps the plane could start going down slowly once that happens, so you can't stay off your plane for that long?

Keep it coming:D

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I really didn't get the reference to canines until I thought of "dogfight"...

Tried it!

It's pretty awesome! I really enjoy flight simulators, and had good fun just looking at all the forces being applied to the plane during the tutorial. The keymappings are really weird though. Don't know if I can think of anything better, but I have a hard time shooting while pressing SPACE etc. Maybe cockpit view could be toggled, like the SHIFT lock-on? That would be a big help.

Does it work with joysticks? Don't have the time to try it with mine out right now

Just wanted to say I've played a couple of times, and the game is really enjoyable

Any chance of getting a new ship? Bigger, more baddass? And then getting smaller ships escort you and that kind of stuff? I always want that in space shooters, but I think most people are mostly about the arcade part

Dang, nobody replied to this! I played this a while back, and I remember it being pretty fun, though not as deep as the "big" roguelikes - couldn't expect that anyway, of course. Had some great times with it! Hopefully I'll get some time and try it out in the future

but i found out i was more interested in creating games than reinventing the wheel writing wrappers. So i switched to sfml.

This is the main point for me.

Does anyone else get the idea that the world / story is much bigger, but that you only get to see a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of it? I've played it twice, and I don't think there was a huge amount more to it, which I found really sad.

Still, the gameplay is solid, and I love it! Some tiny bugs, probably due to the underlying physics engine, but still. I'm just sad that there haven't been any patches or content-adding for now.

Anyone know if there are any plans for that?