I posted the playable indev version in Feedback, got some helpful suggestions from other developers on how to improve the game.

What I'm not sure how to do is find people who will test the game and keep up with development--since there are usually 0 people on the server, anyone that joins will get bored and leave in a few minutes. There is single player but building by yourself isn't too fun.

I like your social idea, right now my game is very open-ended though so I'm not sure how that would work. When I add competitive game modes later, I'll see if I can implement it.

I got the server list integrated with my game. The background is a scrolling randomly-generated level.

I just released a small update, it fixes some bugs/things that were counter intuitive.

-Water and ladders are now placed on layer 2, not layer 1, this means you can put them in front of things.
-Fixed a bug where walking sounds would play when you weren't moving
-Fixed bugs with save/load
-Saving/loading no longer works in multiplayer
-Added sounds for walking on dirt

Here is a tower that was built on the test server yesterday:


Once I get more people to play the game I might release the server software.

Hi, having a bit of trouble. I released my 2nd game a couple weeks ago, and since then I've gotten some good feedback from developers and released several updates (current version is 0.062). But, I'm at a loss for how to get actual players. I ran a multiplayer test today, there was a peak of 4 people this morning, but since then it's been 0 people all day. The people who did try it said they liked it, but they were mostly friends from other communities where I posted the game.

Are there any directories of games which accept submissions? I've also been involved with web hosting and open source PHP scripts, in both cases most of your traffic comes from directories.

I'm not very well established as a game developer yet, so I don't have hundreds of followers on Twitter or anything like that. None of my friends IRL are very interested in "geeky" stuff like programming.

I'm not trying to make money yet; just want to get some people interested first.

This was fixed a while ago, I was updating multiplayer and accidentally left the code in the client that tried to auto-connect to a server on localhost.

I have a test multiplayer server up right now, go here: http://1scripts.net/cubic/multiplayer.php

You have to sign up, but feel free to use a fake email address.

I was able to reproduce the graphics/sound bug on my Mac, so it should be fixed now.

Also tweaked the physics a bit.

Would you mind posting your Java console?

I'm not sure how to open it on a Mac, but this site seems to tell how: http://fxtrade.oanda.com/support/troubleshooting/view_java_console

Also made some progress on MP:

Might host a public test server tomorrow or the next day.

OK, I decided to convert it to an applet: http://1scripts.net/cubic/game.php
I think the other error you were getting is related to me trying to use the system look and feel for the save/load boxes, so I switched back to standard Java L&F for now.

Building in single player is definitely boring, I've only built a few houses myself. Hopefully when there is multiplayer it will be more interesting.

Linking caves together and putting some spring blocks at the top to make a waterfall system can be slightly interesting, you need a good computer though.

Thanks to everyone who tested. I think the Firefox problems are because I was making a "fake" .jnlp file with PHP, since it doesn't have the right extension some computers might get confused (although it works on FF 3.5 and 3.6 for me, strange.)

Here is a proper .JNLP: http://1scripts.net/cubic/game.jnlp

The only problem with this is that I can't generate it dynamically, so launching multiplayer games off the website will not work. For the people that had Firefox issues, can you try this also? http://1scripts.net/cubic/game2.jnlp - I used mod_rewrite to redirect the URL to the old game.php, meaning it can stil be generated dynamically.

.jar is here: http://1scripts.net/cubic/CubicRealms.jar

If the game2.jnlp link I posted does not work, I'll see if I can get the game to use an applet instead.

I started working on multiplayer today; having some issues with the networking library I'm using though.

Did Microsoft rip off Apple, or vice versa? Is there one true religion? Was life on Earth intelligently created, or did it form spontaneously or come form other planets? Is there water on Mars? Life? Does pi have a repeating pattern? What is 0/0? Does the universe have boundaries? Is Barack Obama the Antichrist? Was he born in Kenya? Did the Egyptians have extraterrestrial help building the pyramids?

Most of those can, and have been resolved using evidence and science. The question you are looking for is 'do you except the scientific method?'

However, a lot of people refuse to use the scientific method, and would rather argue 

Thanks for testing it.

Has anyone tried it on Mac or Linux? Since it's Java it should work on any platform, I just want to make sure.

Also, version 0.05 is out. I just added a few finishing touches that probably should have been in yesterday's release:
-The block that the mouse is over is outlined
-Mouse wheel can be used to switch blocks
-Sounds for walking. Currently the audio is extremely limited; there are only sounds for hard surfaces and grass.
-Improved the loading screen
-Level saving/loading, use the buttons next to the block list. Can't guarantee that the level format will stay the same forever.

Next update will probably be multiplayer.

Procedural generation FTW! Algorithms don't ask for money, or food, and they can create a level in seconds! 

This is now dead, working on the same thing for months got boring, especially since it is more like an application than a game. Nobody was interested anyway...

I uploaded the source here (198 classes): http://1scripts.net/buildsim/source/
Some of it (ok, about 90% of it) isn't coded too well, when I started the game in December I had only been using Java for a few months.

Did Microsoft rip off Apple, or vice versa? Is there one true religion? Was life on Earth intelligently created, or did it form spontaneously or come form other planets? Is there water on Mars? Life? Does pi have a repeating pattern? What is 0/0? Does the universe have boundaries? Is Barack Obama the Antichrist? Was he born in Kenya? Did the Egyptians have extraterrestrial help building the pyramids?

Well, it's not much of a game, so there's not much to comment on.

My computer didn't rank very high. Does the amount of stuff open affect the results?

Play Online (Java applet)

This is my latest project! A JavaScript toy I made called Worldpaint was more popular than I expected, so now I'm developing it into a full game. I'm going to add multiplayer and finish sandbox mode, then most likely add some additional features like deathmatch (similar to Worms) and CTF.

When you open the game it generates a level (512 x 512 blocks). Look underground for some caves! Use the mouse to create and destroy  blocks; there are 3 layers you can build on: in front of, behind, and on the same level as your character.

Ladders and water are automatically placed on layer 1 (behind you).

Controls:
A, D - move
Space - jump
Q, W, E - change layers (the indicator at the top left shows your current layer)
Left click - place block (must be touching an existing block)
Right click - destroy block

Water flows realistically; the last block is a waterfall that was used for testing dynamic water, and will probably be removed in the final game.

Much of my inspiration came from Minecraft; the original Worldpaint was partially based on PlayPen.

Known bugs:
-If you place a lot of moving water, it will start to behave erratically and cause low FPS. This is difficult to do unless you use the waterfall block.
-There were a few infinite loop bugs with water physics earlier in development, which caused the game to crash. I haven't seen one in a while but I can't be certain the problem is fixed completely.
-The level generator is a bit wild, you can get huge mountains and caverns that are dozens of blocks tall. Not sure whether this is good or bad.
- If you dig to the bottom of the map, you can see the sky.

This is great! I'm not artistic enough to add anything, but exploring is quite fun on its own.

As mcc suggested, editable controls would be nice--I kept pressing space also. Chat with players on the same screen would be a good addition as well.

Good progress so far though, keep it up!

I wasn't doing to much in 2000 in terms of game design, being 8 and all, although I'm sure plenty of people started when they were young. (Although I do remember being interested in it back then, even.)

I think around that time I was making board games and maybe even designing levels for "Snake Quest."

I didn't even have a computer until 2001, but I started off writing AppleScripts (Mac OS 9) and using Stagecast Creator. Also designed a few web pages, though I didn't put anything online. I didn't get into real code until around age 12, and it was PHP.

When I was about 7 my dad found a Mac Classic at Goodwill with a bunch of games on it. There were some pretty fun ones on there (Mac-Pan, Carmen Sandiego, Midnight Rescue, Spacestation Pheta), and 2 I can't remember the names of. One was a vector tank battle game like WarZone, the other was some kind of maze game.

There was also an icon that said "Sexy Women" or something and had a picture of a girl in a bikini, when you opened it a fake "Reformatting Hard Disk" dialog box came up