Alchemist TD

[Yokubo]

I managed to upload the game, it works now.
I hope it will work for everybody

The Noid: I plan to make this a commercial game, where the first scenario is for free, but for the extra maps, extra special gems, and extra enemies, people will have to pay some small amount.
I hope this game will make me rich

Originally Posted by ShadowRunner

One more bug: Creeps from every level have only 2hp.

I tried to reproduce this, but all monster HP seemed OK to me. In fact, the creeps had so many HP I sometimes find it difficult to kill them

Originally Posted by The Noid

Yes, afaik it loads jars as needed. I'm not sure what happens when you set the cache of java too small (so it can't store anything)

That is cool, I didn't know it's that clever

Originally Posted by The Noid

No, HexTD is totally deterministic, there is no random element in it. That's also what makes it cheat resistant.

I don't get it. How are this two things connected?

Originally Posted by The Noid

Random is a pseudo random number generator.

I think I will feed it the current time, then it should be really random.

[The Noid]

Originally Posted by Yokubo

I don't get it. How are this two things connected?

The game stores the user's actions and submits those with the submitted score. Because the game is deterministic, the server can than re-play the game of the user, to check if the score was achieved truthfully.

Originally Posted by Yokubo

I think I will feed it the current time, then it should be really random.

If you just instantiate it without a seed it'll do something similar.

[Yokubo]

I managed to get rid of the annoying flicker. The solution was to remove some Swing buttons and replace them with my own Button class.

The Noid: That deterministic thing with the score is a good idea. I remember reading something about that in StarCraft multiplayer, both players received the same semi-random array of numbers, and that meant each new event happened with the same result on all client sides
Thanks for the advices! I think I am going to ask some more questions about game development later

[The Noid]

Nice, it looks a lot better now, but I'm still seeing some flicker.
My suggestion would be:

• Make the game area it's own panel and redraw that regularly.
• Do not constantly redraw the rest of the interface.
• Turn on double buffering.

[Yokubo]

I think I will use only one panel, as it works better for me Too much (like two) panels only confuse me
Other than that, I will optimize the game to redraw only what is necessary.
About double-buffering, is it possible to turn it on for the whole canvas? I didn't find that option, how could I do that?

[The Noid]

Are you using a JPanel for painting? It's an option of every class that extends JComponent:
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/ap...ffered(boolean)

[Yokubo]

Originally Posted by The Noid

Are you using a JPanel for painting? It's an option of every class that extends JComponent:
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/ap...ffered(boolean)

At the moment I don't use any panels, but if you say it's a good idea I will use it. Do you use doublebuffering in hex TD?

The old server is back online:
http://www.belanet.ujmappa.hu/Alchemist/java.html

Connection should be much smoother now!

[The Noid]

Ah, so you're drawing directly into the (J)Applet?
the JApplet class only extends the awt interfaces, so it doesn't have many features.
Also, putting everything in panels gives you the option of moving those panels to another frame, giving you the possibility to escape from the (usually way to small) browser window.

So, yeah, I'd say using one or more panels for the different UI items is a good idea

By the way, I really like the fact that you can combine gems from your picks with ones on your board before picking a gem from picks!

[Yokubo]

Originally Posted by The Noid

Also, putting everything in panels gives you the option of moving those panels to another frame, giving you the possibility to escape from the (usually way to small) browser window.

I think I will try to use some panels, then.

Originally Posted by The Noid

By the way, I really like the fact that you can combine gems from your picks with ones on your board before picking a gem from picks!

So you noticed that! At first my intention was to make it sure that while placing gems, you don't accidentally place some good gem on the edge of the map, and seeing what other choices will come next seemed a good idea, too. And when I designed the combinations system, I noticed this, that I am able to combine deployed gems with new choices, and I liked it! I think giving the player more options is usually a good thing.

[The Noid]

You have a bug in your placement code that allows rocks to overlap. See the attached image for a screenshot.

Also, your creep-alive count goes negative, but I'm sure you noticed that yourself