Thread: Quidditch (shameless self promotion)

Hey all,

Just in time for the new Harry Potter movie, I've been working on a Quidditch game. I'm pretty pleased with the results, but I'd love some feedback!

I'm especially curious to hear advice on how I'm deploying everything, how I'm handling the fullscreen stuff, and how to improve the framerate on slower computers. I know my HTML, CSS, and art leave much to be desired, and I'm definitely still learning. But if nothing else, hopefully the game will provide a few minutes of entertainment for somebody!

screenshot1.JPG

Play here: Quidditch

Here are some direct links:
Applet
Web Start
Jar

screenshot2.JPG

Thanks again for your time!

FYI, crossposted: here and here.

Edit- You can also play it on Game Jolt, if that's your thing.

Hey Kevin,

Haha this is brilliant. I enjoyed trying to catch that damn Quaffle!

Did it take you long to write?

Originally Posted by JavaPF

Hey Kevin,

Haha this is brilliant. I enjoyed trying to catch that damn Quaffle!

Did it take you long to write?

I'm glad it you liked it! (And I'm glad it worked! The framerate can suck on slower computers.)

I experimented with making the Quaffle calmer and easier to catch, but that seemed a bit too boring. In the end I went with the hectic, bounce around uncontrollably option.

It took about 3 weeks of programming- some days not programming at all, other days programming hours at a time. A good portion of that time was spent tweaking things to make them feel right and testing some of the newer stuff that I'm not very familiar with (this is the first time I played with full screen) as opposed to actual writing of code.

Originally Posted by dlorde

Nice one! frame rate sucks on my old steam PC, but still fun LOL!

Yeah, I need to improve the framerate of all my games. I'm working from a 60 fps game loop that somebody posted on the JGO forums, and it works pretty well on my development computer. But it takes a nosedive on slower machines, and I'm not even really doing THAT much processing. I think for my next project I'm going to play with direct rendering, which is something I've been strongly opposed to up until this point. I wish I knew a way to reliably get 60 FPS (or even 30 or 40). Hmph.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked it!

I've added a feature that lets you change the quality from the pause menu. That should vastly improve the framerate, even on slower computers. Hooray! Give it a try if you feel like it.

Originally Posted by dlorde

Tried running the applet, but the pause menu I found (I pressed 'p') only had 'unpause' and 'return to main menu'...

Whatever

You'll probably have to clear your Java cache (on Windows, you go to Control Panel > Java > Settings > Delete Files). I can't figure out a good way to get around the problem of clients using the cached version instead of updating it.

It's going round the office as we speak.. It's fun to play

Originally Posted by JavaPF

It's going round the office as we speak.. It's fun to play

Wow, that is so awesome to hear! I just updated it again to include the ability to redefine the keys (button in the lower left corner of the main menu), and hopefully to make it easier to tell the players apart (okay all I did was fill in player 2's head, but that's the extent of my artistic abilities). Thanks again for taking the time to play it, this makes me really happy!