#indie java dev

[thebuggame]

I made him hold still so you can see his animation wiggles.

[daniel-nerd]

as someone who plays modded minecraft since 1.5 modpacks i’ve already played with the new update.

i’ve built with blocks that are almost pixel perfect to the new blocks.

i’ve raided dungeons way cooler than this one.

i’ve used autocrafting systems that are way more fun and challenging than this one.

and yes its going to be interesting and more minecraft-y but it’s just not enough.

i’m going to play with some friends for a few hours raid the new dungeon build with some of the new blocks and play with some of the new redstone features and then after 2 days max i’ll get bored and the only minecraft content i’ll consume will be hermitcraft, rekrap2, clownpierce until the friend or foe series is done, and some technical minecraft players like ilmango and cubicmetre. which is a pretty big group of people its like 8-10 different people but when i get more excited to see a new ethoslab video than the biggest minecraft event of the year and new updates i can’t ignore it anymore… minecraft have became a kids game and microsoft doesn’t care about the java player and especially the older ones who were there from the beginning. its not that neat indie game that got super popular anymore. its that huge game made by that huge company so kids will buy stuff. i seriously cannot see how bedrock is any different than roblox other than the official collabs with big IPs. they’re so similar even in the “not paying the devs who makes the marketplace stuff enough if anything” department. (like seriously side tangent but this needs to be regulated asap people getting pennies for months of hard work for both roblox and minecraft bedrock but because they’re not official employees its ok?? also all the dark paths that both companies and every other company uses to make people(especially children) buy stuff from them should be a crime!)

[jienetan]

About me

Sonic the Hedgehog fan since 2003. 1st video game ever: Spyro: Year of the Dragon Digimon PlayStation Vita/PlayStation Portable collector Gameplay videos Self-taught artist; mainly traditional art; can do digital Credit me! You can use my art for profile pictures, comic dubs etc as long as you credit me. Exceptions: Do not edit/colour my art in any kind of way and do not use my art for spiteful purposes. Making indie game(s) (Godot) BSc Comp Sci to Soft Dev IRL (C++, Java, Python) (currently unemployed) Level 3 English Language & Literature qualifications; I use my literary skills for mostly Sonic character/relationships analysis Lacto-vegetarian

[mauthings]

More (Common) Lisp complaints

Because they are like those people selling financial freedom.

Lisp feels so irrelevant in game dev (desktop, non-mobile). C++ dominates this field. Flash successors plenty abound. XNA alternatives all around. Even Java is there. But where is Lisp?

Naughty Dogs

FF7

Kandria

...?

Let's be honest. These are not success stories. These list feels more like they use Lisp because they are extremely familiar with it. The fact that Naughty Dogs used Lisp doesn't mean Lisp is viable - it just means they have built extensive tooling around it; it is their secret sauce, and they will not share it (it is their rice bowl after all). No games or companies (on the Sony platform) before or after them used Lisp in a major way. It is probably not practical.

And furthermore, with the explosion of indie gaming some time ago, no notable Lisp games was released. Lisp is supposed to be the secret weapon for single developers or small teams - yet I see none of it.

On performance, it is said that Lisp can be 1.5-3x performance of C, and there are even claims that it can go faster than C because the compiler + runtime are included. Now, on the "faster than C part", it's quite hard to believe, when Java with tons of engineering work, finds it quite hard to be on par with C.

Now, that being said, I present my pet peeves.

Lisps might need a lot of effort to reach "close-to-C" speed. Java can have moderately decent programmers with low to moderate effort, and produce "close-to-C" speed. That is the true achievement of Java in my opinion. I don't have to be damn fucking smart or spend a lot of time to achieve great performance, memory safety, easy-to-read code, and more, with just higher memory usage. And these days, I suspect it is even lower than SBCL if you limit memory and use parallel GC. That is a feat that is hard to beat.

What about C++? Lisp can reach "close-to-C" speed. There are claims that Lisps can beat C in speed because of compiler + runtime. Those are only claims. C++ has already beat C in performance, with zero overhead, using a poor mans macro (C++ template) https://stackoverflow.com/a/18004168.

On to the word "tooling", Lisp developers consider tooling as the ability to extend the language, create constructs that are simply not possible in other languages. In the rest of the world, tooling means... tooling.

Like the macro LOOP. If this is tooling, then it is a fucking monstrosity. We all have limited mental capacity. If my program is going to have multiple LOOP-like mental usage, well.. fuck me.

Toolings are like.. IDEs. And sometimes they are so damn good it is not even funny. But the most important thing they do is to reduce your mental load, by being as smart as possible. Tooling does the work, you do the coding. I sometimes wonder if IDE users realize you can do 99.9% of the same things with... | Hacker News (ycombinator.com)

And since I like Java, I will just say some things. Java the language is hilariously weak compared to Lisp, but the runtime, ecosystem, tooling, everything far outshines current Lisps. And the Java language are clearly designed by level-headed geniuses - at least they never claim that Java is the best full stop. Well, I consider them geniuses when I read Brian Goetz, Aleksey Shipilëv, or Ron Pressler when it comes to Java.

And while there is a saying that Java needs a state-of-the-art GC because of all the garbage it produces.. well it is also because of this GC that you can have highly performant code with mediocre code, that won't blow your memory.

The funny thing is that from a purely technological point of view, Java (even th... | Hacker News (ycombinator.com)

JVM Anatomy Quark #11: Moving GC and Locality (shipilev.net)

Java is better than C++ for high speed trading systems | Hacker News (ycombinator.com)

A few more links to show why I feel these people are so delusional. If only they were more pragmatic

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37458188

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35006777 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35006777&p=2, search for lisp

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37308747 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37308747&p=2, search for lisp

[souhaillaghchimdev]

Getting Started with 2D Game Programming

2D game programming is a fantastic way to dive into the world of game development. With simple graphics and mechanics, it’s a beginner-friendly approach that builds foundational skills for creating games. In this post, we’ll cover the basics of 2D game development and how you can start building your own games.

Why Start with 2D Games?

Simplicity: Easier to design and program than 3D games.

Less Resource-Intensive: Suitable for indie developers and small teams.

Classic Style: Many popular games are still made in 2D (e.g., Celeste, Hollow Knight).

Great for Learning: Teaches programming logic, game loops, and physics.

Popular Tools and Frameworks for 2D Game Development

Unity (C#): Powerful and versatile, ideal for both 2D and 3D games.

Godot (GDScript/C#): Open-source, lightweight, and beginner-friendly.

LibGDX (Java): Great for cross-platform development, especially Android.

Pygame (Python): Simple and educational, excellent for learning.

Phaser (JavaScript): Ideal for web-based 2D games.

Core Components of a 2D Game

Game Loop: Continuously updates game state and renders visuals.

Sprites: 2D images or animations representing characters and objects.

Physics: Handles collisions, gravity, and movement.

Input Handling: Detects keyboard, mouse, or touch input.

UI Elements: Menus, score displays, health bars, etc.

Sound and Music: Enhances immersion and gameplay feedback.

Simple Game Development Workflow

Design Your Game: Define the concept, mechanics, and goals.

Choose a Tool: Pick a game engine or framework based on your skills.

Create Assets: Design sprites, sounds, and backgrounds.

Implement Logic: Code the game loop, controls, and interactions.

Test and Debug: Play your game, fix bugs, and optimize.

Export and Share: Build for your target platform and share with others!

Beginner-Friendly Game Ideas

Platformer (like Mario)

Top-down shooter

Puzzle game

Endless runner

Breakout or Pong clone

Tips for Beginners

Start small — finish a simple game before making a complex one.

Use free assets or draw simple shapes to prototype ideas.

Join game dev communities and participate in game jams.

Read source code of open-source 2D games.

Don’t worry about perfection — learn by doing!

Conclusion

2D game programming is an accessible and fun way to learn game development. With the right tools and some creativity, you can bring your game ideas to life and share them with the world. Start simple, keep learning, and have fun building!

[squibbonstan]

From a cynical point of view I've always wondered why Mojang keeps working on Minecraft. Is it just because they have Microsoft money and can do whatever they want? And what they want is to keep working on this game? That's fine, but it just feels unlikely given how many other massively wealthy game companies still make new products constantly and drop old ones.

It's why I'm always terrified the next major Minecraft update is gonna be paid DLC. That seems like the logical (from a purely capitalist POV) next step, especially given that every other major publisher is doing that these days.

But focusing specifically on the Java edition of the game, they could never switch to a Fortnite business model either (which I think has a free base game but paid cosmetics? Idk I've never played), because of how fundamentally baked in community mods and skins are to the game's DNA. And I doubt the Bedrock in-game store is making crazy money or anything.

But that's the other big pivot I could see other than paid updates- abandoning Java and switching to focus only on Bedrock- but given how much they focus on Java even now, I doubt that'll happen- at least not for a long time.

Idk, as long as the Mojang devs aren't working under terrible conditions, and the game keeps the wonderful functionality of being able to revert to previous updates at will, I don't see the harm with it being updated forever. If the new features become too unpopular, I suspect the community will just latch on to one of the versions from the "golden years" (like has already happened with pre-1.9 combat, ReIndev, etc.) and primarily play that.

Minecraft is really unique in the industry right now, because it has the production cycle of a free (or basically free) indie game like Dwarf Fortress, but the business model of a AAA studio. I'm interested to see where it goes in the future.

my opinion is that minecraft needs to be complete at some point. no more feature updates unless they come up with something big. let mojang develop another game already it's been like 8 years at this point

[1000qui]

player move test in java | demo 01

☕software: eclipsethis is just a demo, no comments pls=]#java #javaprogramming #gamedesign #dev #developer #pixelart #pixelartwork #gamedeveloper #demo #sketch

[amphibious-thoughts]

What should this game be called? Comment below?

Game development day 1 concept and design

[thebuggame]

We now have a scoring system! Just gotta make it appear on the screen.

[sapphim]

Um hey do you have a link to download the JRE 1.5.0 (required for TlkEdit)? With newer versions it still demands this one and I cannot find it

Oh, man, yeah. The hassles of trying to install ancient tools created by indie devs. Looks like you can find archived downloads for the old java runtime environment (JRE) on oracle's site. You just have to scroll down past all the downloads for the java development kit (JDK). I believe that's the correct version, anyway.

[elementsgame-blog]

Elements Version 0.1

I’ve uploaded a video to Youtube, which showcases the majority of the code I wrote for the very first version of Elements. The program I show is the one that I presented as my final project at the end of my junior year last year. It has most of the basic gameplay functions coded into it, like coins, turn phases, etc. It only has three cards because I didn’t have time to code all of them in before…

[exuberantram]

Dev Update: That Little-Known Step

Dev Update: That Little-Known Step

Maybe it’s a bad “Indie Dev” stereotype that I’ve learned, and maybe my observations are way off, but it seems as though the majority of indie developers try to avoid programming when they can. At least, that’s the impression I get from the people I follow on various social media sites.

I know I already have a leg up because I’ve been familiar with some of the ‘easier’ languages like HTML and…

[rpgmgames]

February’s Featured Game: Ressurflection

DEVELOPER(S): charlottezxz ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Fantasy, Cartoon, RPG WARNINGS: Paranoia, fear and tension, mild swearing and blood. SUMMARY: Ressurflection is a Fantasy/cartoon RPG set in the fictional universe of the Arbvar and taking center stage primarily at the coastal city of ‘Horizon Bluff’. Its story and game play are heavily character driven, with its narrative divided into two parallels told both within and outside the mirror itself. Ressurflection’s core themes draw from our inevitability of fearing death, and that at some point or another, we all must accept it, and to treasure what’s really important in the time that we have.

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *charlottezxz: Hiya this is Charlotte, lead game developer for Ressurflection! I’m some silly, overactive drawing monkey who works a lot with Narrow on Ressurflection! I’m always sketching and conceptualizing monster bois, taking a lot of inspiration from various games, primarily monster hunter! I’ve had avid interest in the Indie scene for a while now and a lot of the great friends I've made have been due to it and a lot of my recent favorite games have come from it! I would have had Narrow say a few things here but he’s hiding in a corner somewhere!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *charlottezxz: Ressurflection started out as what can be described as two separate stories. Myself and Narrow wrote our own stories and every so often we swapped over ideas or combined them together with each other. One day I said to ourselves ‘You know what? This could work quite well as a game rather than just a story’ so eventually Ressurflection was conceived, around the idea of a mythical mirror capable ‘Ressurflection’ the title of the game. We’ve gone through quite a few iterations of the story before it came to its current form and to be honest if we even showed or compared them side by side they’d be pretty unrecognizable as the same thing except for certain characters, locations and the mirror itself to identify its primordial form having any kind of ancestral relevance to how it is today. As for what Ressurflection is about, I think our synopsis can get that across quite nicely! ‘Horizon Bluff has always annually held its ‘Legend of the Wyvern Glass’ festivities. The Wyvern glass was a long lost mythical mirror, once fabled for its power of ‘Ressurflection’ and coveted by a kingdom now all but gone. That is quick to change however with the arrival of the Roulette Runner’s circus to the coastal city of Horizon Bluff. Trouble is soon to set in motion not just the kingdom’s sudden reappearance but the entrapment of one of their own acrobats within the mirror silver. Yet things are soon to worsen...with the spread of a purple ‘corruption’ across the city and the fact that our most unfortunate trouper is far from alone within the mirror, finding himself at the mercy of its ‘Mirror Maiden’. > The apparent all powerful manipulator of its realm…’

How long have you been working on your project? *charlottezxz: Conceptually we have been working on it for 4 years which is hard to even fathom, however that’s more tinkering around the idea for the story and conceiving it as we learnt the engine. The blog itself is hitting its 4th birthday in February! Ressuflection’s development went on as i attended university, so its always been a side lined hobby of ours.Steam says 108 days worth of hours in the engine and most of the game progress other than concepts has been done in 2019. So I could say 4 years for the ideas/stories and concepts and a year of that for actual game making!

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *charlottezxz: We each have our own inspirations, Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy 9, Xenoblade Chronicles, Monster hunter and many older PSX titles such as Medievil, Tomba and Heart of darkness are great influences and inspirations to me personally. The dark, dangerous environments of Heart of darkness contrasted by some innocent characters, the monster designs in capcom’s franchise and the storytelling and themes with a cinematic approach to cut scenes found in some of FF9, Xenoblade and Lost odyssey, a lost game stuck in the recess of the xbox 360. There are many more but these spring to mind first and foremost. Narrow himself draws inspiration from games such as Earthbound, the Persona series and FF10!

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *charlottezxz: We started the project in VX ace to begin with, until MV released. It was in Ace that I experimented learning RPG maker and in the early days of MV too. Although before Ressurflection’s time i also dabbled a bit in XP. MV seemed more in line for what we wanted, as i really wanted to try animating beyond SV sheets and do more, with Java being a bit more flexible and the scope of it being able to allow dragon bones later. However it hasn’t been without its hiccups! Part of that is the sheer amount of time you underestimate games and certain elements to take in their development. That and everything that comes with it, streamlining, trimming the fat...in the past week alone i spent days optimizing pictures, sounds and music in the game to cut down the staggering file sizes they were. So far they have retained their form without being as costly on the MB! Since I do the vast majority of the game development myself, everything takes a lot longer to develop. You underestimate all the little things to consider and that you may need later. By the end of development, I hope to have the vast majority of the game consist of custom assets and be able to truly call it something that is ours. Though that path is long ahead we won’t stray too far from it.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *charlottezxz: The game itself has always been a story-driven RPG at its heart, although certain game mechanics have been scaled down or developed further from puzzles to battle flow. As mentioned previously, the story has changed considerably which changed the direction of the overall narrative and gameplay as a whole. Certain characters and scenarios have been culled completely too. At its start the story wasn’t as heartfelt nor was the scope of the story all that big - Oh and the game had a time limit, a bit like Majora’s Mask! But it is a lot more meaningful now and we hope that you will enjoy it when the time comes.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *charlottezxz: It has been just myself and Narrow for the majority of the development but we reached a point where we wanted to reach out to find a musician for our game. We eventually came across Geoff who has done the majority of our music up until recently. However we have had friends help and contribute along the way such as Harry helping sprite some NPCs for me, Bart helping formulate and do some math balancing, Vaijack has also contributed to music making him our second musical boi and more on the way, our preliminary demo testers( it would take a little to list them all) and more peeps i’ll be sure to credit!

What is the best part of developing a game? *charlottezxz: For me it has to be conceptualising all the little ideas we have and bringing them all into being. This is especially so for any monster and character bois! I spend a lot of time visualizing and planning the design of areas, locales and creatures. Would this thing live here? Why would it be this way? If this is a historical town wouldn’t it have x and x? Then when we ultimately put it together, and all the pieces of the puzzle line into place and then you can just...experience, the final thing, that for me is the best part in developing our game for me.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *charlottezxz: I learn best by doing, so more often than not I just dive into things, including the engine blind and tussle around with it. It’s a silly way of doing it, but I've often found myself learning more that way than following tutorials. Although in any game I've played, RPG maker or not, i do like to ponder and deconstruct scenes within them. The Witch's house, Pocket Mirror, Dreaming Mary, Mad fathers and Ib are all wonderful games that are great to learn from, dissect and understand what makes and made them tick. This applies across any game I've played or intend to play! I look at game making as one giant puzzle with lots of intricate little details that need to be solved, it’s more fun and engaging that way!

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *charlottezxz: There’s some characters I like a great deal, but i can’t talk about as it would be spoilers to the plot, that and it’s hard to pick any overall favorites. Charm comes across as a fun character to write for as she’s quite witty and sarcastic, the kind of dialogue that comes a bit too naturally to me. She’s a budding magical prodigy of the circus under the tutelage of Jerine. She bigs herself up a lot but isn’t quite ready to deal with the problems of the adult world just yet, as much as she strives to get into it. Then there’s the likes of Ashley as well, she’s the loudest circus member and a close friend to Zakai, its ringmaster. She’s a super hard working down to earth country girl who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and jump into the thick of things. Honestly I love all the cast, but there’s those two for now!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *charlottezxz: I would say ideally we should have had all our ducks in a row before we dove into development. My development style is very messy, especially since when we started development we had a lot of learning ahead of us. That combined with focusing on a lot of coursework and real life things meant I often forgot how we made things for consistency. This has improved considerably since i started getting more organised now, keeping lists and things tabbed for reference. My desk has bits of paper kept with it with information I need to retain. I forget far too many things for my own good, but now I'm taking better count measures! I would advise anyone to keep tabs of important information about your game such as consistent sprite style sizes, resolution size, x and y positions of certain things and important variables and switches.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *charlottezxz: There’s a few ideas bounced about to do side stories for some of the cast of characters in the circus, such as before they became one and the origins of how certain members joined the circus essentially the ‘First Stringers’ and ‘Second stringers’, these being those that joined afterwards. These would be great to do as small little episodes added onto the game post development, but currently they are just ideas and won’t be given too much thought until the game is either done or close to fruition.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *charlottezxz: My most hopeful thought is for people to enjoy the game and have as much fun and interest in it as myself and Narrow have had in creating it. It’s the kind of game we want to make and hope that the characters and story chime with people enough for people to see the journey through to its end! It’s a big scope of a project but i have endless enthusiasm for it, no matter how long it takes it will get out there at some point!

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *charlottezxz: That the games story and overall feel doesn’t quite hit the right notes, it's always a little back concern. From a technical perspective I would say that the game might have some oversighted bugs or critical crashes that slip under the radar or not run as smoothly on other PCs on release. We will do our best to optimise the game as much as possible for MV and squash those pesky bugs during testing, but it is on our minds often as a niggling fear.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *charlottezxz: Gut everything from the base project that you know you most definitely will not be needing and give all your files smart tags and naming conventions. It would be great if MV allowed for sub folders, but it does not so naming your files smartly is key to finding what you need. Any of these files you know you will use often in certain ways, make them common events and call for those in events and cut scenes. This saves you mass editing them later. With naming conventions this could be Actor_1_Hurt or Chapter_1_NPC. Anything you want at the top of the list name it with _ to begin with. The bigger our project gets, the more important this has become for us and we hope it serves other inspiring devs well all the same.

Question from last month's featured dev @rojisroomrpg: How do you keep yourself happy and healthy when making your game? *charlottezxz: I’m normally a happy-go-lucky person, so I'm rarely not happy when working on Ressurflection. It's the happy little hobby I devote most of my spare time to. However, recently i would say my hands, wrists and neck have been hurting from spending a little too much time drawing assets and pieces for the game. Taking more breaks and spreading that time with other activities in between has helped to ease that pain and i would like to advise any dev to do so for their own health, including always having one or two bottles of juice, water or whatever beverage always at hand to sip at as you dev away!

We mods would like to thank charlottezxz for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Ressurflection if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[finsterhund]

Dream: it's possible therefore I didn't cheat

Java edition speedrun modteam: it's unlikely therefore he cheated

Other YouTubers: outright are abusive and cruel towards indie game devs but never receive anywhere near the amount of backlash any of this got.

Also, I'm so sick of people complaining about the Dream stans when completionist stans exist.

[iceberger3]

Pixelot - Inventory

Hey Guys! So this past few weeks I have really filled out the inventory system in pixelot. This means allowing players to pick up items, equip them, and have the item’s stats be added to their character’s stats! I have also added chests to the overworld that contain powerful equipment! This will be primary way to pick up relic items!

Players have 5 different equipment slots to put gear into: helm, cloak, armor, relic, and weapon! Helms and armor fall into three categories: heavy, medium, and light. Each class can only equip heavy, medium, or light armor. Heavy armor has a high defense rating, and low (if any) resistance. Similarly, light armor has low defense and high resistance. Medium armor has a relatively even amount of defense and resistance, favoring defense at higher levels. To remind you, defense reduces the damage taken by normal attacks, while resistance lowers the damage taken by elemental attacks. Similar to armor and helms, each class can only equip a few types of weapons. Whether they are swords, axes, maces, staves, bows or even spears.

Players will be able to really customize their characters by their characters based on which cloaks and relics they select. Cloaks can have any type of stat on them and do not necessarily have defense or resistance on them! Relics usually do not have stats, but rather effects! These effects could be extra critical strike, extra damage, piercing to ignore a portion of enemy defense or resistance, the ability to self revive in combat, resistance to certain elements, and much much more! The possibilities are endless and I want the players to enjoy the experience of discovering them!

I've really filled out the unit screen to allow players to equip items. You can click on any item slot in the unit page, and you will be presented with a list of equippable items. Just click on the item you want and it will be equipped! I've also added an inventory screen so you can view all the items you have and even filter by the type of item!

For the latest updates about Pixelot please check out my Twitter! Additionally you can sign up to be notified about the Beta and Production release of Pixelot at this link!

As always, let me know what you guys think and if you have any suggestions!