Slick Forums

Hallo,

I'm developing on a remake of the arcade game Swing Plus -Total Mindcontrol from Software 2000.
I think it's more than a Tetris clone and worth to be coded in a new version. The final game should have a tutorial, a multilayer option, many extras (like jokers, bombs etc.) and of course a high score list.
The game play will be completely different in new version, as soon I as I can implement the scales which can catapult balls through the game.

Here is my first playable alpha version: (it's already very funny )


Webstart: XSwing.jnlp
Download: XSwing.zip
Homepage: XSwing.net
Current version: v0.354

Features:

• Spiffy addictive gameplay
• Hot Seat multiplayer mode
• 45 Challenging Levels
• Offline and online high score
• Particle and sound effects
• Multilingual (German and English)

Short instruction:
The objective is to simultaneously disband as many heavy balls as possible. To do this, simply place three balls with the same color in a horizontal row. Now these and all adjoining balls of this color will explode. Five balls of the same color in a column will shrink to one heavy ball. Every 50 balls a new color will be added. Pay attention not to place more than eight balls on one stack.

Keys:
Left/Right: Move the canon
Down: Drop a ball
N: New Game
B: Change the ball set
E: Disable particle effects
ESC: Exit the game

The background is captured and resized from the original game. I'll redesign it soon.

I'll be happy for any feedback.

Best wishes to all other game programmers,
Tobse

_________________
XSwing Plus
German Java gaming Slick Tutorial

Neat game. I set up a combo so a bunch of greens exploding would drop yellows and they would explode. The game crashed right after the yellows dropped, sorry I didn't capture the error message.

After adding a “MaximumLogicUpdateInterval”, I had no more problems with crashing. Before that the game crashed with low frame rates (<40fps) and many particle effects.
NateS, what's your frame rate in my game? Does it also happen with disabled particles? (Key E)

I tested it on several systems:
SingleCore Dektop PC; 2,61ghz => 650 fps
DoulCore Laptop; 2x 2,1 ghz => 1190 fps
A new QuadCore from a friend =>above 3000 fps

But maybe I can add a particle maximum in a further options dialogue for older systems. Or I check the frame rate and auto limit the effects.

Nice game NateS, although I'm not proving get good at it

I love remakes myself, although that's because I can't come up with my own ideas , so its great to see another one being done.

I look forward to seeing the final game.

MikeD

I released a new XSwing Plus version !
It available on: XSwing Homepage

New in v 0.344
+ Off line high score list
+ F2 toggles to full screen mode
+ New particle effects
+ You can loose

Fixes:
- Pause mode affects all components
- Ball releasing is now limited

The current version is a very early first preview of the game! The most features like, multilayer mode, options, on line high score lists or game extras are not implemented at the moment.
Please inform me about bugs, suggestions or incitations.

I wish you fun by testing by game,
Best regards, Tobse

a little suggestion, about homepage: why not add a cbox? (http://cbox.ws/index.php) so players can chat about your game, and you can have a quick response

sorry, how have you build an exe from java source? I'm curiuos

Hi Gornova81,

at first, thank you for playing XSwing Plus.
The exe isn't compiled java code. It only executes the XSwing.jar file. So Windows users can't get trouble with wrong file associations (eg. with WinRAR) and see a nice program icon, instead of a jar File.

You can easily do this by using:
Launch4j or JSmooth.
Both are free open source programs.

To the homepage: It's a good idea to make posting feedback easier. A soon I get enough time, I want to ad a forum and an on-line high score list.

Greets,
Tobse

some notes:
- i can't use tutorial: only options that i can select are hitting "return" on play or quit.. i don't understand if is my problem or not
- nice job

Hi.. what a surprise to see that you have one up and running.. just played it and had no problems.. are you going to include the "balance" part in newer versions?.. well I think you probably will and the bonuses and so.. I'm already exited about it all.. I can already use this one to occupy me LOL... what a coincidence that I just took a look today
thanks heaps.. can't wait to tell my cousin (the one that had a original one too)

Looks awesome, loved to give it a try but it doesn't seem to run on my macbook running Leopard. I get the following exception:



I tried editing the jnlp to use Java 1.5+ which allowed the game to start but caused it to crash with a Java.lang.Exception. (Not a useful one I'm afraid.)

Any chance you can tweak things to run on a mac?

_________________
My website about game development http://anotherearlymorning.com

Hi,

first of all I have to say that I'm so happy for your replies and the huge number of site calls here.

dino06: I'm proud by reading about players that have fun with my game like you. In this version isn't till interesting on level 8 and become very hard at level 13.
I know it's not well balanced -external because you can chat by using jokers with "J". It wasn't an easy decision to release this alpha version, which is far away from a release. But there were a young friend and the mother of my girlfriend. They were so motivated by with playing. And the second reason was that I couldn't expect to get a feedback. So put it on line

Gornova81: No it's not your problem with the main menu... tutorial, options and credits are also on my to do list an not implemented so far.

manunderground: It's my aim that XSwing Plus runs on every platform. I tested It on Linux, Mac, XP & Vista without any problems (Linux users have to run the .sh file instead of the jar). Java 1.6 is available for Mac (Leopard) since a long time. Maybe you have already installed 1.6 with an update, but not activated it.
On utilities / Java Preferences you can choose the Java version (SE6). Good luck.. I'm excitedly for your answer.

Well I didn't know about the "J" so that made it hard like you said at those levels.. with the balance I meant the sort of "sews" that made that you had to take care how heavy you made two piles that were "connected" or one pile flew away and you got a bomb or star flying in... I think you did great so far and you can count on me to monitor each new version.. I have a computer since 10 years and I can honestly say Swing was the only game I was really hooked on.. such a chalenge in strategy and so much unexpected "special" marbles to really kleep the grey cells
keep up the great work Tobse .. at least I live in hope now

Alright, finally updated to 1.6 so I can run the game! Here are my thoughts (as I have them)...

+ Really like the icon, the .app shortcut, very polished!
+ Menu screen should highlight current selected option (really really!)
+ How about some music in the menu screen? Sounds when you switch options?
+ Start in a window not full screen, let that be an option you opt into (and communicate how to get out
+ Not sure what happens when I press s in the game... weird bug
+ Can't wait to see what the options are and the tutorial
+ Really like the sounds
+ Really like the artwork, you're so talented... very jealous
+ Think you could do better w/ the fonts for the scores and high scores, etc. Current one doesn't really match the rest.
+ I have no clue how to play this game, I would have things start off w/ a tutorial level which you can opt out of by pressing escape

Anyway that's my feedback for now. Overall I'm really impressed. You say this is still the early stage but the game seems very close to complete! Obviously you'll need to add more levels, the tutorial, etc, but it seems like you've already done most of the real work. Way to go!

_________________
My website about game development http://anotherearlymorning.com

hi again, i agree with manu with one thing:



this feature can be really useful, for me too

and for balancing your game.. for me u can implement a little idea from Jenova Chen, see here: http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/thesis.htm

The basic idea is: if i play fast, game must be more challeging