Sun Sponsors Java Game Development Competition

Sim9 writes "Sun (among others) is sponsoring a $50,000 Java games competition, with the competition page explaining: 'With Java technology, developers are enabled to simplify their development process and create richer games reaching across a multitude of devices and platforms.' In my humble opinion, Java still has a ways to go in the gaming industry, but the competition could greatly help if skilled people enter."

Comments

Re:Java is a great language for games

[BortQ]

I don't know about Japan, but in North America every phone manufacturer ships JVMs that are different enough that you must port your application to each one. So, yes, you can do it with just one codebase, but you will have to have a whole bunch of branches for different handsets.

The consensus out there is Sun just wanted to get java put on every damn phone that they could. So they didn't do as stringent a QA process on the JVMs that they should have.

This is supposed to get better with MIDP version 2.0. However that probably won't be in large scale use for a year or two. Even then there will be plenty of older handsets, so the problem isn't going to go away.

Re:Java as a game development platform

[vonstroodl]

Agreed. Its improving though. I think Java's gaming future on desktops probably lie in that area where you need the ease of deployment of Macromedia Flash, but with the sophistication of a fully developed programming langauge. Its still early, but there are a few java games out there that exploit these strengths, such as Wurm Online (a mmorpg that is multiplatform, uses opengl via jogl and doesn't require an install, just click and play!)

Re:Puzzle Pirates should have already won...

[Sam Lowry]

Il-2 Sturmovik. It is not entirely in Java but it has a lot of Java inside and it is the most popular war plane simulation out there (forget MSCFS)

Re:J2ME

[Kardamon]

Here's a guide to writing games in J2ME.

Re:Puzzle Pirates should have already won...

[zero_offset]

Only in the most tenacious sense:

avsim.com

"Next urban legend says, that IL-2 is coded in Java. Again, this assumption is based on rumors only, and has no substance. Java is used in IL-2, but just in small part. C++ is mostly used in coding this baby."

rolemaker.dk

"Uses dirty Java by mixing Java with C++, such that logic and part of the game engine is in Java but all the graphics are in C++."

According to another writeup (which I've been unable to track down again), it essentially used a homebrew Java-based language internally for scripting the user interface and pilot AI. It sounded like there wasn't even a VM or anything along those lines involved.

Of course, it's easy to find fanboy sites breathlessly claiming it's "90% Java"...