Java 4K Game Development Contest

mrseigen writes "Java Unlimited has been running a contest since Dec 1 to develop a game in Java using only four kilobytes of bytecode and resources. You have until March 1 to finish your entries, and it's worth looking at the entries for last years' contest."

Comments

Uh....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you are going to have a 4k email signature, you might as well have it be an attached Java game, not some lame graphic.

I sense productivity will reach all time highs ...

So who won last year's contest?

[Therin]

I looked around the site linked, and while they have 50 games archived from last year, there is no mention I can find of who won.

Anyone know where that is?

Re:So who won last year's contest?

[AKAImBatman]

http://games.datadino.com/4K_2005/scores.html

Be nice to the poor server, please.

Re:So who won last year's contest?

[Woogley]

thanks for pointing this out, I do indeed need to list the winners on the site. I'll have to port that 3rd party spreadsheet from 2005 to the site.

this year I will make sure the winners list is on the site itself (it would be nice to sort it by final placing after judging anyway) :)

SCREENSHOTS

[Eightyford]

Everybody loves screenshots...

Useful...

[Anonymous Coward]

because on a machine that has to run a JVM, memory is tight.

Re:Useful...

[AKAImBatman]

It does have real use for Cell Phones and other J2ME devices. The types of tricks used in this contest are precisely the types of things you'd do for J2ME. The only difference is that J2ME further constrains you on total system memory, not just download size.

Re:About what you would expect

[jlarocco]

He does have a point. I have a version of tetris for my TI-86 calculator. I have no idea how to tell how much RAM it uses, but the calculator only has something like 120K. One 4K version of tetris on that page uses almost 40 MB of RAM after a few minutes, and after playing for a while there's occasional, noticeable pauses for garbage collection (yes, I verified it was from garbage collection), which doesn't happen on the calculator.

Java's great for some tasks, it's almost like a cross-platform VB. But the language, or more likely the way the language is most commonly used, isn't optimal for some things. Games happen to be one of those things.

Re:New Demo Scene?

[AKAImBatman]

Having moved to the Mac a few years back, I haven't found many demos which run natively on my machine.

Try Robotron 4096. It was developed on a Mac, then tested on Windows. ;-)

Is this a sign the demo scene may just kick off big time for J2SE?

This contest is currently running into its fourth year. It garnered quite a bit of attention the first year, but the quality of the entries was pretty low. The second year two competitors really tore up the contest with full graphics, sound support, and full screen applications. The third year gained attention from many professional game developers. taking the contest into 3D, real-time raytracing, and other areas that it had never been before.

The fourth year is shaping up to be even bigger and badder than ever before. Visit JavaGaming.org for more info.

No FAQ on .JNIP extension file

[Dark Coder]

For the uninitiated and clueless, there is no HOWTO or FAQ on how to run these Java program from Mozilla/Firefox or its mime action file.

Just how does one go about getting JNIP file to execute from a 'single-click' standpoint of view?

When one clicks on the website's 'Run Webstart', an open dialog box indicating that this JNIP file extension is identified as a 'Java Network Launched Application', but offers no executable for this...

What is the correct executable for this?

Re:No FAQ on .JNIP extension file

[Jerdie]

Install java web start from java's website.

4k?

[PeterAllen]

Anyone know what happened to the 5k? used to live at http://the5k.org/

Re:About what you would expect

[AKAImBatman]

One 4K version of tetris on that page uses almost 40 MB of RAM after a few minutes

Did you consider that the memory you're seeing may be JVM overhead combined with pre-allocation? In smaller devices (like Cell Phones), the JVM is built into the device. So there's no real overhead for Java. The pre-allocation is also smaller to compensate for the smaller device. Considering that many of these devices have barely 64K available (never mind 120K), I'd say that Java fits just fine.

and after playing for a while there's occasional, noticeable pauses for garbage collection (yes, I verified it was from garbage collection)

I find it interesting that you singled out such an example without looking at many of the more interesting examples like T4XI, Robotron 4096, and Hunters 4K. Also, you may find Tetris 4K to be a much better version than the first item on the list.

Java's great for some tasks, it's almost like a cross-platform VB. But the language, or more likely the way the language is most commonly used, isn't optimal for some things. Games happen to be one of those things.

You don't know what you're talking about.

At one point I could have pointed to the poor performance and massive memory usage of VegaStrike. Does that mean that C/C++ is a "bad" langauge? NO! It means that it was poorly coded and still needed lots of work done. The developers worked on improving their codebase, and low-and-behold, the game got better. Perhaps it wasn't the language after all?