Making java games

[Mr_Threepwood]

Alright well I'm interested in making a java game and need some advice on how to get started.

First off let me say I'm not just some totally inexperienced person who thinks I can make a 3d game in 5 days.

I've taken java for 2 years at high school and am currently doing the advanced placement programming exam, its on tuesday.

I want to make a game and decided to start out small, like a text based adventure game (it'll be short). The problem is I dont know where to get started. I dont know much about applets, or anything graphical. I do know the base structure of java with inheritance and such.

Doing online guides is ok sometimes, but what I really need is a book on introductory game making, but not one that is for complete beginners. I was looking at a book called java 5 game development and it looked good, but does anyone else have a suggestion?

 

[Emily]

Woohoo, I'm taking the AP test on Tuesday too. (Except my high school doesn't offer the class, so basically I'm going to fail.) Anyway... I would say start out by learning Swing really well, or any other Java graphics package - the Sun website (http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/) is always a good place to start. Swing is really powerful and pretty simple to learn. I don't really know any good books for it, but I would say the best way to learn it is just to play around, experiment, think of elements that might be useful in a game and figure out how to code them. Also, skim through everything in the API that's part of the javax.swing package.

Also, you might want to check a few books out of your local library to see if any of them will help you out before you buy one since they cost so much. Or if there's a university near you, they usually have community borrower cards or something like that, and a much bigger selection of programming books than public libraries.

Hope this helped.

 

[Mr_Threepwood]

Yea the AP thing Im semi worried about, asides from the fish crap I dont know how much we're expected to know.


How much of swing do you understand? I mean if were both taking the AP I wanna know how much java stuff you are familiar with. I only know basic swing stuff like how to use option panes and stuff, other than that I dont know much about the graphical side of java.

We only sort of had a java AP course where we met up every friday and dis stuff for like 30 mins.

Also, an arraylist counts as a vector right?

 

[Emily]

Oh man, I'm totally screwed on the fish crap, I basically skimmed the case study and that's it. I'm pretty sure that swing isn't on the AP test, or anything graphical at all. I seem to remember reading that swing isn't on it, and I haven't come across anything even bordering on graphical in the practice tests I've looked at. I'm not sure if an arraylist counts as a vector, they're definitely related because they both implement the list interface. I would say for all practical purposes an ArrayList is a vector, but technically it isn't.

 

[Mr_Threepwood]

Yea the fish thing isnt really that hard, I just hope they dont make us memorize anything. If there's a question like "explain how the getEmptyNeighbors method works" I'm screwed. I could explain it if they gave us the code, and say what the codes doing but theres no way I'm going to remember the method code.

Also how are you taking the AP examn, ur profile says 1989 you were born, doesnt that put you in grade 11? Or are you just really ahead of everyone and already done the grade 12 course.

 

[furtivefelon]

don't worry, i took it last year.. Just get a good AP book (i borrowed one by princeton review), and read over the fish thing documentation from online. I prepared for a weekend, passed with a 5

From what i can remember, you are expected to hand write code which extends basic fish functions.. For example to attack and other things, they also give you a booklet showing most of the important functions in the default classes..

They don't seem to believe in GUI stuff, so there won't be those things on AP.. I only took AB, prob some brilliant mind would take BC.. Prob not that much harder, some more algrithim stuff, that's prob it..

 

[Mr_Threepwood]

Our school only ofered A, not even AB. Im just doing it for fun really since universitys in Canada dont even look at it.

 

[TheHeadFL]

I took the AP CS exam as a Junior in HS, so it is offered to Juniors. In fact, all the people I took it with were also Juniors.

I got a 5 I don't remember it being that tough though.

 

[M4A1]

I took the AP Java last year... there was a fish free response... you had to code your own method, so at least know whats going on in the Marine Biology Case Study.

You don't need Swing for the AP exam.

Make sure you know recursion, I think I had a lot of those questions

Good luck!

 

[Emily]

Yeah I'm a junior, but like I said my school doesn't have the course so I just signed up for the test when it occurred to me to take it.