Classic gameplay returns
with the Java-developed “Alien Flux”
Development studio
Puppy Games is gearing up for the release of Alien Flux, a PC game created
entirely with Java. Caspian Rychlik-Prince tells GameZone what it was like to
develop this arcade-style shooter.
When the GameZone staff woke
up this morning, we were very shaken and a little stirred. An evil spy had
infiltrated the office and stole our next assignment!
There was only one solution
to our horrible: we had to get it back. If a day went by without GZ getting
the job done, the world could collapse. First-class video game reviews are
only a cover. Truthfully, our hardcore fans know that GameZone is actually a
top-secret agency that works for the government. No, the government isn’t
aware of our existence, but that’s only for their protection. The more people
that know…the more dangerous the situation gets.
We had to start looking for
our assignment, but where? Where would we begin? Not ones to rush into
anything, we sat down and had a few relaxing cups of java. This gave us time
to really think our mission through. On my third cup, one of the other
reviewers suggested that we watch a few videos of MTV’s anime-style cartoon,
Aeon Flux.
Once that was over with, we
realized that it was five o’ clock. Time to take a break! Working too much
won’t get us anywhere.
On my way to the game room
(ahem)…I mean break room, I noticed a piece of paper sitting on the floor. It
said, “Interview the developers of Alien Flux, an arcade-style 2D shooter.”
Then it hit me: our assignment hadn’t been stolen. The little rascals from
Super Monkey Ball had escaped because someone forgot to turn off the GameCube!
While trying to get out of their plastic balls, they tore the place up a bit.
Glad to know that Tenchu
hadn’t infiltrated the office, we hopped in our space ship and flew to Puppy
Games headquarters. Vicious attack dogs blocked the gates. Luckily, I just
happen to have a spare bone in my pocket (you can never be too careful). The
dogs fought over the bone, so we walked right in, sat down and had a chat with
one of Alien Flux’s developers,
Caspian Rychlik-Prince.
What type of game is Alien Flux?
Caspian Rychlik-Prince: A fast action arcade-style shooter. Its early
ancestor is Defender, but it’s sufficiently different to be largely
unrecognizable.
Arcade shooters of the past frequently had a large number of level
variations. In all, how many levels are in Alien Flux, and how many of them
are unique?
CRP: We’ve put 20 "designed" levels
in A.F., by which we mean we decided what aliens would be present and in what
numbers. For variation we change the sounds, colors, and background pattern.
Although it doesn’t sound like much, each level has a definite feel to it that
helps you recognize it.
There are broadly speaking two kinds of shooting game; memory games, and
strategy games. Memory games, like R-Type, or even at its most basic, Space
Invaders, require that you learn the pattern of enemy attacks through playing
the game over and over. Strategy games, like Defender and Galaxians, are
completely different every time you play them. You have to develop a strategy
against the alien attacks that works given the large variety of positions and
situations you find yourself in. Alien Flux falls into this latter category –
no two games are alike. Even though we’ve got 20 levels, you won’t be
presented with the same situation twice.
After level 20 we provide randomized levels and start to increase the
difficulty factor.
It’s not hard to tell where this game’s
inspiration came from.
Part of the fun of shooting games is being outnumbered by an onslaught of
enemies. Approximately how many enemies will be on screen at once in Alien
Flux?
CRP: Oh yes, you’re pretty thoroughly outnumbered. The basic cap is 32
aliens are allowed to beam in – they’ll get queued if there’s more – and they
arrive in waves. But some aliens have ways of making more aliens. So you can
end up with over a hundred whizzing around the place. We had to put a throttle
on some of the aliens to stop them getting too prolific!
Speaking of enemies, what will they be like? What are their fighting
tactics?
CRP: The aliens are all quite small generally, and all entirely unique.
We classified them into three basic kinds, "rank and file", "splitters", and
"exotic". The rank and file aliens are common, and their purpose is basically
to attack the player. Some of them are better at it than others! Splitters are
aliens that split up and produce more aliens one way or another. And exotic
aliens are generally rarer, and more difficult, and they usually do something
a bit strange. I can’t give much more away though, because that’s part of the
fun in Alien Flux – discovering new aliens. There’s something new on nearly
every level.
And every five levels we’ve thrown in a large boss alien to break up the
action a bit. The bosses aren’t especially hard. We don’t want anyone to get
stuck on a boss level – they’re just a bit of fun.
This being a PC game, will there be any online-related features, such as an
online ranking system?
CRP: Yes, we’ve put an online hi-score table in the full version,
although we don’t display the online hi-scores in the game – we’ll put them on
the website. Both versions have a local hi-score table. We show the level
attained and hit accuracy as well. You can get 100% hit accuracy, but
generally this means shooting one alien and quitting the game while the
hi-score table is empty 🙂
Do you have what it takes to be the best
shooter in the galaxy?
Java isn’t usually what people think of when they picture next-gen games.
What made Puppy Games decide to take on the task of developing an entire game
using only Java?
CRP: Because we know it’s easier, pure and simple. Not only easier to
write one game but much easier to write two games. Our code is modular largely
due to the way Java is designed, and this means we can use our code again in
the next game far easier than with, say, C or even C++. This should translate
directly into reduced development time and hence reduced costs.
A.F. only took 6 months to write, with just me coding it! And just to prove
it, we put a daily diary online during its development at Java Gaming (http://www.javagaming.org/).
We’ll put that up on our own website in a proper article soon.
What are the benefits of using Java as opposed to C++ or another game
programming language?
CRP: Apart from the better reuse we’re getting out our code, we also
find that fixing bugs is vastly easier. Firstly, because they generally get
caught by the compiler in the first place. You can get away with a lot of
naughtiness in C++ that usually leads to your downfall later. Secondly, when
we do find a bug, it’s usually just a logic bug in the game, rather than
something more low-level and freaky. We don’t have a problem with corrupted
memory for example. Thirdly, the sheer quality of the tools available to
develop Java in is astounding. We use Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org/)
as our IDE. It’s fantastic, and free.
Was Java easier to use than the alternatives?
CRP: By and large yes, much easier. We had some issues early on about
floating point speed, garbage collection and performance but once we realized
how to do it, it performs as well as any other game. It even runs on a lowly
P200. We’ll be writing some articles about our experiences in the coming
months and putting them up on our site.
That said we think it could be easier, and we actively lobby Sun directly
about improving Java in ways that make writing high-performance games easier.
It’s hard to believe that this game was
made entirely with Java.
Can more be done with Java? Could it be adapted for console and GBA
development? Could Alien Flux be ported to a game console?
CRP: Sure it can. The GBA has got a brilliant little attachment now
that runs Java in hardware – it’s fast. There are rumors about the
PlayStation. What’s really stopping us is the lack of a coherent console
graphics API. We would really like to see OpenGL on console hardware. OpenGL
ES
(Embedded) would go some way to solving this. If the next PlayStation had
OpenGL drivers and a JVM we could run Alien Flux on it. It’d make a cracking
console game.
Do you think that gaming has lost something over the years with the
emergence of 3D shooters, and the near-disappearance of 2D shooters?
CRP: Most-definitely. First and foremost, a lot of the fun has gone,
for a number of reasons.
A lot of the 3D shooters are incredibly violent. The novelty was fun back when
Quake came out – seeing those chunks of meat showering the place with blood –
but not long after that it started to get a little sick. Soldier of Fortune,
good though it was to play, is not something I’d ever let kids see. In fact
the older I get the more sickened I am by it all.
These 3D shooters are also, by and large, difficult to get into. They have a
large number of controls to contend with in addition to the complex task of
navigating a 3D environment and shooting things. I have a thing called the Dad
Test. My dad is 50-something, extremely cynical, and with the attention span
of a gnat. If he doesn’t like it straight away and play it until he’s finished
the demo, it’s failed the Dad Test. My father-in-law is 50-something,
extremely enthusiastic, but generally hopelessly incompetent at computer
games. If he can’t figure out how to play it and complete the demo, it’s
failed the Dad Test. Quake fails the Dad Test.
And finally – how much more of the same basic game can you be bothered to
play? What’s the difference between Red Faction and Red Faction 2? Apart from
the fact you might not want to train your children to aim for the face, it’s
just more tedious running around killing people with ever-larger guns.
So we’ve deliberately made the decision to use 2D graphics (although we use 3D
tricks) in order to concentrate on writing original games. We want to
concentrate on games that everyone can play, and have fun playing, and that
provide a challenge that everyone can enjoy. It’s no easy task!
Is Puppy Games going to continue experimenting with Java? Will more
Java-developed games surface?
CRP: We’re totally committed to Java. We’ve got a growing library of
code and development practice that will make writing new games easier every
time we try it. Most of Alien Flux is open source in the form of the
Lightweight Java Game Library (LWJGL) and Shaven Puppy Game Library (SPGL) –
we want to give as much as we dare back to the community.
We plan to release another game this year – towards December sometime – but
we’ve got several in the pipe and we don’t know which one to pick yet. We
won’t be writing a shooter though; it’s either going to be an arcade action
game or an RPG. We’re going to write a very broad selection of games for
people who like to play something new and different instead of the same old
genre every day.
Alien Flux is due out in the UK on June
10th. Will we see it in the United States or in any other regions?
CRP: You will of course see it everywhere, as it’ll be available to
download online! In fact, we haven’t yet got any plans for a retail release –
we believe that games retail is a somewhat broken market. But that’s a story
for another day.
Thank you for your time.
UPDATE: You can buy the full
version of the game right now at Puppy Games’s Official Site:
http://www.puppygames.net
