This is a little milestone for me. I have a few other apps online. But JamJam is the first application (and the first commercial game) I consider a major release. It may not look like much, but apart from the game itself, all the used frameworks and tools are available as open-source by now. (See my github page for details.)

This was all part of the “release”: The IntensiGame framework, the RunME emulation layer for development, the IntensiBuild system for building against the different J2ME device specs, and of course JamJam, the game itself.

Well, time moved on. And so did I. Android is the new thing now.. Expect an initial IntensiDroid release, soon.. :)

tfdj

I have finally released the frameworks I use for developing my J2ME applications. With Android and the iPhone going strong nowadays I am probably a bit late with releasing my J2ME stuff. But who knows? I am thinking about covering Android with a RunME like emulation layer. This will probably happen sometime 2012.. :)

Anyway, here is a quick overview of the projects/modules:

* IntensiBuild – Simple Ruby-based build system for building various releases of an application. This needs a few updates from my commercial projects to cover building a J2SE release and a ME4SE launcher JAR.

* IntensiGame – Framework for building entertainment applications and games. Provides a basic ‘engine’ for running a frame-based application and various video- and audio-related classes.

* IntensiTools – Very basic tools used for creating and working with certain resources.

* RunME – J2ME emulation layer for running J2ME apps with J2SE. Compared to ME4SE this is focused on providing a faster game canvas with real-time scaling and full-screen support.

* Galaxina – Partial implementation of a shoot em up game. Running on CLDC1.x/MIDP2.x phones and on desktop systems with Java.

I will have to update the projects quite a bit before they are really useful to someone else. Documentation is one thing. Library dependencies and license and copyright notices are a different story.

i’ve been working with an older antenna version for quite some time now. i don’t see a reason to upgrade. or let me put it another way: i see the need to replace antenna with something else. or new. or maybe add a v3 preprocessor to it.. :)

i’m not saying antenna or j2me polish are bad tools. looks like they are good if you want tools that integrate tightly with your IDE. but i want something else. clean preprocessing directives. clean API. made for command line and/or ant use.

in my rage :) i totally forgot to mention a few things. for example this: in my world i’d like a preprocessor to understand

#if true

without me having to define anything. simple things like that.. i also simply don’t like defines that look like

#ifdef something:defined
or
#if something:defined

instead i would argue that

#ifdef something
or
#if something

should suffice. and i would also argue that it is a good practice to keep names of defines all uppercase. and reserve lowercase to other things. like for example built-in values or variables..

as you can see this is a lot about me not liking something. nothing else.. i guess..

well, my two cents only..

tfdj

J2ME Development – The way it should be

Take a look at the Opposite Lock Development Video. They show you how to write J2ME games the right way. You don’t need a thousand different jar files to target a thousand different phones. There is enough common ground within the J2ME platform. And look closely how cool things are as long as you target J2SE, too. Not only for the editor(s). But for the game, too.

I always hated working primarily with the WTK emulator or going to the real phones too early. You fix device specific bugs and issues with them. But you do everything else on the platform that is most efficient for it. And that surely isn’t the WTK emulator or a real phone.

I’m trying to do the same with my RunME emulation layer and the IntensiBuild system. My framework is not as advanced as what the Numfum developers show in their video, but it gets the job done, too. For example I have JamJam (formerly known as BlockShock or IntensiTris.. :) running on most MIDP2 devices and on the desktop (via Java WebStart). There are only minor differences between the versions. (And of course I can build specific versions to allow for different soft key codes and little glitches in the oh so perfect J2ME world. But the same JAR will run on all phones.)

For Galaxina – my next game – I had to create an editor for the enemy flight paths and the level design. There I, too, embedded the game into the editor. It makes total sense. Of course by far not as cool as the Crysis Sandbox.. :)

I really hope I find the time to finally release RunME and IntensiBuild to the Open Source world. So far work has kept me from doing it.

Slideshow Engine

One of my older projects is a generic slide-show system. I’m updating this right now as part of one of my commercial projects. But I’m thinking about open sourcing at least the old version. If you should have a commercial interest in a generic slide-show system for J2ME, please contact my business partners www.psychocell.com.

There’s also a new – still very early – tech demo of Galaxina online now. It is completely unoptimized and does a lot of unnecessary path/distance calculations. But it should run at decent 30 fps on modern devices (N73 or K800 for example). The WebStart version is a bit more sluggish. Hey, it’s just an early demo!

tfdj