Particle

Inspiration & Foundation

After finishing my Freshman year Data Structures and Program Design class midst the Coronavirus epidemic, I was inspired to challenge my capabilities by creating a fully functioning Java game. At this point the "games" I have created only used the output window of the IDE because my classes never required anything like a JFrame or frame rates. I fully depended on RealTutsGML's series "Let's Build a Game in Java" to provide me with a basis for a game idea and the fundamentals of game design. I took his concept game originally called "Wave" and expanded upon it. The original Wave game in the tutorial, which is completely included in my game, includes a menu system, player control via key input, a few basic enemies, a red boss enemy, and many other concepts and ideas.

The Basics

The player is a default white square that must dodge oncoming square enemies and bosses to avoid losing health. The player, enemies, and bosses have "trails" that make the experience visually attractive but do not have effect on actual gameplay or hitboxes. In normal and easy mode, the player can utilize a shop were they spend money (earned by staying on the screen over time) for health upgrades, speed upgrades, and health refills. The player loses the game when their health bar is empty, and they win by surviving past all of the enemies, resulting in a congratulations visual. The concept of creating this gameplay initially blew my mind but after following the YouTube tutorial, I understand its simplicity. The game algorithm updates the screen of the game 60 frames per second (FPS). The fillRect() method of the Graphics class in Java simply draws a solid rectangle with a designated size at a desired location. The rectangle appears to move because my code will draw the same rectangle 5 pixels in the corresponding direction the player inputs. 5 pixels is a small distance, but since the game runs 60 FPS, the player moves 300 pixels a second or about half the screen--making the game fast paced. All of the enemies and bosses follow this concept but follow directions within the code or as reactions to the player's position.

Difficulty Choices

Particle contains three difficulty options to choose from to make the game enjoyable for all players. I designed the Normal difficulty first because at the time I did not have intention for more difficulties. Normal difficulty has the player start with a speed of 5 pixels per frame, allows access to the shop, and moderately spawns enemies. The tutorial I followed showed how to make a Hard difficulty, but I made many modifications to its suggestions. The Hard difficulty has the player move 7 pixels per frame, does not allow access to the shop, doubles the amount of initial health, and has greater spawn rate of more difficult enemies. In the easy difficulty, there is access to the shop, the normal amount of health, and a low spawn rate of enemies.

Color Menu

One of the most challenging aspects that I purely created on my own was the color menu of the game. The color menu allows the player to choose from a variety of colors to change the color of their player to what ever they may like. There are standard color options such as blue and pink, but the color menu includes some interesting and fun choices to make gameplay visually exciting. The random selection will generate a random color from over 16 million different colors, the rwb and ogp options generate a stream of alternating through the three respective colors, the sparkle color goes randomly through a stream of the 16 million colors, and the invisible option is simply colored black to challenge the player matching the background (I can attest that it is possible to beat the game invisible in easy mode). I am proud of the visual of the menu itself as the player in the back matches the color of the selected option, which can be fun to play with.

Closing Comments

Particle is completely free to play, so please use the download link to try out the game for yourself! The download link will download a JAR file which requires you to have the current version of Java installed on your computer. Please note that I have had issues with the JAR file running on Apple computers. Windows 10 will show a warning about harming your computer, but I promise you it will not harm your computer whatsoever (It only shows that warning because it does not recognize my signature). I have also implement an online version of the game, but due to Google Chrome's security restrictions and dropped support of applets, I could only get the game to run via Repl.it. This is the only safe and free way I was able to implement my game to my website. Unfortunately, this online JDE is extremely slow and laggy, so the gameplay experience is nowhere near ideal. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it is the best I can do so far. I would love to hear from you and your experience, so I encourage to contact me via my social links and email provided. Please know that Particle or Bianucci Games is not trademarked in any way and does not have any intentional copyright infringement, that being said, please contact me via email to resolve any issues, and I will be quick to make appropriate changes. Particle was made to allow myself to expand my programming knowledge, and educate and entertain those that play the game.

• Download

Having issues with the game?
Try refreshing the page, click the stop button then the play button, or click on "open in repl.it".