The reason you want to use Java is that it will cut your development time in half (even more if you plan to develop for more than 1 platform) and reduce the amount of bugs in your code... and the size of your code. We use native code for the Windows version of our software but that is just to get around a performance bug in Windows so the pure Java version of the software should work nicely on platforms without that bug.

Henry

I tend to agree that in the real world development time is more highly rated than WORA. Wasn''t making the paint() method native always an option? I must remind everyone that the engine is completely unoptimized as it stands, not because I don''t know how to optimize, but because I would rather get all the functionality finished.

Hey Jim, I was wondering if you had a working demo of your game.

The main reason I ask is because all the pure java games that I''ve seen on the net are small, simple applets or apps.
It''ll be good to see something more than just a pong-sized game.

Smoo

Well, right now it''s still pongs sized, in the amount of things you can do. I''m stumped on comming up with a map format, and a map maker... Any suggestions or help would be awesome

Java''s speed in different cases really depends on the type of application and perhaps even more importantly on the JVM. Last year I was developing a simple top-down scrolling shooter in Java, since I wanted it to be cross-platform and I was running in Windows. I quickly learned that newer JVM versions are not always faster (when 1.2 was released the speed of the app became horribly slow.. most graphics things did for that matter). Java support on Macintosh was/is horrible! The only half decent JVM at that time was the Netscape one.. and in the end the game didn''t run on Macs (a demo of it I did earlier, much simpler, same graphics code but very different game code, did run though.. so with some debugging I probably could''ve gotten it to run). Java is a good language.. if only the JVMs were good too. Windows is the one platform with (what I think is) by far the best support for Java. If you develop for Windows, might as well do your graphics code in another language. Graphics aside, Java should be fast enough for almost everything in a game (excluding any JVM perks that I''m not aware of).

Short version: Java''s graphics speed is slow. Some OS/JVM combinations is better, some its much worse. If you want it to run on a certain JVM/OS test it there throughout development. Small bugs can be in the most trivial functions and those are the worst to find. Have fun!