AchimQuest

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  Achim fights off a swarm of Toms

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  Dan prowls the forest of Sabourins

Inspiration

Having found nothing to do at Hack the Midlands, I decided to sit down and brush up on my Java knowhow. Looking at tutorials for making games in Java, I stumbled across a tutorial to make a shooter. This was the humble beginnings of AchimQuest, but now it has evolved into something far beyond the scope of that tutorial.

What it does

AchimQuest is based on classic bullet hell shooters, where one must dodge enemies and their attacks while trying to survive. This version of AchimQuest features four levels plus one boss level (featuring a surprise boss!), in addition to the ability to change characters whenever you want.

How I built it

As mentioned earlier, AchimQuest initially started as a Java tutorial online. However when I received positive feedback from my peers, I decided to continue with AchimQuest and make it into a fully fledged game. I used my knowledge of Java graphics (awt and swing) to create a proper GUI and made more use of keyboard presses to increase functionality.

Challenges I ran into

Java graphics are extremely fiddly, as I found out. Most of the bugs I encountered were usually due to something not being painted or made visible at the right time.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am most proud of the boss fight, which was coded much more blindly (the boss moves differently to the other enemies and is the only one who can fight back, as well as the only one who can withstand a large amount of hits, and change his movement appropriately when hurt).

What I learned

I learned some basic game development techniques which will surely come in useful later on in my career. I also dabbled in audio and image manipulation within Java.

What's next for AchimQuest

If I continue to work on AchimQuest I could perhaps work on special attacks, multiplayer (co-op) and advanced attack patterns.

Built With

• java