Submitted by , posted on 09 June 2003



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These are screenshots of my latest game: Jalweg. The idea was to develop a small game with a simple-yet-interesting principle: you control a small sphere (the hero) in a level and you are chased by at least one big metal sphere (a monster). The goal is to destroy all the other spheres (the balls) by making the monster colliding with them. If the hero collides with a monster it is destroyed ... and you lose. However the hero can safely collide with the balls.

I tried to make the game easy to play (no big documentation, simple controls ...) and to minimize the interface: launch the game, press space, and you are playing. Many choices were made in order to keep the development time under control while trying to add the minimal set of required functionnalities to create a fun game.

For an example a replay feature was added in order to allow players to show how they can solve a level => this allows to maintain a competition on the game web site - which I hope will increase the game interest. The game also includes a level editor. I think it is important for this type of action/puzzle game to let players create and share their own levels.

Instead of trying to create 3d models by myself (which would have resulted in bad looking models :), I chose to base Jalweg graphics on simple shapes and to use per pixel bump mapping (diffuse+specular) in order to obtain a more appealing result. Everything is rendered multiple times to handle the multiple light sources. There is also a reflection effect on the ground. If not for playing, try it to see these effects ;) The game is entirely programed with OpenGL and NVidia / ATI extensions. However if your hardware does not support the required extensions, you can still play (without the nice effects). I am using the gluX library for detecting and calling extensions.

For more informations and for downloading the demo version please go on http://www.jalweg.net/

So I don't want to go further into details (this is already a long text :) and I hope some of you will have fun playing this little game !



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