Java 4K Game Programming Contest

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

The Java 4K Game Programming Contest (aka 'Java 4K' and 'J4K') is an informal contest that was started by the Java Game Programming community to challenge their software development abilities. The goal of the contest is to develop the best game possible within four kilobytes (4096 bytes) of data. While the rules originally allowed for nearly any distribution method, recent years have required that the games be packaged as either an executable JAR file, a Java Webstart application, or a Java Applet. As of 2006, no applets have been submitted for judging.

Contents

[edit] History

The Java 4K Game Programming Contest came into being on August 28, 2002 when a user by the handle of codymanix posted the suggestion to the Sun Microsystem's Java forums. After a bit of argument over how feasible a game would be in 4K, a user by the handle of mlk officially organized the contest on August 29, 2002.

Slowly, but surely, entries began to trickle in for the contest. The majority of these entries were Applets, as it was believed that separating the images from the class files would help reduce the size of the file. Future contests would see a reversal of this as game creators utilized compressed JAR files to reduce the size of their code.

One of the most interesting points about the first contest was that non-game applications were allowed. One contestant produced a telnet server in 4K of Java! However, this artifact of the first competition did not survive, and was most likely allowed because of the loose handling of the first contest. While no winner was officially declared the first year, the 4K Racing game submitted by Robin Chaddock (aka Abuse/AbU5e) was generally agreed upon to have "won".

Successive competitions became more and more organized, with many of the contestants pitching in to handle administration and promotion of the contest. All contests received official judging, with the method of judging being refined each year. By the third year, the contest was officially transitioned over to the JavaGaming.org forums. The fourth year saw the introduction of the JavaUnlimited website as the official repository for the contest. The site had been used the previous year to track entries that had been posted to the official threads on JavaGaming.org and forum.java.sun.com.

[edit] Tradeoffs

Because the Java class file format incurs quite a bit of overhead, creating a complete game in 4K can be quite a challenge. As a result, contestants must choose how much of their byte budget they wish to spend on graphics, sound, and gameplay. Finding the best mix of these factors can be extremely difficult. Many new entrants believe that impressive graphics alone are enough to carry a game. However, entries with more modest graphics and focus on gameplay have regularly scored higher than such technology demonstrations.

[edit] Prizes

When first conceived, the "prize" for winning the contest was a bundle of "duke dollars", a virtual currency used on Sun Microsystem's Java forums. This currency could theoretically be redeemed for physical prizes such as watches and pens. Unfortunately, the artificial currency was being downplayed by the introduction of the 4K contest, thus leaving no real prize at all.

While there has been some discussion of providing prizes for the contest, it has continued to thrive without them. Most entrants seem to feel content to compete with their peers in a challenge of skill and ability. The reward has been nothing more than praise from those who play the games.

[edit] Reasons for Success

While there has been a great deal of debate on why the Java 4K contest is so successful, the consensus from the contestants seems to be that it provides a very appealing challenge. Not only do the entrants get the chance to show off how much they know about Java Programming, but the 4K size helps "even the odds" over other competitions where the use of artists and musicians can easily place an entry far ahead of the others.

This may explain why spinoff contests targeting 8K, 16K, or a specific API like LWJGL have never taken off. In fact, the contestants seem to believe that 4K is the "sweet spot" that balances what an individual can do. Because of the tricks developed for the 4K contest, it's believed that adding even a single kilobyte would open the doors to far more complex games that are beyond the ability of a single developer.

[edit] Year 1 (2003)

[edit] Year 2 (2004)

Heavy use of pre-rendered sprites, transparency, and sound effects defined this year's entries. The strongest contenders were Defender 4000, Abuse's Shooty-Transparenty Game, and Space Invaders. However, Space Invaders lack of sound caused it to fall behind the other two entries which were competing hard to pack in the most technology and gameplay.

Of particular interest was the different tactics used by the two entries. For graphics, Abuse used precious few high color images which he then applied transparency and rotation to at runtime. Jbanes, on the other hand, developed an imaging packing technique that allowed him to store twenty-one, single-color images. Rather than applying rotation and transparency, he chose to use his larger number of images to produce pre-rendered animations. For sound, Abuse used clear chimes and other instruments from the MIDI soundbank. Jbanes chose to use runtime-generated PCM sound that sounded more like video games of the late-1970s, early-1980s.

Both approaches had their merit, so it's difficult to say what finally swayed the judge's opinion. What is known is that Year 2 was the last year that sound would be a deciding factor in the games. In future years, the bytes allocated to sound were reallocated to other functions such as 3D graphics, levels, and bosses.

Year 2 was the first year that official judging took place. Unlike subsequent years, the only judge was the contest organizer, mlk. After careful consideration, the judge decided to award Prong with the Best Technical Achievement Award, and declared Defender 4000 as the overall winner. Interestingly, he scored each game but did not use this score in determining the winner. Abuse's Shooty-Transparenty Game actually scored one point higher than Defender 4000.

Official List of Year 2 Entries

[edit] Year 3 (2005)

Year 3 was defined by a major influx of professional Java Developers, 3D Graphics in the games, and a gradual transition to the JavaGaming.org forums. JavaUnlimited also began mirroring the competitors in a permanent archive. While the mirror started as a manually edited HTML page, it eventually grew into a complete contest management site with a database back-end.

Judging this year was handled by a panel of three volunteer, professional developers who were not participating in the contest. One of the volunteer judges was Chris Melissinos, the Sun employee who is responsible for Sun's video game strategy. The scoring method used was based on the method that mlk had applied the previous year, but was updated to allow the judges to give awards for exceptional gameplay or technological achievements.

While most of the entries were of exceptional quality, T4XI by Kevin Glass (aka kevglass) was chosen as the winner. Besides having extremely original gameplay, it provided exceptional graphics through a pseudo-3D effect that gave perspective to the buildings.

A minor amount of controversy erupted due to entries that judges had failed to score. Entries like JM4K and IsOlation Net where either too complex for the judges to launch, or contained networking components that they couldn't test. After this year's competition, the rules were changed to require that games be self-executable. In addition, contestants were warned in advance about the difficulties in judging networked games.

List of Games
List of Scores: (DHTML) (XLS)

[edit] Year 4 (2006)

Year 4 marked a period of transition toward making gameplay a priority over graphics and technical accomplishment. Many of the games were fairly simple in design, but aimed to make up for it with engrossing or addictive gameplay.

For the first time in the contest's history, a special forum was setup on JavaGaming.org to host the contest. In addition, the JavaUnlimited.net site became the official site for entries and judging. While judging was originally going to be handled through JavaUnlimited by the Javagaming.org community, pushback from several members resulted in falling back on a more traditional judging system.

After the results came back, Miners4K by Markus_Persson was declared the winner. Second place was given to Kevin Glass's Roll4K, and third place was given to Goomba4K by Woogley.

The results of Year 4's judging were significantly better than those of Year 3, in part due to the rule changes which forced the entries to conform to easily executable formats. However, this did not completely eliminate judging issues. Some controversy erupted when two entries (Xero and JSquares) were given lower scores due to technical glitches. Several recommendations were posed to prevent this from happening in future contests, including trimmed mean scoring and verification of judge's scoring before acceptance.

List of Games & Results

[edit] Year 5 (2007)

This article or section contains information about scheduled or expected future events.
It may contain information of a tentative nature and the content may change dramatically as the event approaches and more information becomes available.

According to the Java Unlimited 4K preview site, Year 5 is set to launch in the 4th quarter of 2006, with no specific date unveiled as this time. Notable changes in Year 5 known so far:

  • Judging panel is now a chosen group of people, replacing Year 4's criticized "voluntary judging panel."
  • "People's choice award" is introduced, with the winner of the award decided by public voting
  • After 2 years of operation, Java Unlimited upgrades to its 2nd version


While attempting to prolong contest hype for as long as possible, Java Unlimited's closed-door policy with Year 5's details has earned it some backlash, giving the site the appearance of disregarding any user-based suggestions,[1] although the webmaster has not directly addressed that claim.

There is some minor speculation that the contest will start earlier than the usual December time. Kevin Glass found a page on Java Unlimited that "specified a rather early date,"[2] however, the page was removed shortly thereafter. Whether or not the speculation is true or taken seriously, there are already several people mentioning that they have started work on their 4K entries as of September.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.javagaming.org/forums/index.php?topic=14776.msg118673#msg118673
  2. ^ http://www.javagaming.org/forums/index.php?topic=14812.msg117412#msg117412
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../j/a/v/Java_4K_Game_Programming_Contest_8df9.html"