• You will only have one resource, the money
• All weapons/upgrades will be payable using this money
• Mines will not produce resources in “real time”, but something more like syndicate, each completed mission will make the mines produce for a certain amount of hours
• No mines upgrade (they will produce for a certain amount of time)
• No port building (automatic)
• (Optional, not sure yet) Ammunitions will not be craftable, they will have to be collected in levels
• Higher sound quality
• Technically it will use lwjgl for better sounds
• Resizable viewport, so that you can see far away (provided your computer supports it)
• And in the future I hope I could add multiplayer support for this version (co-op or deathmatch)

I’m currently working on menus and ui :

• Optimizations (again) : there’s almost no full garbage collector happening during normal gameplay now, I reviewed my cache system and reused more objects. The gc was the cause of the small lags that were happening sometimes (on my computer full gc is around 300-500 ms). I’ve also removed the upper limit of the memory, so it’s fully handled by the JVM now.
• New power up, “matrix”, it will slow down bullets around you (and eventually stop them)
• New boss monster, you can see it in e01m06 as a mini boss (it will flee during fight), you will fight it’s full version in e01m09 when it’s done
• Shadows : bullets, monsters and player now have a shadow under them
• Improved scripting engine, scripts can now be launched in the background (as a result doors will now open a lot more quickly)
• New weapon upgrade : “mini gun”, available at the end of map e01m13, at the moment the mini gun sound is the same as the pistol
• Upon completing e01m13 you will unlock hard difficulty mode (when it’s done)
• Bug corrections…

Map e01m13 is heavily inspired on a Doom 2 map (I love this game)

Next update should focus on :

• The boss map (e01m09)
• Hard difficulty mode

And I will also begin working on the downloadable version of snorms.

• Don’t forget monster infighting
• Sometimes it’s best to flee battle

Snorms has been updated to build 220 :

• Optimizations : performance is around ~10-15 % better now, I removed some old graphics stuff that had not been updated to last graphical engine and optimized physics engine
• 1 new monster “Vile” aka “I see dead people”, available in e01m08
• New particle effects on fireballs
• Error reporting : when a fatal error occurs (black screen with an unhandled exception printed) a bug report is automatically sent to my server, with full replay data, so that I can investigate the error and reproduce it easily.
• Because of the changes in the physics engine there could be some strange behavior/bugs remaining (that’s mainly why I added the error report)

The game is playable on my netbook, but not on all maps, because of random lags, I think the problem comes from memory and lags occur when garbage collector occurs (so mainly on big maps, requiring more memory). So next optimizations should focus on memory consumption (it is around 150mb after gc, but as I have quite a lot of objects periodically renewed it is usually between 200-400mb)

Snorms has also be updated :

• Monsters will less commit suicide (going into lava, poison or void)
• Small bug correction

• Under Linux there is a crackling sound, with both OpenJDK or Oracle JVM, I can’t figure out why and how to remove it (tried it on two computers, same problems)
• Under Windows, when changing volume, the sound becomes awful (crackling a lot), I just used the standard way to do it ‘line.getControl(FloatControl.Type.MASTER_GAIN)’, it does that on every computer I tried. Can’t figure out why…
• Under Linux (I just tested OpenJDK), changing volume randomly crashes, maybe it’s crackling more when it works, not sure…
• When trying to manually change gain (directly modifying source data), it seems the sound output is automatically adjusted. Meaning that even if I reduce volume on source data, the sound will be played full volume, losing bits of information… The result is awful…

So I tried to use lwjgl, and more specifically OpenAL, it’s very easy to use, even in an applet (took me around 1-2 hours to fully implement it, changing previous sound system, using lwjgl applet loader,…). I love it, but problems are :

• Jar needs to be signed, lwjgl provides signed jars, but they still need the user to accept the security warning
• It doesn’t work at all with OpenJDK, looking through the web, it seems everyone has problems when trying to use signed applets with OpenJDK (IcedTea plugin). And as Oracle JVM is not provided by default on Ubuntu now, there’s no “easy” way to solve it… So now I understand why the browser version of Minecraft doesn’t work on my Linux, I think he has same problems as I have…

So, as much of the problems currently concern Linux, and it is even worse when using lwjgl (because of OpenJDK), I have finally decided to :

• Stick to the standard Java sound on the applet, with no volume control (except mute) and crackling sound under Linux
• Use lwjgl for the offline version of Snorms (not currently developed)

So the offline version will provide spatialized sound support, volume control and nice sounds under Linux and Windows (MacOS also I think), but not the online version.

The biggest change is the lighting & vision system :

• The ship no longer lights around itself
• The vision of enemies is limited : if the enemy is on sight, it will become opaque, if it is no longer on sight, it will slowly become transparent. So that you can only see them if they are in sight
• If an enemy shoots or teleports, it will become opaque
• Added light colors, so now lights can light the place in yellow, green, or any other color
• Most of the lights will activate only when you are in sight (default behavior)

Other changes :

• Added new items : fire lamp (with a nice animation), neon lights, and decor stuff
• Changed lights on some items : monsters when they fire, lava, poison,…
• Changed most of the maps to add more lights
• Monster level is displayed when hovered
• Changed balance to make the game easier : lowered monsters damage & life gain, increased weapons damage
• First map (e01m01) has changed slightly, it is easier for newbie and a little nicer
• Changed framerate when in limited mode (from 30fps to 15fps)
• Corrected some bugs (going into the void on windows resulted in very low framerate, disabled right clicking the html page when playing,…)

Two more maps have been added e01m12 and e01m06

• e01m12 is the northern island, with a mine on it
• e01m06 is the map where you can get the missile launcher !

The test case

I’m pretty sure I will make it public when its done, it’s not very user friendly (you have to know all the keyboard shortcuts), but it does a good job

What you can see :

• Exterior environment generation using perlin noise, water and external walls placement
• Room walls placement
• Floor
• Room details
• Sprites and markups
• And finally the properties editor (with a small, easy to use, scripting engine)

I’ve changed a bit the level design compared to previous maps, I like this one better (more open spaces, more labyrinth)

I’ve also updated Java applet and website :

• Shop prices have changed, prices are now linked to a ‘typical’ player production, so they are more accurate
• You can now retrieve ammo from warehouse when you are in game, provided you have enough ammo in warehouse. But it cost 3 times the normal ammo (to get 50 ammo you will need 150 ammo in warehouse). This is only possible when you are out of ammo (a message will be displayed on screen), by pressing the B key.
• MySQL errors are now handled correctly (as I have a limited number of simultaneous MySQL connection)
• And some other small changes…

I’ve also updated snorms just to correct a bug with poison & lava floor, that happened only on this new map.

There are now 6 maps completed, next maps to be done should be :

• e01m11 & e01m12 : the two islands, with mines
• e01m06 : where you will get the missile launcher
• e01m07, e01m08
• and finally e01m09 : the boss, end of episode 1

Then I will work on the downloadable (offline) version of snorms, and the warehouse attack & defense.

I did some small UI changes to fit in the standard 760 pixels width, and there are also some other minors changes (options page and such), but it seems to work nicely. The two communities will be in the ‘same’ virtual world, meaning a facebook user will be able to interact (fight, be friend,…) with a non-facebook user. But you can’t migrate your account.

Here’s the application : http://apps.facebook.com/the_snorms