Tiling Software

Other Side-Scroller Examples

JumpingJack could be improved in many areas, including adding multiple levels, more bad guys (enemy sprites), and complex tiles.

A good source of ideas for improvements can be found in other side-scrolling games. ArcadePod.com (http://arcadepod.com/java/) lists 64 scroller games though none of the ones I tried came with source code.

The following is a list of side-scrollers, which do include source and were written in the last two to three years:

• Meat Fighter: The Wiener Warrior (http://www.meatfighter.com/). The web site includes an article about the implementation, which appeared in Java Developers Journal, March 2003, Vol. 8, No. 3.

• Frogma (http://sourceforge.net/projects/frogma/).

• VideoToons (http://sourceforge.net/projects/videotoons/).

• Mario Platformer (http://www.paraduck.net/misterbob/Platformer1.1/classes/). Only the compiled classes are available for this applet.

Chapter 5 of Developing Games in Java (New Riders Publishing) by David Brackeen, Bret Barker, and Laurence Vanhelswue is about a side-scroller (a 2D platform game).( The source code for this book's examples can be obtained from http://www.brackeen.com/javagamebook/.) He develops a wider range of bad guys than I have and includes things for the hero to pick up. However, the game doesn't have multiple scrolling backgrounds.

A good place for articles about tile-based games is the "Isometric and Tile-based Games" reference section at GameDev (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=44).