Care for a cup of Java?

Ahoy!

First, a brief reminder that the deadline for applying for a position in My Little Investigations is December 31 at 11:59 PM PST. We’ll be making final decisions on positions after that time, so if you’re at all interested in applying (and we heartily do encourage you to do so), please make sure you’ve emailed your application recruitment@equestriandreamers.com by that time.

That aside, you might be wondering what we’re doing while we’re waiting for applications to come in! Well, I can assure you that one of the things we’re not doing is sitting on our thumbs. We’re hard at work getting everything ready for when the recruits come on board, and I’m finally ready to announce one of those items: My Little Investigations is being ported to Java! (Java using the 2D game library Slick, to be exact.) It had previously been written in C# using XNA, but after talking to a very helpful lady named dawnmew (who has since joined the team), I became convinced that this was definitely a good direction for the game and that it was something that should occur sooner rather than later, so it’s something that we’ve been working on during the month of December.

What does this mean for you? Well, if you’re on a Windows machine, it means that the status quo has been maintained – you were able to play the game before, and you’ll still be able to play it now as well. If you’re on a Mac or Linux machine, then you’re in luck, as this means that you’ll be able to play My Little Investigations after all! I had previously said that this wouldn’t be possible since the game was coded in XNA, but this port will change that, and thanks in large part to the help I’ve received from dawnmew to that end, it’s coming along very nicely. We’re just about back up at this point to the level of functionality that we had when the game was coded in XNA.

Exciting stuff, a day late for Christmas, but still in time for the holiday season. 😉 Thanks to everypony for their support thus far!

13 thoughts on “Care for a cup of Java?

  1. Wow I didn’t expect to actually read the entire interview but i did
    i just can’t wait for this game to come out two of my favorite things combined how more awesome can it get?

    • If by “real men” you mean “flagrant masochists”, then yes. 😛

      Slick appears to be largely modeled after XNA, from my experience with both, which means that it has out-of-the-box equivalents to most of XNA’s functionality. Had we done this from the awt interface, we would have needed to recreate several advanced graphical functions, filters, etc., not to mention all the other wheels we would need to reinvent (sound, input, frame limiting…), meaning that this proverbial station wagon wouldn’t be making it to Oregon any time this decade.

  2. Ever since I heard about this project, I’ve been pretty pumped about it. Being a Mac user, I figured I’d have to set up a VM, or configure Wine, or otherwise reboot into Windows to play. I’m so happy you all decided to move to a cross-platform system like Java. This great news for us Mac and Linux users since it’ll (essentiially) work natively on our platforms. From one software developer and graphic artist to another, good luck with everything! I’m very much looking forward to having a chance to play it.

    • Yeah, Mac and Linux users, based on the data I’ve seen, make up about 10-12% of the audience for MLI, so we definitely didn’t want to leave you folks out in the cold. 🙂

      • Thanks for the great news! I already have a VM set up that I run a couple of windows programs in but having the ability to run it natively on my Linux box is going to be a huge plus! Is there going to be a way that we as users can add custom levels to MLI as that would be sooo totally awesome! Also, as a java programmer myself if you are wanting any help porting it over just let me know. If you want any indication of my java skill level I think my profile on the bukkit dev site for minecraft plugins speaks volumes. User is Tux2 over there as well.

  3. Heh, Java, the first programming language I ever learned, if not counting Flash’s ActionScript 2.0. I probably would’ve chosen something like C++ with SDL/SFML library over it, but Java ain’t that bad, especially considering you’re not working on something more complex. Multiplatform support is always nice, in any case.

    • I highly doubt this game will be very resource-intensive, so I think that it’s really a case of, “If it works, why not?” At the end of the day all that people really want is a game that functions well, so any language that provides that is about as good as any other.

  4. I’ve been following your progress with MLI since I first found out about, which was days after you started the project. I had caught up on all your blog posts, and I can’t wait for the game to come out. I had no problems, as I am a Windows user so either way I would have been able to play, but Way to go to allow those who use other OS’s to play too by going to Java.

    I read the interview, and I too would like to thank you for starting the MLI project, for without you there would be nothing for us to support. *applause* BROHOOF ^-^/][\^-^

    • Another note: I favorited this place, so that way I will always stay in the loop about the progress of MLI whenever you decide to post about it. I’m so excited that the game is getting closer to being completed (I’m a glass half full kind of guy), it just stinks you don’t have any idea when it’ll be released. Either way, I’m excited, and can’t wait for it.

      Side Note: I’m awaiting Ace Attorney(sp?) from Gamefly, that way I can at least get a feel for how MLI is going to play out. Can’t wait until I find out what kind of crime in Equestria you will have us solve; Thieft, destroyed property, bullying…can’t wait.

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