JDE 1.0
JDE 1.0They said I was insane. And odds are they were right. At this humble web abode you will find likely the only online Java-based DDR clone. For those of you who don't know DDR, the point of the game is to 'dance' (traditionally on a floor mat or block, but you'll have to make due with the keyboard here) to music by hitting arrow buttons/squares in time with the music. Most arcades and console renditions contain multiple play modes and multiple quality tracks, with varying levels of dance for each track. Here music quality will be dictated by the JAVA interface I use (too lazy to write my own), graphics will be dictated by transfer time, and only 10 dances per applet will be supported. And I don't think I'll ever code beyond one player/one pad. None the less, enjoy!
Updates from beta include a playfield 4 times as large, a new 'freestyle' step type (any arrow counts as a hit), and a fundamental shift from raw millisecond-based timing to a tempo/beat system (not much to look at, but it makes writing dance files considerably easier, and allows for arrow scroll speed to change mid-dance).
Controls are pretty simple. Everything is by keyboard. Once the applet loads ('Welcome to...' message appears in console window, or starting instructions in main window), press a number between 0 and 9 to load up a music track (currently the only dance I have coded is SMRPG demo, music ~400k, in slot 1). When it's finished loading, music will start playing. Press spacebar to start/restart the dance whenever it's not playing, or stop it before the end. Either the arrow keys or the num pad 4/2/8/6 will register for the dance arrows. If you press a recognized key at a time when its use isn't defined (such as arrows while on instruction screen) you may get some odd java error or other. To my knowledge, no errors ever generated are terminal, so you should be able to just keep going. If the applet doesn't appear to be working at all, try reloading the page or clicking the mouse within the applet window.
Scoring: You get 5 points per step you hit within 1/8 second of the beat (arrow turns green), 2 points for within 1/4 second (arrow turns yellow) and 1 point for within 1/2 second (arrow turns red). Outside of that range, steps don't register at all and you are neither rewarded nor penalized. You're given a percentage score based on the fraction of total points possible you achieved. It is possible to score a perfect.
There are still a few bugs, most having to do with lack of error-handling for bad dance files, but if you have any questions/comments, my e-mail is on the main page. Also, while I was planning originally on making JDE partly shareware (player free, editor for encoded dance files shareware), this is the internet after all, and if I want to keep expecting cool free stuff, the least I can do is give back some of my own. Feel free to download the JDE .jar file and accompanying usage docs from my downloads page.
For those few poor souls that can't use frames (and thus probably don't have java either), I here include a link to get you back to my Games Page.