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I randomly felt like generating some Java experience and threw together a quick game.  Lots of fun learning how screwed up Java is.  Anyway, I'd like to nail down some good constants to use in the program.  So if you have a moment, I've attached some quick and dirty sliders that vary the key parameters of the game, play a few rounds and tell me what values seem easier/harder.

http://omega0.xepher.net/stuff/test.html

Comments much appreciated.

****NOTE New code uploaded 7 May.  Look in that little text box and scroll around, if you don't see a lot of lines saying Vert and Horiz you're still running the old version.  Do a search for 'clear java cache'
New version fixes a stupid typo bug in generating the levels and sort-of-maybe generates harder levels.

Given the size of the database I'm using, it can take PHP a little bit of time to build the page.  I thought of this method: Check the timestamps on the database & parsed.html, if the database is more recent create a new parsed.html with the guts to the table.  Then dump parsed.html into the table.

Code Select Expand

$fmtime1 = filemtime( "../../parsed.html" );
$fmtime2 = filemtime( "../../database.db" );

if( $fmtime1 < $fmtime2 )
{
$fh = fopen( "../../parsed.html", "w" );
$db = sqlite_open('../../database.db');
$sql = "SELECT * FROM database";
$res = sqlite_query( $db, $sql );
while( $row = sqlite_fetch_array( $res ) )
{
$line = "

" . $row['col1'] . "

" . $row['col2'] . ""; fwrite( $fh, $line ); } fclose($fh); } include( "../../parsed.html" ); ?>

First, I've never used the PHP fopen/fclose routines before, so are there any special hazards to watch?

Secondly, is the difference between reading a file and reading a database enough to make this worth using?

A few things hit to bring this to my attention again and I'm finally on enough caffeine to beat the nervousness, so here goes:

The largest thing I would use the webspace for a webcomics list/database & associated materials that I've built.  My shtick being I read every webcomic on the list (or have read for the concluded ones) so each one is at the very least legible (and enough to keep me reading, though that's not saying much).  Also it contains information like Updates/week and a degree of anthro content.
The list can be viewed here: http://savi.cis.drexel.edu/~strom/comics2.php  (the server has been flaky of late, if the database goes dead I can put up a plain HTML version).

I've been starting to add extra content to these pages approximately weekly.  Late last year, I did a series of short fragments of writing discussing a few points that made webcomics more pleasant to read. http://savi.cis.drexel.edu/~strom/writing.html  This year I have tried writing short pieces pointing out small and relatively unknown webcomics of notable quality.  http://savi.cis.drexel.edu/~strom/w_intro.html

More in line with Xepher's normal content, I also am trying to write more substantial material.  Picking out my personal favorites, there's a short story written for transformation-based content: http://spots.flatland.com/jms/w_tf_5.html and I've been keeping up with the RUET story contest.  This one isn't too bad: http://spots.flatland.com/jms/w_tf_6.html

A few other highlights.
Quite old, but not terrible: http://spots.flatland.com/jms/w_es_0.html
Two more recent bits: http://spots.flatland.com/jms/w_tmp.html, http://spots.flatland.com/jms/w_rw_0.html

And that's about it, one Xepher.net hosting application without the start of a webcomic.

Website:
http://savi.cis.drexel.edu/~strom/comics.html for webcomicy things.
http://spots.flatland.com/jms/index.html for the rest.
E-mail: j-strom@verizon.net