Javoids!

Instructions (Keyboard)
~	Choose Best Weapon
1-0	Select Weapon 1 to 9
P	Pause Game/Unpause Game
ESCAPE	Unpause Game
CAPS_LOCK	Hyperspace jump (better on a big screen)
A	Use afterburners for greater accelleration
UP	Use afterburners for greater accelleration
S	Switch directions
SHIFT	Shield
Z	Turn ship left
X	Turn ship right
C	Cycle to previous weapon
V	Cycle to next weapon
B	Hyperspace Disruption Bomb (HDB) to break Javoids apart
M	Megabomb, planet killing HDB destroys everything except black holes
LEFT	Fire current weapon
DOWN	Accelerate
RIGHT	Shield
SPACE	New Game
ALT	Pause game and activate menu/unpause if previously depressed. This function is bugged; currently oinly the pause works.

Instructions (Menu)
File Menu
	New	Start a new game select.
	Exit	Quit the game (this option is disabled if run from an applet).
Options Menu
	Difficulty	Sets the game difficulty (1 is easy 10 is hard or damn near impossible).
	Delay	Sets the animation delay in milliseconds and defaults to 80 milliseconds. Select a smaller number for faster/more insane game play. Select a larger number if you have poor reaction times and need a longer delay.
	Lives	Change the nuber of starting lives from 1 to 9. The number of lives do not change until a new game is started.
	Edit Key Bindings	This option allows you to change what action is associated with a keyboard key.
	User Key Map?	Load the user’s keyboard layout. If this option is checked and reselected, it reloads the default keyboard layout.
	Mouse Move?	Allows you to use a mouse to play the game. The left button fires, the right button is thrust. Your ship will turn to face the crosshair cursor. All special functions like using bombs are only usable by pressing the correct key for that action. If this option is checked and reselected, it disables mouse movement.
	Sound?	This option toggles the sound on and off.
	Collision Area Checking?	This option toggles collision detection from a radius check to an area check for any drawing (doesn’t work for JPEG images).
Help Menu
	Readme	Display the readme file (includes instructions).
	Version	Display the version file that describes the change history (latest changes first).
	About	Display an "about" dialog that contains the version number and some credits.
Start Button		This is a button that starts a new game just like selecting "New" from the File menu.

Javoids is simply a java based asteroids game. Don’t let that fool you though, Javoids is much more than a simple line drawing clone. Javoids features hand drawn images, sounds (some custom made), a unique arsenal to destroy the Javoids, along with some new twists like black holes, mines and power ups, and an Easter Egg.

Javoids was written as a hybrid applet/application so it can be run as a stand alone game you can download, played on a web page or started in Sun's Webstart. There is a configuration file so that you can customize the controls and save them for use another time. A handy menu allows you to set the number of lives for a longer game while another option lets you set the delay if it’s running to quickly or too slowly. There is a handy context menu that includes things like an exit option, and the ability to toggle the sound on and off.

Javoids now features a high score table that contains your top 10 scores. If Javoids asks you to set some properties this is only to allow it to read files and store the high scores.

Here’s a snapshot of a game in progress

Javoids Snapshot

The Cast
	Enemy ships fly around and shoot things like maniacs.
	Mines are attracted to any ship and damage them when contact is made. Some mines act as gravity wells too and draw ships toward them at the same time, but they’re pretty rare.
	Power ups give new weapons, repair your ship, it’s shield, give you points, make one of your weapons into a homing or armor piercing weapon, afterburners for increased speed, or bombs to destroy things.
	Singularities are points of infinitely dense material. Black holes are vacuums of utter destruction drawing everything within them. They are surrounded by a halo of white light that is released by objects drawn into them. The best way of dealing with these is to use your thrusters and afterburners to stay away from them or to put yourself into an orbit and wait for them to decay. In the mean time, the black hole will grow every time another object (except another black hole) enters it. If you are misfortunate enough to get caught in one you have only a moment to perform a jump to hyperspace escaping certain death. White holes are the theoretical other end of a black hole. White holes project a field of anti-gravity that repells all matter. It is rumored that white holes will occasionally produce Javoids, shrinking in size as time passes reflecting the decrease in mass.
	There are also minor local gravity field anomalies that very rarely appear causing havoc if they snare your ship in their pull.

The Plot

Since when did Asteroids need a plot?! Just blow everything up except for yourself!

Sincerely,
Patrick Mallette

Contact Information :

Patrick Mallette
Designer/Programmer

Email me with constructive comments at:
patrickmallette@rogers.com

Javoids, the Source
If you don’t have the Java Run-time Environment (JRE) get it here.