June 18, 2025
Added a Readme to explain some basic stuff. Website is live now at https://xuhanyang888.github.io/the-unconventional-units-converter/
Added a Surprise me button that gives you random measurements(value and unit) to convert! 🚀🚀🚀
built a simple website that implements these conversions :D I'd say it looks pretty cool 🔥🔥🔥
Got the core feature working!
Inspired by memes about American measurement systems, aimed at bringing more chaos to the world of units.
Finally completed v1.0! Readme and Github release are done!
NEW UPDATE!!!
this time I did:
1. added control instructions to the start screen;
2. added icons for the HP and Coins display (top left);
3. added icons for the Ammo display (bottom right);
Today also marks the end (kinda) of Zombie Shooter v1! I'll finish up the Readme, Github release, etc over the weekend! Stay tuned!
updated shooting effects
recoded A LOT of stuff to improve performance
NEW BACKGROUND LOOKING FIRE!!!
Did some drawing to make new image assets for the game! Spent a lot of time drawing on Piskel (unfortunately doesn't count as coding hours) and changing params on VSCode.
Made both the start and end screens!
Start: shows the game name and a 'start game' button
End: shows whether the player won or lost
By now, I've completed pretty much all the features for stage 1. In the next few days I'll update with better image assets and start planning out new stuff for the game!
Did some drawing to get an idea of how I want some final assets to look.
Made some changes to change the way how reloading animation is handled. Added a red ring effect when a zombie does damage to the player.
BIG update!
Zombies now come in waves: once a wave of zombies is cleared, the next wave comes. Every wave has zombies with more HP and damage than the previous wave.
Weapon reloading animation: ammo logics aren't in place yet, but at least the animation works. Took a LONG time to get working.
Two major changes:
1. Zombies now move in a random zigzag path towards the player. To make the game look cleaner, only after a zombie gets hit, its health bar will display. Once it gets close enough to the player, it does damage (10HP).
2. Changed the logic behind mouse movement detection and scene rendering to make the game feel much smoother.
A pretty big update.
Did some ugly coordinate calculations to create a rectangular hitbox for each zombie. It works pretty well so I won't change it for now. Also added a health bar display for the zombies.
Now, if you fire the gun while pointing at a zombie, it takes damage. the change in HP is reflected in the health bar.
Added the Weapon class with a temporary image for the gun.
I also added a 'adaptive scaling/resolution' feature. Essentially the program detects your display resolution and scaling so that the game window fits exactly to your entire screen.
Added stuff for the zombies' Java class. It can now be generated and animated. Currently a new zombie pop up after a mouse click, but eventually they will come in waves. I've also added display for player health and coins in the corner. The demo also shows the upgrade module pop up window from the last update.
Finished a proof-of-concept! I hope you can see how I tried to make it appear 3D. More detailed image assets with higher resolution will definitely improve this sense of space, but that won't come until the later stages of the project. I'll keep using these temporary assets just to make sure the code works first.
Basic idea of how it works:
when you move the mouse in a direction, the program tracks that and moves the background in the opposite direction, making it appear as if your character looked over there. However it puts in the limitation that your character is glued to the ground and cannot move like a real 3D game.
Probably not my most productive day. I kept on trying to make a perfect GUI for the game but I just cannot get it to work. In hindsight, I definitely took too long experimenting with different looks. After all, I still settled with a more classic UI that focuses more on functionality than being fancy. I've also added a back button so that you can leave an ongoing game if you want to.
With a grand total of 6 whole hours, the Gomoku bot is finally completed!!! I'm not gonna lie, it's more likely to beat me than I am to beat it. I've won a few times, tho.
There are now two buttons in the start screen, one for local 1v1 and another for playing against the bot. Both have time limits, sound effects, etc.
I've also organized the files a bit so that the images and sounds now belong to an assets folder.
Currently working on a smart Gomoku bot! Hopefully it will be added in the next commit. I found a JavaScript implementation from Github (https://github.com/lukesalamone/gomoku-2049), which uses minimax algo and alpha-beta pruning. I'm still trying to fully understand and utilize them, but work is being done! :D
This is a Gomoku game that I built fully in Java. In the last 2 days or so, I did:
1. understand the rules of the game and correctly implement in code;
2. use Java Swing and AWT to build a working GUI for the game;
3. learn and use the Java Sound API to add sound effects to the game.
A pixel-art style first person shooter game where you kill zombies to earn coins. You can spend coins to buy ammo, kill more zombies, and eventually pay your way out. Please follow, star, and leave comments! ❤️
This was widely regarded as a great move by everyone.