The upgrades from JME 1 to JME 2 and from LWJGL 1.4 to 2.0 are complete. There were a number of issues but nothing too difficult. One of the problems we had was resource compatibility. The worse case of this was with our particle systems. They had to be completely remade. The new ones haven't received the love and care the old versions had so you might notice some slightly odd difference in that department.

We have also successfully deployed our first Web Start. This is very exciting for 2 reasons. First, the Web Start is much more reliable than the applet so many people who had trouble might find this works better for them. The second reason is we were able to build the Web Start with the same jar files currently used by the applet. Going forward, we will be able to support both versions of the game with ease. The Web Start is now available on the main game page or it can be accessed from this link: http://lefty2shoes.com/xspace.jnlp.

New Web Interface showing the choice between Applet and Web Start:


The best news is the addition of a new contributing member to the team. Jens, who joins us remotely from Europe, is a java programmer by profession and has been making games as a hobby for a long time. Not only does he bring a profound understanding of Java to the team, he is also a talented artist. He has been making his own models and textures for his games and has already made some beginning assets for XSpace. He is also the designer/developer for the Front End system, Nifty GUI, which XSpace employs. As if that were not enough, he is also familiar with composing music and sound tracks. As you can imagine, XSpace is very lucky to get Jens and we look forward to seeing and hearing great things from him soon.

Jens' first model:


With all the recent changes XSpace will finally be moving to version 0.1. Unfortunately there are no new features to announce, but stay tuned. As more art resources come online new ships and weapons will become available. Also, the Web Start should work for many of the players who were having trouble with the applet so please, give it a try.

See the latest version here.

--Enjoy