Asteroids (JavaFX)

A JavaFX recreation of the classic Atari Asteroids game — control a spaceship, destroy incoming asteroids, and survive as long as possible.

Overview

This project focuses on real-time game logic in Java: continuous rendering, collision detection, object state management, and keyboard-driven controls — a different skill set from CRUD/data-driven apps, centered on the JavaFX AnimationTimer / game loop pattern.

Features

• Main menu with background image, high score display, and Start button
• Player-controlled spaceship with rotation and thrust-based movement
• Asteroids that spawn, move, rotate, and wrap around screen edges
• Shooting mechanic — spaceship fires projectiles to destroy asteroids
• Collision detection between projectiles, asteroids, and the player ship
• Score tracking as asteroids are destroyed
• Game over screen with final score and a Restart button
• High score persistence across sessions (saved to file)
• Space-themed visuals: black background with scattered stars, white/grey ship and asteroids

Tech Stack

• Java 25
• JavaFX 21 (Canvas / GraphicsContext for rendering, AnimationTimer for the game loop)
• Maven (dependency management + build)

Project Structure

src/main/java/Asteroid/
├── AsteroidApplication.java     # JavaFX entry point — main menu, game loop, game over screen
├── Character.java               # Abstract base class: movement, rotation, collision, screen wrapping
├── Ship.java                    # Player ship (extends Character)
├── Asteroid.java                # Asteroid: random spawn, rotation, movement (extends Character)
├── Projectile.java              # Bullet fired by the ship (extends Character)
└── PolygonFactory.java          # Generates randomized asteroid polygon shapes

src/main/resources/
└── space_background.jpg         # Main menu background image
└── over_background.jpg          # Game Over background image

Controls

Key	Action
← / → / A / D	Rotate ship
↑ / W	Thrust forward
Space	Fire

Screens

• Main Menu — shows game title, current high score, and a Start button
• Gameplay — black space background with stars, ship and asteroids in white/grey
• Game Over — shows final score, updates high score if beaten, Restart button to play again

Download

Download the standalone Windows build — extract the zip and run Asteroids.exe. No Java installation required.

Design Notes

• Character is an abstract base class handling shared behavior — movement, rotation, screen-edge wrapping, and polygon-based collision detection (Shape.intersect) — with Ship, Asteroid, and Projectile all extending it.
• Asteroids spawn with random size, rotation, and velocity via PolygonFactory, giving each one a distinct silhouette.
• High score is persisted to a plain text file (highscore.txt) and only overwritten when a new run beats the existing record.
• The main menu and game-over screen reuse the same Stage, swapping Scene objects rather than opening new windows.

Screenshots

What's Next

• Add difficulty scaling (asteroid speed/spawn rate increases over time)
• Add sound effects for shooting and collisions