Wakfu - Java

The video preview of Wakfu below has been up on YouTube for a while, but I was watching it today and really thought it was quite cool for a number of reasons. For starters, I've always enjoyed Japanese manga as an art form. I also like "lite games" or "casual MMOs" that allow you to jump in and out as time permits and still feel like you've accomplished something.

But probably the bigger deal for me is that Wakfu is developed, both client and server, in Java. Moreover, they are using JOGL (a Java binding to OpenGL also used in Ardor3D) to do hardware accelerated graphics on the client.

So here is a company well known for their popular (4 million accounts created) Flash-based game, Dofus, switching FROM Flash to Java. Not something you see very often, particularly in this particular market segment. It will be interesting to watch them as they blaze new trails there.

So on to the movie. The in-game footage is more prominent in the second half of the video, particularly starting around 3:00.


(click through to YouTube for the HD version)