I'm not really aware of how much new development is going into Java Applets; but they were quite popular in the early 2000s; if you do a search for "Java Applets" you could maybe give a go at looking into that - it may be a way to go if you're keen on sticking with Java for your game development - and you wanna try to ease distribution inside web browsers. I had prototyped some basic games (like snake) in Java but moved to other frameworks over the years; currently my favorite tool for gamedev is the open-source Godot engine.
I've dabbled with lots of different environments for gamedev; currently Godot is my favorite. I got into Godot by hitting up their homepage and running over all the tutorials/learn-godot pages they had on their homepage; if you like Zelda games, there is a Zelda-like Godot tutorial on Youtube that helped me pick up a lot of ideas too.