Jetpack Jacob – jacobwblog

Jetpack Jacob progress update – Massive improvements

Wow, it’s been awhile since I posted an update on this game. I suppose now is the time to say that this may be the last progress report on Jetpack Jacob. The reason for this is that I am considering renaming the game to “Jetpack Jake”.

Why? There are several reasons. First, I’ve felt a little weird giving the protagonist the same name as myself. Second, and more importantly, I would be able to have a death/game over screen with a character saying “Jake? …JAAAAAAAAAKE!” I’m still not entirely sure the name will be changed. Let me know what you think, if you even care either way.

So what’s changed since the last update? A lot.

Let’s start with level features. Each level in the game can have a “feature”, which can be lasers that fire periodically, lights that flicker and fade to darkness, and massively more powerful gravity. Above is an example of the laser firing.

The screen displayed at the end of each level has had some changes as well. The difficulty and current level are displayed, as well as time taken, health left, explosives left, enemies killed, and medals collected. It also prompts the player to save the game, if they wish. Also, is that not the most metal-looking font?

Another highly-visible change is text that appears on item pick-up. The text slowly fades away as it moves up the screen. This tells the player what they just picked up and what just happened.

These are the most visible changes, but so much more has happened. The physics have been vastly improved, The structure for entering cheats has been started, a list of cheats has been designed, the various difficulties now change the difficulty of the game, explosives and powerups have been cleaned up, the settings menu has been finished, and many bugs have been fixed and features improved.

The next steps are to finish implementing cheats, and add the dialogs/conversations through which the story will unfold. And I thinks it’s finally, definitely time to get some “real” art by a “real” artist. And please, let me know what you think about the title.

Jetpack Jacob progress – conveyors

There has been almost no work on the level editor since the last update. I’ve been busy adding objects to the game and making them work properly.

“Mechanical Mansion” is part of the game’s title, so there should probably be some mechanical objects, right?

Conveyors will move objects that rest on them to the left or right. They move quickly, which means that they can be used to prevent progress in a certain direction.

Multiple conveyors can quickly accelerate an object to its maximum horizontal speed!

That’s all I’m going to include in this progress report. The next instalment should be even more interesting. You could even say that it will be a ‘blast’! ;)

Jetpack Jacob progress – finishing the level editor

Work continues on Jetpack Jacob. I’ve been fixing bugs and making the level editor more user-friendly, as shown in the screenshot above. More dialogs have been added to help users use the editor. Something entirely new is a message in the lower left corner of the screen to help users understand what is happening when they select or change an object, or load or save a level.

The new Jetpack Jacob game has many new objects that weren’t in the original game, and I’ve been slowly adding them all to the game itself (not just the level editor). Switches and colored keys and switchable blocks an colored switchable blocks all function perfectly.

That’s all the visible changes since the last update post. Most of the changes have been bug fixes and other non-visible improvements. Next I’ll be added the rest of the new objects to the game, and making level progression work.

Jetpack Jacob progress – level editor

Long ago, for Ludum Dare #27, I made a game called Jetpack Jacob in The Quest for Time. I was happy with that game, but knew that it could be much better. I’ve been working on a sequel: Jetpack Jacob in Mechanical Mansion.

The work has been slow but steady. To make the levels for the Ludum Dare game, I used OGMO Editor, and manually edited the output to make parsing easier. For the sequel, I am building a level editor into the actual game. That’s right, all players will get access to the same level editor I am using to make the levels for the game!

The editor is coming along nicely. (All art/fonts/etc in these screenshots are not final) There are user-friendly dialogs and error popups to make things easy for players.

The editor itself supports infinite undo/redo. Certain object (such as the player) can only be placed once. Objects that can be placed an unlimited number of times can be “painted” onto the level without the use needing to click in each tile to place an object.

The editor keeps track of what has been added and what needs to be added, and displays the status at the bottom of the screen. If the player or exit are not part of a level, it cannot be saved. If a key is added, but not the blocks it unlocks (or vice versa), the level is considered incomplete and cannot be saved. In these situations, an error message is also displayed when attempting to save.

The next things to add to the editor are objects for the enemies in the game, and loading of previously saved levels.