Vaporware
Back in 1993 the world was my oyster.
I don’t like oysters, but the point is I had a future. A plan. But I dropped the ball. I fell into that all too common trap for programmers, taking on more than you can handle, and underestimating development time. Instead of working on new small games like Jetpack 2, I put years of work into a massive game engine project that was doomed to failure from the start. Once you’ve put 5 years into a project, it’s hard to convince yourself to abandon all that effort. It was sad, but I finally realized that the project would be obsolete before it was complete. In the meantime I was delivering pizza to pay the rent. What can I say, I lacked proper guidance.
I put the next 5 years into an online dating site, Cybersoulmate.com (now defunct). I think it could have been the first social network, before Friendster or Myspace, if I had prioritized things differently. I got up to 100,000 members before those other sites came along and stole the show. I think my biggest mistakes on that project were putting looks ahead of features, and putting fun-to-implement features ahead of those that were more important to users. Still I met my wife from my site, so it wasn’t a total wash.
I also put in a few scattered years at a couple of large software companies. Pretty dull. And all this time I was just wanting to make games. Maybe I should have gone to a game company, but all I heard were bad things, places that work you 80 hours a week and keep you in golden handcuffs, like cutting off your royalties as soon as you leave. Why are there no companies that just want to make cool, original games and treat people fairly? And these days it seems like your only option is to work on another d@#n first-person shooter clone, fine tuning some shiny 3D effect. No thanks. And on a completely different topic, I’m really sick of C++. With the fancy tricks people have to do just to keep the language viable, you can’t even read C++ code without spending a week learning what 200 custom macros do. Not that ActionScript is paradise, but at least you can read it in a reasonable amount of time. But I digress.
It sucks to spend years on a project and have it fail, or have to abandon it. Having done both, I am but a shell of a man. I have only a tiny sliver of the energy and excitement that I had as a youth. Like the mollusk, I long only for the rising tide of success to wash over the dry rock of broken dreams that I tenaciously cling to with my single muscular foot. A foot that tastes delicious sauteed in butter and lemon. Creating a successful game would be rejuvenating. And hopefully bring the bling.
The world is my mollusk.
February 14th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
well, that was very touching. i like the part about the lemon and butter. But i thought jetpack was C++? or something very similar to it, like C+ (if there is such a thing) or C, except just very dulled down. You can do a lot with C++, make a black execution screen say hi or make Warcraft 3 (i dont know about WoW because i dont know what its made with…cuz i dont have it). But this is about jetpack, and i want to support you and it so thats why i leave my comments.
February 14th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I just had my own mollusk moment a week ago. I’ve worked pretty hard on my website for almost three years, and it was a fun hobby that let me relive great games like Jetpack. During a period of unemployment, I started working on the site all day, every day, and I accomplished things in a few months that I had expected to take years. Last week, I realized that I had accomplished everything I had ever wanted to accomplish with the site. I had archived my entire childhood, plus a bunch of games that I had never played before. The challenge was over, the mission was accomplished.
I guess there’s often a low after the high. Homer Simpson experienced it after bowling a perfect game, when he realized that he had accomplished the most significant thing that he would ever receive recognition for. Sometimes authors can never repeat the success of their first book, or actors get typecast in their first role. Even the most dedicated athlete retires at 40, and still has his whole life ahead of him, but how can he top what he’s already done? It was only natural to try to follow up on the success of Jetpack with something more ambitious than could be reasonably accomplished. Crack dot com blew a fortune on Abuse 2, trying to make it miles more ambitious than Abuse. Great success in gaming is often followed by vaporware. I guess you have to set reasonable goals for yourself, or you can get carried away and take on more than you can handle.
Anyway, I’m coming out of my funk. There’s probably not much more that I can do with DOS, so now I’m adding Win16 games. I could have started a new, more ambitious project that would have been doomed to failure, but I’ve opted to just keep doing what I’m doing. It sounds like you’ve decided to do the same. You made a great game, and I can’t thank you enough. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll continue to accomplish great things. Here’s to Jetpack 2!
February 15th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Hi there,
Just stumbled across your page after reading up on one of my favourite games back in the day. (one of the first games I ever played)
That sounds like, even though it was very tough, you learned a lot. And sometimes that takes a lot longer than we like, I guess. Anyways, I don’t see the Game Industry as pessimistic. You have to look for it, but there’s people there who are really great and make awesome games.
i’m currently studying Computer Visualistics at the University Magdeburg, Germany. I’m also the President of the Acagamics Student Game Development Club. (Yes, Games made me do it!)
Jetpack 2 sounds like a cool project, do you have a Game Concept or even a Game Design Document?
This is just an Idea in my Head, but maybe one could make a nice little Student project out of this.
On PC or NIntendo DS Homebrew? (we’re currently developing Games on both.)
Of course, If you want to sell it, Homebrew wouldn’t be an option… A little Flash game might also be a nice way to do it.
Just a thought. Send me a note if you like. ^^
cheers,
John
February 15th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Hi,
Jetpack was C, and very poorly written C. I prefer C to C++ generally.
I don’t do any fancy detailed design layouts ahead of time, and here’s why:
The ideas you come up with during initial design always seem to take a lot of time to implement. When I’m programming (and this probably goes for everybody) I’m constantly brainstorming, and I always get these ideas of cool things that I could implement pretty quickly. At least on a single person project, I find its more efficient to keep the design flexible so I can change big parts of it to something easier and faster, and often cooler, than the original design. Also coming up with these gameplay ideas is the most enjoyable part for me, and I don’t want to use all the fun up in the beginning. The downside to that is big changes can mean you end up not using some of the code you invested a lot of time in. It’s a balance. Of course I do have some very general ideas of what I want to accomplish, and I keep a list of ideas that are all “maybes”. (I have an awesome app that I couldn’t live without to keep track of these things, Jot+ Notes)
I don’t want to share everything just yet, but the main things I want to do with Jetpack 2 are:
* mission-based level packs, with different goals & tilesets that will appeal to different ages & genders
* smooth, beautiful high res graphics
* a lot more physics effects
* an online community where all your created missions are automatically published
And some of the “maybe” ideas are, in no particular order:
* complete per-pixel customization of levels
* several different usable items (besides the phase shifter)
* health
* vehicles
* leaving the gems gone after you die (if the mission goal is gathering gems)
* jet blast affects creatures
* multiplayer - either cooperative or competitive on each level (tricky because I think client prediction would look poor on a non-fps game)
* water/swimming
* trampolines (everybody loves trampolines!)
At any rate, this isn’t going to be a little student project! This will be significantly more advanced than the original.
Adam
February 15th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
wow, those are some nice ideas. actually the “maybe” ideas sound the best and most attractive. i was also wondering, will there be a level editor for jetpack 2?
February 25th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Sounds really sweet, though health and vehicles sound really un-Jetpacky. =/ I’ve never liked video game vehicles, even in FPS games, but you know best. Good luck with Jetpack 2.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I second what Aeris said, the health and vehicles are probably the weakest and most out-of-place of the ‘maybe’ ideas. Some more colors for the switches, doors, and teleporters would help out puzzle-y levels though, and moving platforms would be another useful terrain piece to go along with the trampolines and water. I also like the multiple useable items (the Jetpack guy carrying different items with him seems like a better fit with the gameplay and has more possibilities for expanding the gameplay), and the jetpack being useable as a weapon sounds pretty interesting. I played the heck out of the first Jetpack, making what had to have been hundreds of levels, so I look forward to the new Jetpack and wish you good luck.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Thanks,
well the reason I thought health might be good, is I think it adds more depth to the gameplay, where you can be shot/burned/swarmed by bees/fall too far/etc and still have a chance to get away and get healed. Is there a downside? There would still be a lot of creatures that kill you outright, like the ball.
Yeah vehicles doesn’t really seem like it fits, it was just a random idea. I was thinking along the lines of the minecar in Bagman.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I think a workaround is obvious: Make health optional. If a map maker wants instant death, there should be an instant death option. Same if they want some sort of health system. I think you should implement togglable options for just about every “maybe idea”.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Hi there, old fan of Jetpack - just found your site. Have you thought about bringing Jetpack 2 to Xbox Live Arcade, Wii Online or on mobile phones?
February 29th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
that seems kind of rediculous, don’t you think? i don’t really think that would be possible anyway. and i think it would go against adam’s standards.
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I might consider something like that after this version is done. I think it could be cool on a mobile phone, but I don’t really know anything about the market.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
“Why are there no companies that just want to make cool, original games and treat people fairly?”
There are some. But usually they can’t pay you so much, because treating people fairly is more expensive than treating them like shit. Maybe you should look at smaller companies instead?
Here’s a good (not so small) company: http://www.doublefine.com/ . Tim Schaffer and some of the old LucasArts crew (and LucasArts was the most kickass game development company before year 2000). Try their game Psychonauts, if you didn’t yet.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I loved the original jetpack as a kid. I would like to add my two cents:
* Variable sized levels would be a big plus, so one could make a single screened game, or a very wide one that the screen follows horizontally (or a tall one).
* A tile should have several layers, so one can change the background of the tile independently of the item in the square, and the floor of a tile should be separate to its block, so one for instance could place ice on a gold block.
* I like the previously mentioned ideas of more colours for switches and teleporters.
* Would be cool to have moving target emeralds (eg, one dragged on a chain behind a ball).
* Lots of useless objects and decorations, so levels can be created, then styled.
*PLEASE* keep elements of the original game, that made the gameplay unique:
- Emeralds be the main focus, other “missions” should be secondary, or also involve emeralds somehow. In fact in my opinion missions are not necessary, since one can already create missions by clever use of switches and emerald placement, etc.
- Player should still only jump one square high.
- Please call it Jetpack 2, not many other games can boast 15 years between productions, you should be proud of the legacy of jetpack.
- Leaving the gems ‘gone’ after you die should be optional, otherwise there could possibly be times where it would be tactical to kill one’s self.
Last but not least, please DON’T introduce a Mrs Jetpack.
All the best of luck, I’m watching this space and spreading the word.