Parallax Without Scrolling?
I’m pretty much committed to not doing any scrolling in Jetpack 2. That creates a different type of game, and I haven’t done everything I’d like to with the single-screen style yet. But I want to give the whole screen life, so I’m investigating the possibility of scrolling just the background, while keeping the foreground still. This will create a slightly odd parallax effect. The background would move very slowly to the left as the player runs right.
I wasn’t sure quite how to do this, but it reminded me of Rastan, so I fired up MAME to see how they did it. It looks pretty good in Rastan, but of course that is a scrolling game. Will it look good in Jetpack? You be the judge.
Since I’m still waiting on SWF encryption to protect my source code, I can’t publish a working demo, but try to picture the background moving in this remix of level 1.
Will a graphical background work?
Note these are all programmer graphics, and will get much better once I find an artist!
April 9th, 2008 at 2:20 am
I would reccommend altering the viewing angle of the level as the player moves from left to right, for example see this simple demo I made showing the effect: http://abrahamjoffe.com.au/ben/cube/
April 9th, 2008 at 2:29 am
On the topic of the background however, I really like the effect used in donkey kong country. They used multiple backgrounds (with a 1 bit alpha layer). The lowest background layer moved the slowest and higher background layers move proportionately faster. Some levels also included a “foreground” layer that moved *faster* than the interactive level itself panned. The overall effect is extremely convincing, looking almost like a 3d background, though, as you mention, it may be odd if the level itself does not in fact pan.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:42 am
..Frankly, I think both the parallax and the graphical background would hinder the design of such a simplistic game as Jetpack. The panning sounds like a strange idea, it’d be out of place if the main body of the level stayed still. And compared to a full background image, a simple repeated pattern is usually more appealing and less distracting in a 2D game - especially when Jetpack’s milieux never actually change, and there’s no need to differentiate between themes.
April 9th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
You’re thinking too much of the old Jetpack, Jetpack II will indeed have various themes. But I think too much of this WOULD be distracting, it would have to be limited to certain areas.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
yeah, i get what you mean. You could die just because of the background moving. But i think it would be cool. Once i saw the background stuff i though that scrolling actually might be a great idea.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Mm… not too sure about it. Made something really, but REALLY quick in some other program to simulate what it would look like. (note that BG picture is with 50% opacity on top of the hero, Too lazy to make it go below… you get the point xD)
But check for yourself, it makes things look really chaotic. You’d lose the overview of the gameplay itself. Especially in Jetpack you don’t want that.
Btw… I read in the first blogpart you were also looking for some people to make some ingame music. Well, I might not be a professional or educated in it, but I do have some experience in making music for certain games. If you’re still looking for people, I don’t mind helping out
Well, you got my mail I suppose, feel free to mail me.
April 10th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Ugh… I do ask you to check it out, but I forgot to give you the dl link :p
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1CJ38T6Y
If it doesn’t work, tell mah xD
April 17th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Benjamin, that’s actually pretty cool, and wouldn’t require true 3d, but it might be too much for Flash to handle. I will look into it.
ThaSprout, I got the error “the file system2c cannot be opened”.
Yes I am looking for people to do music, do you have any samples?
April 17th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Adam: There’s alot of great game music creators at the OCRemix*. The community have created thousands of remixes of existing game tunes (for free), and many also create original tracks of their own. I would suggest posting in their forums.
* http://www.ocremix.org/
April 19th, 2008 at 11:18 am
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ENJYDUDV
midi ftw!
Just picked randomly a few I ever made, all were made for an rpg. So yeah ^^
April 20th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
zomg, don’t release anything until that encryptor comes out. scientists have been striving for decades to discover how to make simple jetpack game logic. don’t give it out, they’ll just steal it and get rich! there are thousands of unencrypted games out there, but nobody cares about them, it’s all about a flash jetpack clone!
April 20th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
errr…spam much?
adam, i would really think that a scrolling screen would be cool. not that there should be super huge levels, just maybe a top and bottom or left and right.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
SWFCrypt: There are several cases of small flash games being decompiled, reskinned, and re-released, to steal market share from the originals.
ThaSprout: Wow megaupload really is obnoxious. I’ll check it out.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:22 am
If it’s not working out on megaupload, I’ll send them to your mail instead, let me know
April 24th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
what Benjamin said about the for-front blocks moving is a great idea. Now To have the screen scroll can still be possible for this type of game. if you just simply make it to where you walk from the left side to the right. When you get to the right side the screen will then start to scroll, and simply loop the starting point. Meaning you will see the starting point, its like going around in a circle. hope I explained this clear enough.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
If you’re not going to make the level scroll (which honestly I think you should), then don’t make the background scroll either, unless you use Benjamin’s excellent suggestion to make it look like the viewer is moving around the player too (that would make the scrolling make sense).
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 am
Hi Adam, I’ve been a long time fan of Jetpack ever since I got the chance to play it on my old Pentium 1 machine. The news that you’ve started working on Jetpack 2 came as shock. I good shock.
Not too long ago I started working on a homebrew remake of Jetpack for the Nintendo DS. I’m wondering and hoping that you like this idea and would support the development.
http://sx.sytes.net/jetpackds.png
If you’re interested, please contact me via email! (I suppose you can get my email being the admin and all :P)
Cheers!
Icy~
May 6th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
WOW! Jetpack 2! I remember playing jetpack when I was a kid can’t wait for this game to come out.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Are you the real jetpack people? I got your website address from a 15 year old program.
I first got your game when I was 10-12 years old. I am 24 now. I got a bit drunk tonight and decided to play it again. I actually got really far today. I think I got as far in the game I got back then.
You just suddenly are working on a new version now as I am plastered and happen to actually for the first time type in that link.
“Back to reality…
Look for Jetpack 2 in 2000 at http://www.adeptsoftware.com”
I can’t believe this actually worked.
In case you wondered, I bought your disc at k-mart on a 1.44 mb disc LONG ago.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Ignore the mistakes, math is disabled when alcohol takes over.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Hey Adam,
I think your idea of a scrolling background is ok… but not for this game. From my experience, Jetpack tends to have alot going on at any given time, and I think a scrolling background would confuse/disorientate players due to this. I would recommend that you keep with the standard background you had in Jetpack (maybe remixed alittle?), as this was relatively simplistic and allowed players to keenly focus on where enemies/pickups are, without distraction.
Well, thats my two cents. The final decision, of course, rests with you, however if you do decide to scroll the background, I would suggest that you limit the detail in it so as to keep the focus on the actual game, rather then the background itself.
IcySon55:
Oh WOW! Man I’ve been hoping someone would port Jetpack to DS! I looked into it myself a little while ago, but never got really it started for a number of reasons. May I ask what coding-language you’re writing it in? If it’s one I have knowledge in, maybe I could help out somehow? I’d be happy to help out in any way I can, really, from coding to beta-testing (I have a CycloDS Evo, so I could run tests on it).
If I can do something for the project, don’t hesitate to contact me at: (remove underscores and asterisks) t_brisbane*@*g_mail.com . Sorry I have to do that to my email btw, but if I didn’t, I’m sure some bot would find it.
Anyways, good luck with the project, and I hope to hear from you at some point!