This is a game design & 2d game development blog about a modern remake of the classic game Jetpack.
We discuss caveats of flash game programming, and welcome your input on game creation and the upcoming game Jetpack!
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I invite everyone to take part in this quick informal survey of Jetpack fans. Make your voice heard now, and feel free to add comments if you wish. If you would prefer your answers be private, please use the contact page.
A) How interested are you in seeing your friends’ level times, & high scores? [1=not, 10=very]
B) How would you feel about buying a game from the following services? [1=bad, 10=good] B1) Steam B2) An independent developer site B3) A game portal (eg: Arcade Town, Big Fish, GameHouse, Pogo, Yahoo Games) B4) Amazon
C) How many computer games (not console games) have you bought: C1) Online C2) In a retail store C3) Without playing first – based only on reviews, word-of-mouth, or screenshots
D) Would you ever buy add-ons to a game via micropayments? (eg: $2 for a mission pack)
E) What if you could make money by creating levels? [1=bad, 10=good]
Say you create a level pack in the game, you set a price for it (ie 100 credits), and when users buy it you get a percentage. Your income would be (rough guess) from $10 – $30 per 100 copies sold. Buying level packs would not require owning Jetpack – so if the free version becomes popular on Facebook for example, popular level packs might sell 1,000+ copies. Possible side effects: better quality addon levels, but fewer free levels available.
F) How important is the level editor to you? [1=not, 10=very]
G) How important is the “retro mode” (web port of the DOS original) to you? [1=not, 10=very]
H) What are your favorite sites to download, play, or buy games?
I’m really excited about this new demo. Finally we have all the pieces of the game starting to come together, with some great new graphics and music we got from the Retrofit Contest, and many of the gameplay elements in place. This demo should really give you a feel for the new Jetpack!
Instructions:
Move with ARROWS, fly with SHIFT / CTRL, use & phase with SPACE, jump with Z or SLASH (even when you have fuel)
alternate keys: WASD to move, TAB to use, TILDE (~) to jump
What to look for:
New effects when getting items
New physics elements – slide off tiles, sink into sludge, and all motions now have acceleration
You have to press up or down to “grab” ladders. It was a real pain to make walking on ladders still work with this!
A running jump will go a little farther than a standing jump. And no more getting stuck on tiles!
Trigger the spear by getting too close or phasing it
New pushable solid object – for puzzles, blocking enemies
All the new tiles are scattered along the very top of the level. The thin stone tiles may not be kept, I’m still evaluating their usefulness.
Footsteps vary depending on the surface you’re walking on
Jetman grunts and yells in pain – no death yet. I was hoping to make the voice gender neutral, but I just can’t find good neutral sounds.
Environmental sound system adjusts volume & panning as you walk past the teleporter (this is limited to low volume because p.o.s. flash introduces a lot of pops and clicks when changing volume or pan)
Automatic map enhancement level visuals, some examples: applies a 3d look to tiles, gives gems a stand when on solid ground, gives ice/sludge edges, turns stacked columns into a single column
What’s missing:
Enemies, clearly
Not all sounds are final
A phasing tile effect, teleporting effect
Graphics on the GUI
Level transitions
Achievements
A few graphics are still missing, mainly the Jetman. Yeah that one’s important.
We need a lot more level backgrounds, and tiles for jungle & outdoor themes
A known bug in box2d causes the jetman to “trip” on tile edges, even though they are supposed to be flush. This one is really obnoxious.
Intro & story – I’ve never seriously considered adding a story to Jetpack, but in the last few weeks I’ve been working on a great story idea (with some help from Adam Dobay) that really adds a lot to the game. And the ending(s) are really going to rock.
THIRD PARTY API’s – ** Do you have any favorites, like Kongregate’s achievements, Mindjolt’s or Mochi’s high scores, or something on Facebook?
Also please note this level may appear a little too “busy” because it incorporates test elements for every tile. Please let me know if you have any problems, criticisms, or suggestions!
Updated April 3rd – Release 2
I’ve applied the following changes to the demo:
changed around the keys – see new instructions above
experimenting with realistic leaning for horizontal flight, better hover, and super-lean when hovering
down+jump while on a ladder releases the ladder
you can now move while phasing
removed the delay between phasing-complete and intangibility
teleporter now freezes you (and breaks box2d occasionally)
pushable blocks are now pushable on the moving floor, and via jetpack
better balanced the sound volumes
made it possible to stand still on the circle block – this required hacking box2d, as no amount of friction or damping completely stops motion!
found a way to clear up the jitter from the physics engine
Tweaks:
gems at the bottom have a stand
darkened gem stands
key down states cleared after pause
reduced the amount of smoke
sped up animations
thickened up the ladders, and changed to 4 rungs – 30 is not divisible by 4, so it was tricky to make it look good (3 was odd looking)
current teleporter flashes on contact
darkened the spike-like look of the teleporter stand
sludge is slower
fixed the slow motion bug TimK found
Release 2
Release 1
Move with ARROWS or W / A / S / D, Fly / Jump with SHIFT, Jump with SPACE
Use switches & teleporters with CTRL, phase with CTRL, while pressing ARROWS
What’s Next
There’s a playable preview in our future! I hope to progress enough to release a demo with some fully playable levels soon. The main obstacles to tackle for that are: perfecting enemies, sound effects, and level intro/wrapup.
The contest was a great success, it was a lot of fun getting the fans involved and I think we got some great graphics, music, and levels out of it. I wish we had more of a budget for this project – hopefully for Jetpack 2 we can have a new contest with more and bigger prizes to better recognize the contribution of fans.
I’d like to mention a few people that made excellent contributions to Jetpack:
Saga Musix submitted some fantastic music, in addition to a zillion sound effects and several levels. Eric F. submitted a ton of graphics, and some great levels. Tim K. submitted several excellent graphics Coda submitted some excellent music Brien B. submitted several great tiles Adam D. had a huge number of great levels, a lot of good ideas, and is helping to develop a storyline Joseph S. submitted a great full replacement tileset. Although not quite the style I was looking for, I was able to bring over several of the concepts. Jonas R, Alex W, Dan Kalne, Brien B, and Juan G submitted a great variety of excellent levels.
And the Winners Are…
$50 1st Prize:Saga Musix and Eric F. $25 2nd Prize:Tim K., Coda, Brien B., and Adam D. Honorable Mention: The following users had great contributions, and will receive a free copy of Jetpack: Collector’s Edition: Joseph S., Jonas R., Alex W., Dan K., Joe S., David M., Tuomas T., Joe C., Joseph C., Ben T., Wolfgang S., Steven M. Jonathon P., Axem, Ben S., David C., Doug H., Matt S., Rondo B., Ben J., Felipe A., and Robert R.
I’ll put these names in the game credits (with full last names instead of initials). If you want a different name used in the credits, please contact me.
We had many great submissions, so choosing the best contributors has been no easy task. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone who participated!
A few more things…
Although the contest is over, we can still use some graphics, sounds, and music. As always, a free copy of Jetpack Collector’s Edition goes to anyone whose work is used in the game. Send any submissions to the business email here. Here’s what we still need:
Music
Some more songs to add variety to the game.
Sound Effects
If you happen to have a recording studio, we need more sounds that fit Jetpack!
Theme Tiles
outdoors
factory
space station
alien planet
jungle
devilish – bones, brimstone
A computer control panel
Alternate exit doors
Enemies – graphics that will replace other enemies while retaining the same behavior. I’d like to have at least one alternate enemy graphic per theme.
Release Status
Since I’ve expanded the scope of the retrofit we’re now looking at a release in early May. I plan to release a beta with an editor mid-April, so we’ll have about 3 weeks to update all the levels for the new game system. I’m hoping to release a semi-playable alpha in the coming week.
This week’s entries
March 13th
Some devilish tiles from Eric F.
March 14th
A perfect intro song by Saga Musix:
Saga: Entrance to the Cave
A wooden column from Brien B.
A space ball from Steven M.
Suspenseful, somewhat quiet music for the first part of the intro (30-60 seconds), which will be followed by Saga Musix’ “Step Into the Cave”
Enemies
Spinning spikes, homer, bat
Theme Tiles
outdoors
factory
space station
alien planet
jungle
devilish – bones, brimstone
A computer control panel
Alternate exit doors
Invincibility suit
conveyor belt to replace the moving platform in the factory theme
Theme Enemies
Graphics that will replace other enemies while retaining the same behavior – for themed levels. I’d like to have at least one alternate enemy graphic per theme.
And last but certainly not least…
A jetman! I’m resigned to paying for this, so if you know any good character artists have them contact me.
Working hard this week and I got a few more great submissions. I’ve done some tweaking to the tileset and there’s finally a game preview below!
Note: I’ve extended the contest to March 20th to give people more time to submit themes.
Game Preview
A level with the new tileset
New v2 – Demonstrating the faux-3D effect, tile enhancements, background, and various tiles in action
Themes
It recently occurred to me that I could swap out a few tiles and give the game a totally different look without much more work. I generate the curved & stone-wrapped tiles in code, so with only 5 tile swaps most levels can be completely rethemed:
A rough example of a castle/outdoor theme
It gives a level a whole new feel, doesn’t it?
If you want to make a theme, just redo the following 5 tiles: background tile, ladder, brick, hard brick, stone
And optionally these 5 tiles: steel panel, gold panel, column, vines, & fence
A few things will stay the same: gems, treasure, switches, barriers, and items.
There’s a 90×90 repeating background that will apply to the whole level. Other backgrounds are the standard 30×30 tile size and can be placed behind any other tile.
The theme could be anything: candyland, nature, castle, etc. In the editor I’ll have an option to preview different themes. This won’t be like jswitch, the theme will stay with the level. Then in the game we can group levels into missions by theme.
This week the contest is slowing down, but we’ve still gotten some great graphics, songs, and sounds. We’re also starting to get some good beginner levels, keep them coming! I posted a new level 1 & 2 that I made, which are good examples.
Level Changes
I’m considering breaking the levels into groups of 10-20 (a “mission” or “zone”), and giving those groups a common theme. This may mean restyling all the levels in a certain theme like jungle or city. This is a quick change that involves automatically replacing 10 or so tiles with new custom “theme” tiles. My first goal is getting this previewable to see how well it works, and so people can contribute to the themes.
I’m going to do away with the concept of “lives”, you will have infinite lives and the extra life statues will turn into achievements. One achievement will be getting the statue for each level, another will be getting all the treasure in each level. For the new achievements system most levels will need a few changes:
Each level should have exactly ONE gold statue, which should be hard to get relative to the level difficulty
Each level should have some treasure which is trickier to get than the gems
All treasure in a level must be gettable – no more decorative treasure that can’t be reached
Don’t send in these changes yet, because there will probably be others coming up.
I’m keeping around 50 levels from the original Jetpack. These levels are the ones I put in the “maybe” category. Let me know if there are any in this group that you think should definitely make it to the final game.
Music Splashes
I think we could use some short 3-5 second music splashes for game events: a few for winning a level, possibly a few for dying, and 1 for during the level preview – a quiet song, little melody (maybe just percussion), so it doesn’t clash with the level music that will follow it. These types of things are pretty cheap to get online, but if anyone wants to try their hand at it, these are small enough to just be mp3.
Chosen Graphics
Here my working copy of the graphics I’ve chosen so far. All these are subject to change and tweaking!
Here’s a nice door concept by Juan G.
And some characters from Eric F.
And some levels: juang_2.zip – perfect beginner levels! ericf_4.zip
Feb 22nd
A jetman from Silas C.:
And another from Juan D.:
While these are cool, I’m looking for a different design for the new jetman. Either something metallic or something like this.
A new level 1 & 2 by me. We could use some more beginner levels after these. Try to make the learning quick & intuitive, and just a small part of the overall level: me_1.zip
Feb 25th
A work-in-progress song by Saga Musix:
Saga: Robot Hunt
A jetman from Joe C.:
New levels: axem_2.zip josephc_1.zip levels from the original jetpack alpha!
BTW the level “Wizard” was inspired by the game “Wizard” on the C64 – I highly recommend it. josephc_2.zip some tutorial ideas saga_5.zip great easy level!
It’s slow work reviewing good quality levels, and there are a lot of great ones in here so reviewing them took many hours!
I reviewed 241 levels and put 69 in the final round. These include:
adamd – Good variety and great visuals (with the limited tile palette). Favorite: d-m-ship
alexw – Some great variety and ideas in these. Favorite: artee001
benj – Magnificently tricky riddle
bens – Some fun ideas here. Favorite: beehive
bent – There are some great levels here. I like the way you use enemies to reveal secrets, like the insubstantial tiles.
brienb – These are some sadistic levels! Favorite: lotto/ohoh
ericf – Some good hard levels and clever game mechanics. Favorite: E1
jasonw – A deceptively tricky level.
joec – Some wicked hard levels, but a couple good easy ones too. Favorite: Shrine
joes – These have great playability, and a perfect progression from easy to difficult. Favorite: ventuz05
jonasr – Some really cool ideas here. Favorite: wer12
juang – These have a few cool new ideas, and are a lot of fun. Favorite: bcmissil
nickr – Good level. Could be interesting to offer an extra life for an extra trip across.
saga – Great intricate designs, but most are way too hard. Favorite: where
sebm – All crazy hard, at least for me. Favorite: switches
sn – Some very hard levels. Favorite: easy7
Learning Curve Needed
We badly need easy levels, and easy means super easy. The casual game crowd needs a very gentle introduction. I tried to do this somewhat in the original first 5 levels but it wasn’t nearly enough. My wife can’t even beat my original level 0 – it failed to be a good introduction to the game, except to experienced gamers. People were just looking around and learning about jumping when the trackbot killed them. Then they were getting fuel and learning how to fly when the trackbot killed them. As soon as they learned how to fly to avoid the trackbot, the spikes killed them. We need a much more gradual learning curve, and we need to make the harder parts of a level optional (eg, containing treasure only). Don’t assume the person playing these levels has EVER played an action game.
If you think an easy level can’t be challenging, think about how you would teach all these things in one level:
understanding the game goal
becoming comfortable with basic movement
sensing danger
jumping small gaps, then large gaps
flying, then flying with control, then flying level
learning to conserve fuel, and to monitor your fuel level
learning to read clues that there may be traps, and thinking before acting when there are traps
learning that missiles move in a predictable pattern
learning how smart the trackbot is
learning each special tile function
using teleporters, then being aware of and predicting enemy teleportation, then using invincibility while teleporting
learning what switches do, then how to use them, and enemy-triggered switches
learning that phasing is possible, then where and how to phase
learning to move quickly through purple doors, then through multiple doors
learning not to destroy crates you may need
phasing up, then phasing while jumping, then phasing while flying up, then phasing while flying level
learning how to use enemies to your advantage
These should be taught over 10-20 levels, with lots of fun stuff mixed in. I don’t like tutorials. The best way to teach these things it to show them in actual use, without the player being in danger.
Some examples:
* learning to move quickly through purple doors
On the first encounter with a purple door, put it on ice. The player will slide through before they know what happened.
* learning not to destroy crates you may need
Put gold above crates initially, not essential items like gems or switches.
Game Changes
Playing through all these levels has led me to some conclusions about changes that will affect gameplay. I can’t adjust difficulty by changing the monsters’ speed relative to the player because it screws up a lot of game mechanics. Maybe I’ll just leave in the game speed adjustment via +/-. How do you beat hard levels, do you find the slowdown useful?
Some of these may require tweaking your levels in the beta (don’t bother changing anything yet):
faint outline where barriers will be
smaller collision area for spikes & spear
no getting stuck on corners when jumping
jump or step close to a spear will set it off, then you can move past slowly
make phasing while jumping easier – only phase when at the middle of a tile
show a faint outline when jetman is behind bricks
flitzer light shows future movement
maybe a button which reveals hidden paths
placeable invincibility cloak
There will be automatic visual enhancements to levels, including:
replace repeating columns with a solid column
replace stacked ice stone with icy stone wall
automatic edge finding + enhancement
sag physical floor of sludge pool
And I want to add these options when saving a level:
frequency of bonus items
longer description
music selection
par completion time
This week’s entries
Feb 12th
A full tileset replacement from Joseph S.:
Love that extra life! Anyone want to make a character out of that shape?
Feb 13th
We have some sound effects! These are by Saga Musix:
We are getting some very cool contributions via the contest, thanks to everyone who is participating! If you have content to submit, refer to the rules on the contest page, and send your work to the business email here. If you don’t want your entries to be shown in the blog, or if you want to use an alias, just let me know in your email. The odds of picking up some cash are still good, and as always, if even a single sprite you submit is used, you’ll get a free copy of Jetpack.
Music
Our first week has seen some awesome music. My favorite is from Saga Musix
I always thought trance or an ambient techno would be a good fit for Jetpack. We need music that doesn’t overpower the gameplay, for 3 different level types/moods: light adventure, mysterious puzzle, and challenging action. I’ll let the level authors choose which song should go with their level after the levels & music are chosen.
Music should be about 4 minutes long to avoid restarting during a typical level. If you have a short song, you can just add some looping to your patterns to stretch it out. I need .MOD format music with a max of 10 channels for performance reasons. I’m using Flod for mod playback, it supports 3 or 5 octaves and the following effects:
I’ve also gotten some great graphic entries. Eric F. has made some great contributions, including an interesting take on the bat.
For the graphics, leave the backgrounds transparent, and feel free to send in a larger size, or add frames if you think they are needed – I will do any necessary conversions. I’m also open to any new ideas you might have.
Because animating takes a lot of work, I’ve decided to choose certain characters in the next couple weeks. Once a character is chosen, no further designs will be accepted, so the creator can finish the animation without worrying about his/her time being wasted. This is especially important for the main Jetman, since he has several frames.
Levels
There have been tons of levels submitted that I haven’t had time to review yet. From what I’ve seen, I think we have a lot of hard levels, and could probably use some more on the clever puzzle side, and some on the easy side. We want to appeal mainly to casual gamers – for hardcore gamers there will be a difficulty level that speeds up the enemies. It occurred to me that it may help to know my favorites, so here they are:
70: Work Those Leg Muscles – my all time favorite, varied tests of skill
40: The Gauntlet – like an obstacle course, a feeling that you’re being tested
30: Mission Possible – a feeling of a mission in an exotic location
04: The Complex – a feeling of escaping, or intruding into a fortification
12: Fuel Shortage – not sure why I like this one, maybe just the simplicity
50: Montezuma’s Revenge – has a jungle feeling
90: The Volcano – original use of devices, you have to find a way to penetrate the structure
Analyzing these selections, they have a few things in common: There’s a feeling of adventure within the level, each level has distinct sections, you can easily form your own story behind the level, and you have a feeling of outsmarting & conquering something big at the end. They are all tricky without being too frustrating – I’d say a couple of these are close to the limit of how hard a level should be in a casual game.
More Features
Time is tight on this project, and I haven’t planned any gameplay enhancements, but it would be nice to have a couple of new things. There may or may not make it into the final release, but here are a few I’m considering:
multi-tile scenic objects on the background wall – brickwork, shackles, tapestries, windows, etc
a new enemy
a new gameplay/puzzle element
some physics effects
All the public entries this week are below.
Feb 5th
Here’s our first submission, some sweet tunes from coda:
Some simple graphics from Eric F.:
More levels by Eric F.: ericf_2.zip
A cool teleporter concept from Eric F.:
Feb 10th
Lots of contributions today!
Another level by Saga Musix: saga_3.zip
A pack of levels by Sebastian M.: sebm_1.zip
A pack of levels by Joe S.: joes_1.zip
A tight robot by Eric F.:
Some new bat graphics by Henry F.:
I’ve set a goal to release the new web playable Jetpack in May. To get all the programming done in the next month will take a lot of work, not to mention the graphics, music, sounds, and extra levels. If you’ve been following this blog, you know this is an indie release with a shoestring budget, and I can’t afford to hire an artist. So instead, I’ve decided to blow it all on a contest! This will give everyone in the Jetpack fan community a chance to contribute to the new Jetpack, and will help to reward some of the great work that’s being donated.
Calling All Artists, Musicians, SFX Wizards, and Level Designers
I already have a few volunteer Jetpack fans doing some great work, but we need a lot more. You can contribute any of the following resources for the final release:
Graphics: Use this template and replace the old blocky graphics with new ones that are closer to the style of modern flash games. Just leave the backgrounds transparent.
Sound Effects: Record your own replacements for the sound effects here. There’s no remastering these, since my masters are 8 bit 8000hz mono VOC. I need 256bit 44khz stereo mp3. Feel no obligation to stay close to the originals!
Music: I need MOD format music, 50k-150k per song, in styles to suit different types of levels. You must be the copyright holder. I recommend MilkyTracker or ModPlug Tracker. Note the exact format we can support is still up in the air.
Levels: I’d like to put a lot of new levels in the release. Send me your creations that you consider to be the cream of the crop. Currently the only way to create levels is with the DOS version of Jetpack
New creations are great, and if you have any past work to which you still hold the copyright, that will work too. I’ll use the best parts out of what I receive, as long as it meets my quality standards.
A total of $200 will go to the 6 people who create the most content chosen for use in Jetpack.
The top 2 will receive $50.00
4 runners-up will receive $25.00
In addition EVERYONE who submits work used in Jetpack will receive:
A FREE premium/deluxe/platinum edition of Jetpack
Your name in the credits of the game
Get Started!
The contest ends on March 20th. Send in your creations as often as you like, the sooner the better. With your permission, I’ll place your entries in a members-only section of the blog for members to vote & comment on.
* The “Content” refers to any submitted work, data, or content, or any number of parts of such Content.
* You must be the copyright holder of the submitted Content, with the ability to transfer copyright ownership of the Content.
* By sending Content to Adept Software, you grant Adept Software the unlimited royalty-free license to use, modify, publish, and sell the Content as part of a game.
* While votes may be encouraged from users, Adept Software will be the sole judge of the winners of the contest.
* Winners are solely responsible for all taxes and/or fees that may be incurred.
* Adept Software reserves the right to alter the rules of this contest at any time.
BY SUBMITTING AN ENTRY, YOU WARRANT AND REPRESENT THAT IT: (A) IS YOUR OWN ORIGINAL WORK, (B) DOES NOT CONTAIN, INCORPORATE OR REFERENCE ANYTHING THAT IS OWNED BY ANY THIRD PARTY OR ENTITY OR WOULD REQUIRE THE CONSENT OF ANY THIRD PARTY OR ENTITY IN ANY JURISDICTION, (C) DOES NOT INFRINGE UPON THE COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS, RIGHTS OF PRIVACY, PUBLICITY OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OR OTHER RIGHTS OF ANY PERSON OR ENTITY, AND (D) THAT PUBLICATION OF THE WORK WILL NOT INFRINGE ON THE RIGHTS OF ANY THIRD PARTY. ANY SUCH ENTRANT WILL INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS, SPONSOR FROM ANY CLAIMS TO THE CONTRARY. Contest void where prohibited or restricted by law and subject to all applicable federal, state, local and municipal laws and regulations.
