The contest is now over. See the winners here!

More excellent work this week, but entries are starting to slow down, so let me lay out our greatest needs:

• A jetman!
• Exit door
• More music
• New sound effect ideas

And here are some things which I have, but could use some better / more creative entries:

• Steel ball, homer, flitzer, any enemy improvements
• The blue/red/cyan barriers
• Invincible cloak, stunner
• Switches, spikes, gem in wall, column, foreground vines, steel, gold brick
• Easy / teaching levels

Levels

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:

3 bonus levels
7 easy
22 moderate
24 hard
13 extreme

Here are my brief notes for each designer:

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:

close.mp3

gem.mp3

gem2.mp3

open.mp3

select.mp3

teleport.mp3

teleport2.mp3

And several more levels. Ben J. has a great puzzle – maybe too hard!
benj_1.zip
bens_1.zip
joec_3.zip
alexw_1.zip

Feb 14th

Enjoy your VD everyone!
Today brings another sweet tune from Coda:

Coda: JetSkillz

Eric F. sends in a trophy graphic:

And here’s another batch of levels:
jasonw_1.zip
joec_4.zip
juang_1.zip

Feb 15th

Today Saga Musix offers more sounds:

death1.mp3

phaser.mp3

stuck.mp3

stuck2.mp3

teleport3.mp3

teleport4.mp3

weird_jewel.mp3

And we have some more great levels:
adamd_1.zip
joec_5.zip

Feb 16th

Here are the great graphics previously contributed by Tim K.:

And some creative new designs by Eric F.:

New level submissions:
brienb_1.zip
arthurm_2.zip

Feb 17th & 18th

Slow days…

The contest is now over. See the winners here!

The contest is now over. See the winners here!

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:

Sound Effects

There have been no sound effects entries yet!

Graphics

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:

Coda: Rad

Coda: Puzzling

Coda: Phenomenon

A level by Nick R.: nickr_1.zip

Feb 6th

A stomping track by Saga Musix:

Saga: song1

Some hard levels by Joe C.: joec_1.zip

Feb 7th

A bassy tune by Travis R.:

Travis R.: Bass

More hard levels by Saga Musix: saga_1.zip
Some more levels by Joe C.: joec_2.zip

Feb 8th

More levels by Saga Musix: saga_2.zip
Levels by Ben T.: bent_1.zip
Levels by Eric F.: ericf_1.zip

Feb 9th

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.:

Feb 11th

Another song by Travis R.:

Travis R.: Icy

New graphics from Eric F.:

A few new tiles from Jason W.:

And a bunch of levels! If you find any favorites when playing these, point them out to me and I’ll give them extra attention.
ericf_3.zip
arthurm_1.zip
jonasr_1.zip
sn_easy_1.zip
sn_hard_1.zip

The contest is now over. See the winners here!

The contest is now over. See the winners here!

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.

For more details on what’s needed, see the post Retrofit Contest – Week 1.

Prizes

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 contest is now over. See the winners here!

Rules

* 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.

(apologies to Hubert J. Farnsworth)

We’re shifting gears!

Instead of just releasing a small retro port as a milestone on the way to Jetpack 2, I suddenly realized with so much work done, taking a bit more work I could make a full game release out of it. Announcing the March 2010 release of a brand new & enhanced, web playable Jetpack!

From the press release:

Jetpack is a classic game from the MSDOS era (1993). Jetpack was the #1 top seller for its publisher out of 70 titles, and since its re-release as freeware in 1995 it has been downloaded over 1 million times from AdeptSoftware.com. Many people have fond memories of the family-friendly brand. The old DOS version of Jetpack continues to receive 2000+ downloads per month from our site, despite requiring DOSBox to run in new versions of Windows. The re-release of Jetpack to the web platform will add high res graphics, new levels, remastered sounds, realistic physics, and a pixelated “retro mode”, as well as a level editor integrated into the level repository at JetpackHQ.com.

Adept Software was founded in 1997 and incorporated in 2004. Past projects range from development applications (PLC, Nautilus) to dating & social networking services (CyberSoulmate, NetRelate, ConnectMate). Our current focus is on web playable video games, specifically reviving classic retro games.

 
 
The title of this game will just be “Jetpack”, like the original. As for Jetpack 2, the plan is for a release near the end of this year.   I’m pulling the retro mode out of Jetpack 2 – it will only exist in Jetpack 1.  The gameplay of Jetpack 2 will be significantly different, so you’ll want to play them both.
 
 
It’s great to be working toward a goal that’s so close! We’ll be staying true to the original gameplay, but with your help there will be several enhancements:

• New high res graphics & sound effects
• Music!
• New levels!
• Difficulty levels. Finally my mom will be able to play.
• Improvements to controls and physics
• Shiny new info panels & end level stats
• The author & background story for each original level, including the official hintbook text
• Web playable, embeddable, and downloadable versions
• Retro mode with the original, old school graphics and sounds

I say “with your help”, because I’m going to need help creating new graphics, music, sounds, and levels. More on that coming soon.

Adam

In the good old days of Jetpack 1, things were much simpler. Input from the keyboard or joystick was translated directly into action.

It was along the lines of:

• if(key[right arrow]) speedx += 10;
• sprite.posx += speedx;

Sometimes I miss the old days… The new path from input to action now looks like:

• set up key bindings from default or configuration data
• for each human player, translate input into commands based on bindings table; “right arrow” becomes “move right”
• send commands to each player’s controlled entity
• each entity processes commands through its state machine(s); if we’re on the ground, “move right” becomes “run right”
• active states run actions – in this case, the “run right” state applies horizontal force to the entity’s physical body
• the graphical representation of the physical body is updated

The new process is certainly more powerful, but requires somewhere around 1000x more effort to write. Below lies the implementation of the above process, the control tech demo. You can use the arrows to control all the various entities, and [square backets] or the mouse to switch entities. Your entity’s active state machines are displayed in the debug line at the bottom.

One of the nice things about this newfangled control system is that it meshes very well with the AI, which only needs to supply a command list to an entity, and not worry about the implementation details. You can see this in action when you launch a guided missile – it will follow the mouse cursor using a generic AI “chase” algorithm. This release also incorporates various other enhancements, including the launcher from a previous post.

Jetpack 2 Engine Status

I meant to have this demo out a month ago, but I opened up the Pandora’s Box of AS3 code optimization and fell in. This had to be done at some point, so I’m glad its mostly out of the way. On the plus side, I found several optimizations that doubled the frame rate of the game engine – there will be a big post on this later. The engine is pretty close to basic playability now, and I’ll be releasing a special retro version of Jetpack in March.

Personal Stuff

My gallbladder surgery was successful, but I’m only feeling about 25% better. I think it was worth it, but it looks like that wasn’t the cure-all I was hoping for. Thanks to all the well-wishers!

Very shortly I’ll be releasing the next tech demo, on controlling entities with state machines. Before I wrap that up, here’s an update on the progress since the last demo:

What’s Done

• faux-3D depth: What a headache. I spent days banging my head against different methods of faux-3D depth sorting in 2D, until I finally realized the problem: it’s impossible. Depth in 3D is not sequential, and approximating it cannot be done perfectly using a back-to-front rendering system without some big hacks. So I adjusted the tiles to be slightly less 3D, and I think it’s just as good with no sacrifice in speed.
• control: input bindings, command queues, state machines, actions
• animated effects: “tween” style
• created entities: ball, spring, missile, retro jetman

What’s To Come

I had hoped to get pre-alpha relase 1 done by December 31st, but my work needs me for extra time this month. When its done, this first official release should be a roughly playable “retro-mode” of a few levels, using the original graphics. I also have gall bladder surgery scheduled in early January. Hopefully that will cure or at least help with my chronic fatigue.

Remaining tasks for the pre-alpha:

• basic sound effects
• basic menus
• retro tile behavior: ladders, gems, treasure, teleporters, conveyor belts
• retro creature behavior: jetman, ball, spring, missile, homer, bat, trackbot, flitzer, spikes

Since this blog could potentially have many SWF examples on a single page, I have to consider effect of having them load and run all at once, both on the browser and on my bandwidth.  Users will not always want to see every SWF, so ideally a “click to start” intro would precede the loading of each example.

I tried this with just an image: when it was clicked, it would hide itself and embed the SWF where the image had been. Unfortunately, the SWF was not focused and would have to be clicked again, and Firefox has a flaw that does not always allow javascript to focus a SWF . Therefore the nice and simple image idea had to give way to a whole separate SWF as a launcher for the examples. The launcher is always running, but it’s small and the frame rate is low and it doesn’t do too much. Once the launcher is clicked it loads the example SWF and bumps up the frame rate to the proper level.  Of course, since this is Actionscript, what takes a sentence to write took 2 days to implement.

This is a form of preloader, and I’ve gotten confused a few times when thinking about this, so I’ll document it here.  It also helped me to refer back to my post on preloaders.

preloader via separate swf

• displays “click to start” and waits – this can be bypassed via an argument to the swf
• loads the main swf while updating progress
• sets the new framerate, activates the main swf, and goes away

preloader embedded in main swf

• the preloader is on frame 1 of the timeline, and begins to execute while the rest of the timeline loads
• large assets are embedded in later frames
• the preloader passes control to the main program once the swf fully loads

For Jetpack, I’m going to attempt a combination of the 2 methods, so the user experience will be as follows:

• The game window will instantly show loading progress (preloader swf)
• The preloader will fade away, revealing a Jetpack level in demo playback (main swf preloader)
• While the demo game runs, a status bar will show progress as the rest of the assets (mp3 music) load
  (At this point, an in-game ad could be shown, but the income from those is not impressive and I’d rather not clutter up the game.)
• When loading is complete, the main menu will fade into view

There are some other advantages to using a launcher swf that I can think of:

• When users embed the launcher swf on their own websites, it will always load the latest version of Jetpack from JetpackHQ.
• I’ll have full stats on who is playing and where.
• Security against game reskinning is improved, by having the launcher and the main swf validate eachother.

Getting the launcher just right took some struggling with Actionscript, but the result works great.  It’s only 2k, and can serve just about any swf file (on the same server).  I was able to find a way to read the target framerate from the loaded swf and set that before launching it.  You can also read the width & height, but I know no way of resizing the SWF at runtime without using javascript.  I’ve attached the source code to this project at the bottom of this post.  Here’s a sample:

function Startup()
{
    // ARGS - launch='', now=0/1
    var args = stage.loaderInfo.parameters;
    if(args.launch!=undefined) launch_swf_path = args.launch;
    if(args.now!=undefined) wait_for_click = !int(args.now);
    if(!launch_swf_path) Fail("usage: launcher.swf?launch=abc.swf&now=0");

    if(wait_for_click)
    {
        Show_WaitForClick();
        stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, StartLaunch);
    }
    else StartLaunch();
}

//--------------------------------------

function Shutdown()
{
    root.Shutdown();
    root = null;
    System.gc();
}

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

function StartLaunch(event:MouseEvent=null)
{
    if(wait_for_click)
    {
        stage.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, StartLaunch);
        Hide_WaitForClick();
    }
    Show_Preloader();
    loader = new Loader();
    loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, CheckReady_Hack);
    stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, CheckReady_Hack);
    loader.load(new URLRequest(launch_swf_path));
}

//--------------------------------------

function CheckReady_Hack(event:Event)
{
    // in certain cases when not waiting for click, complete/init fires but loaderInfo.frameRate
    // is not accessible.  misinformation from the official ActionScript docs: "When the loaderInfo
    // object dispatches the init event, you can access all properties of the loaderInfo object"
    if(event.type==Event.COMPLETE)
    {
        ready_hack = true;
        loader.contentLoaderInfo.removeEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, CheckReady_Hack);
    }
    if(event.type==Event.ENTER_FRAME)
    {
        if(!ready_hack) return;
        stage.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, CheckReady_Hack);
        Launch();
    }
}

//--------------------------------------

function Launch()
{
    Hide_Preloader();

    var swf:DisplayObject = loader.content;
    // frameRate, width, height are only available before unload()
    stage.frameRate = swf.loaderInfo.frameRate;
    loader.unload();
    loader = null;

    // clear the stage
    while(stage.numChildren) stage.removeChildAt(0);
    // launch the loaded swf
    stage.addChild(swf);
    Shutdown();
}

Download launcher-2009-11-17.zip

Something happened shortly after the release of Jetpack in 1993 that changed my life, and not in a good way.  A combination of high stress and I’m guessing food poisoning or a stomach virus, gave me severe stomach pains and ulcers.  I didn’t have health insurance so I did not go to a doctor.  I took massive amounts of Maalox and Rolaids for a month until the pain settled from acute to chronic.  I eventually paid to see a doctor but I couldn’t afford any expensive tests so not much came of it.  Eventually the pain went away during the day – it only happens when I’m lying down now, usually around 3am.

Back in 1992 I would sleep 10 hours (generally from 2am to noon) and code 12+ hours every day.  I created Jetpack in 4 months.  I wrote Squarez Deluxe in 1 month.  Now, and for the last 15 years, I have been getting 4-5 hours sleep per day and suffering constantly from chronic fatigue.  My short term memory and concentration are shot.  I’ll be excited about a project and fired up to work, but when I try to code my abilities slip away and I’ll forget everything that was in my head.  I usually end up zoning out on TV or playing video games.  It’s a constant struggle to get things done, except on the rare days, maybe 1 or 2 a month, when my brain decides to work.

A couple years after this started, I finally got a job with health insurance (in Seattle), and over a year I saw 5 different doctors.  They were all completely useless – one actually listened for 3 minutes then told me to take Metamucil for the rest of my life – he spent more time asking me computer questions than trying to diagnose my problem.

• I’ve had these tests: upper gi, small bowel series, endoscopy, colonoscopy, food sensitivity test, fat absorption test, ultrasound.  The only abnormality in my blood tests was elevated Gliadin IgG
• I’ve tried 10 different diets, including vegetarian, no lactose, no fat, no salt, & celiac for 3 months
• I’ve been to 10+ doctors, including gut and back specialists, chiropractors, massage, and acupuncture
• I’ve taken countless drugs and herbal remedies, acid reducers, antibiotics, glutamine, hyoscyamine, etc, etc, etc.  Once I took a bad combination of anti-yeast herbals, went a little loopy, and ended up in the hospital.

Now I’m in Boston and the doctors seem a little better here.  Recently, thanks mostly to the internet and in part to my doctors, I’ve found 2 things that help my pain about 50% – Sucralfate/Carafate (bonds with hydrochloric acid to form a paste that allows intestinal ulcers to heal) and Dicyclomine/Bentyl (smooth muscle antispasmodic, stops intestinal cramping).  Now I find it easier to sleep, but after 15 years of this I have a sleep habit of waking up after 4-5 hours.  My latest doctor has also found that my gallbladder has some serious issues – but most of my pain is on the sides, not near the gallbladder.  I may have it removed soon, and I hope that turns out to be the cause.

In conclusion, I want to make 2 points:

• This is why there is no Jetpack 2 yet
• Universal health care is a basic human right.  No one should be excluded because of preexisting conditions, or have their insurance canceled when they get sick.  A friend of mine recently had her coverage revoked after being diagnosed with cancer – the reason?  She hadn’t disclosed a high blood pressure test 5 years earlier.  The decision to deny care should not be made by people whose jobs depend on maximizing profit – it’s just that simple.

This is what I would like to do to the designers of Actionscript:

There are very few good large scale games written for Flash, and there’s a good reason why: Actionscript is chock full of undocumented problems that Adobe is either unaware of or unwilling to fix.  I feel bad for anyone who was introduced to programming with this language.  I wish I had documented all the roadblocks I’ve had to work around, but I’ve only got a small sample of the most heinous or recent ones that are causing headaches.  I don’t have any saved up for part 2 of this series, but I’m confident that won’t be a problem.

Mysterious Arrow & Numeric Key Issue

Recently, on one of my computers, arrow and number keys are firing key-up immediately after key-down, so you can’t tell if one of the keys is held down.  Many flash games never catch the key-down event at all, so most flash games are unplayable for me on this computer.  I have no idea why – I’ve tried several recent versions of the Flash player and both the debug/release versions, both in-browser and standalone.

Mysterious Faint Box

On another one of my computers, whenever an object is rotated a very faint solid rectangle appears behind it.

The Registration Point Problem

Most graphical objects in Actionscript have a registration point (or “center”) at the object’s center, meaning when you set an object’s position you are saying where the center of the object should be.  This also means that rotation occurs more or less as you would expect.  Bitmaps don’t work this way – the registration point is the top left of the object.  There is no way to move the registration point.  What you have to do – and all this is completely undocumented – is hack a solution by applying an offset via matrix transformation, and never again using the object’s x, y, or rotation properties.  There are many many people asking about this problem on the web, and only a few partial solutions are out there.  I wasted an entire day and pulled out a lot of hair figuring this out.

Alpha / ColorTransform is slow

If you change the opacity of your visuals, you’ll notice a significant drop in performance.  I was suprised by this, because I’m also importing graphics with an alpha channel, and those don’t have the slowdown.  I’m guessing that Flash’s drawing algorithm must be applying the alpha as a separate step before the blit, rather than doing it during the blit.  To get around this and other suboptimal behavior, I’ve written a system to automatically cache a graphic after all the effects are applied, and mark the cache dirty when an effect changes.  Also, when opacity is set to zero the processing continues unabated – you need to manually set the graphic’s visibility off when this happens.

More Reading

There used to be some other websites with more Actionscript issues, but they seem to be gone.  If you find any more, please share them.

Iconara’s Architectural Atrocities
Choice quote:

The ActionScript 3.0 API:s have a few interfaces, in general it’s a good thing, it shows that the Macromedia/Adobe developers actually understand something, which hasn’t been obvious in the past.
The decision to include interfaces in AS2 was probably a manager or marketing executive saying “hey, all the other languages have something called ‘interfaces’, why don’t we?”, and the developers quietly obeyed.

While I think shooting would add some interesting gameplay elements to Jetpack, I’m reluctant to add weapons for several reasons:

1. We have this cool, nonviolent vibe going on – at least, the violence only happens TO you.
2. It seems like over 95% of games have guns.  This bugs me – its been done to death.
3. Really creative, original, groundbreaking games like M.U.L.E., Lemmings, and Katamari Damacy don’t need shooting.  There are plenty of unique gameplay elements to explore if you think outside the box.

On the other hand, shooting is fun.  What do you think – no weapons, lots of weapons, or a few limited options like a freeze ray?

As for other carried items, how important is the Phase Shifter to gameplay?  Obviously it was originally inspired by Lode Runner, but is this aspect of gameplay still necessary to Jetpack?  Here are a few of the ideas I have for carried items.  You will probably be limited to only holding one item at a time.

• Keys – for opening doors
• Flashlight – for dark locations
• Proximity Locator – for finding hidden objects
• Bomb – for destroying bricks
• Shield – for temporary immunity

Can you think of any other fun usable items?

Other News

• I’ve unsubscribed everyone from all blog posts except releases.  If you want to subscribe to other/all posts, please do so manually from the dashboard.  The dashboard is available to all registered users – there are a couple other interesting features there for now.
• There’s a new “contact us” page if you need to write to me privately.
• If you’re on Facebook, join our Jetpack Facebook Group
• We have a new users page which shows the bio & web page of all our users.  It isn’t much, but you can find posts by certain users.  Your email is private – if you want other users to be able to contact you, add contact info to your biography in the dashboard page.  I recommended obscuring email addresses somehow to avoid spammers.
• I’d like to send thanks out to TIGSource for posting about Jetpack 2!  TIGSource is a cool site for independent gaming news.