I’m not dead, honest

Posted by oddbob on February 25, 2007 · Lovingly Filed Under Personal 
Print this Article | Help us keep RR online

We're raising money for SpecialEffect. Please donate if you can.


Well, I don’t think I am anyway - at least, I’m still breathing… just. Yup, the reason its been quiet around these ‘ere parts of late is that I’m terminally knackered of late due to obligations about the house (god, that sounds like I’m getting a shag constantly but sadly, its not the case), the knock on effect has been that by the time baby’s in bed and I’ve got some time to myself, I’m too fucked to actually do anything useful or constructive.

I’ve been slowly chipping away on G-Force, and the second to last build I put together is downloadable from The Great Games Experiment (just click the badgy thing on the side if you’re a member) if anyones curious. I’ve done a bit more work on it since then, but really, not enough to justify any momentous celebrations. I have however, fired the latest over to a chap called Heavy Stylus to include on his new retro based CD magazine thingymajiggery. Ideally, I just need a couple of nights rest and relaxation, some decent sleep and I’ll be able to finish all that off. Things have been easing off a tad this past week and I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’ll be back to as close to normal as my life gets soon enough.

What little dev time I have had, I’ve spent mainly on banging together the final map stuff for Jet Set Willy Online, which when the next release hits the internets we’re calling it a day for now, barring any emergency bug fixes. The last couple of maps got finished a few days ago, from both myself and Scottige and with the able assistance of Wonka/Yeryry, today has been spent running through them, patching up the holes, sorting the spelling mistakes and gathering a list of final bugs to be nailed for Stu. Once we’ve got this little lot done and dusted (and I’ve done pretty much all I can on my end of things now dev wise) then thats it, thats yer lot.

Its been a fucking fantastic ride putting the thing together, watching Stu make the madness real - mucking in with Smila and Scott to build not only the original JSW/JSW2 worlds, then fucking them up a bit to make the multiplayer more interesting but adding in the new maps and modes as well… and of course, best of all - having people genuinely love playing the bloody thing. Which is what we all do this for, really.

There’s 6 new map sets with the final build, 2 from myself, 3 from Smila and 1 from Scott and I’ve had an ace time testing them…

Manic Miner

Yes, for some reason known only to Smila - he’s managed to wodge together a variation on the Manic Miner caverns running under JSW:O, some of the nasties have obviously metamorphasised into the JSW ones and its not an exact copy, but there’s enough similarity to give you both the nostalgia kick and a fresh new challenge into the bargain. We’re not completely cruel though so we’ve given all the players infinite lives to play with. First to pass the final cavern wins.

Tower Assault

Another of Smila’s maps, Tower Assault see’s two teams start on either side of a tower, a wall seperating them from each other. Leg it to the top of the tower, up all 10 floors as fast as you possibly can - first person to collect the object at the top wins.

Assault Course

Probably the most evil addition in the next version, and one I’m entirely responsible for and feel a serious need to apologise for also. We had a couple of players complain that the additions and amendments we’d made for the multiplayer game were taking some of the challenge away…what else was I supposed to do but make a complete and total cunt of a map? Its only short running in at around 16 screens but it’ll test your JSW skills to the limit.

Jail Break

…or, you know when you watch too much television. Scotts escapist fantasy map, and the first of the three “themed” maps we’ve got in the next build. Starting in your cell, make a break for it through the escape tunnel, out through the abandoned factory, through the shrubbery and woodlands to the awaiting helicopter to make your escape. Obviously, there isn’t really a helicopter there so you’ll just have to pretend that the rope on the last screen leads to a helicopter, ok?

Pitfall

Smila’s homage to Pitfall Harry via Jet Set Willy Online. Lots of perilous rope jumps, the choice of going above or below ground. Seemingly straightforward, but with some real bitches of jumps in there to make life difficult. Get to the Mayan Temple to complete the map.

The Laboratory

The map that very nearly never made the cut. Its a bit of an egowank map all told, the concept being that you’re in the castle where the nasties that invaded Willies mansion are created and have to escape to the temple for respite and safety. What I wanted to achieve with The Lab was a map that used the JSWO tileset to create the best looking rooms I could with it - and I’ll freely confess that there was a point where I thought “oh bollocks, this is getting out of hand” and a proportion of the rooms looked great, but played like shite. So, I opted to shelve it and come back to it at a later date. Fortunately, Scott took his time getting Jailbreak together so rather than idle the time away I hammered the last couple of rooms together from scratch and happily, it turned out alright in the end.

The nice thing about map creation, aside from getting to test how fiendish yet still playable you can make a room - is that its something you can do with the brain switched off - pretty perfect fodder for when your brain can’t even cope with opening your dev package of choice. So, its helped me not get too stressed about having little time to do owt else. I may not have been doing much, but at least I’ve been doing something.

I also managed to get a few of the sprites for Beast Invaders 3 together, as well as a little example of the look which I’ve fired over to Markie. So, baby steps on stuff all told since the last post I made here but things are coming on all the same.

So there we go, normal service will resume on blogging this week because I’ve got a shitload of things I’m quite excited about and want to get out of my system before I pop or beat myself up for not mentioning them (nothing I’m doing, well except the Beast Invaders concept stuff, but thats pretty dull) so I’m off to get some kip ready for the obligatory early rise later…

Tags:

Speak your brains

4 Responses to “I’m not dead, honest”

  1. Scottige on February 25th, 2007 4:56 pm

    Have yersell a nicve earned brew mate :D
    JSW has been a long ( but worthwile ) Journey.
    I think witchcraft must be involved because something shouldn’t be THAT much fun to do !!

  2. gnome on February 26th, 2007 11:17 pm

    Oh, stop being such a baby. Of course you’re dead.

  3. Richard Phipps on February 27th, 2007 2:35 pm

    Bring out your dead!!

  4. gnome on February 27th, 2007 9:52 pm

    ;)

Hello Reader! Perhaps you'd like to comment on this piece?.
As well as allowing you to type out your innermost and deepest thoughts about this piece, we've magiced up (well, installed a plugin) a fantastical ajax malarkey that lets you edit your post up to 15 minutes after you've posted it. Superb eh?