Day 18 of 365: Red (Jumpman Forever)

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In the process of designing Jumpman Forever, I came up with the idea of a second character – Red – was was originally designed for a different game that would have acted as a sort of prequel to Jumpman Forever.  I’ll save you the whole story of how she came to be – I’ve told it a couple of times now 🙂

One of the things I thought was cool was how well she was received when I explained she wasn’t a character for Jumpman to save – the standard for having a female character in a game back in the 80’s, that often still persists to this day.  She was completely independent, and had slightly different abilities than Jumpman, and unless I put multi-player levels in the game (which is probably going to happen about a year from now) they’ll never even cross paths.  And yes, there is a feminist sort of point to it – she’s a strong character, she doesn’t have to be saved, and she’s capable of surviving on her own (well, surviving based on the players skill anyway.)

But, my first focus was on the game’s title character, Jumpman.  Well, I’m almost done with all of his levels now, so I created the first level for Red.  Though, it’s a bit of cheating – Her starting level is the same as Jumpman’s starting level, with a slightly modified layout.  It’s good in the fact that the player will already be familiar with the general game mechanics, and the modifications specifically require the use of her double-jump ability.  Of course, players are going to trip up the first time they play her – she can’t defuse bombs.  She can, however, set them off quite easily 🙂  By the time the player is done with the first level, there’s not much left of it 🙂

Levels after this get much harder to design.  With Red, sometimes she has to detonate all the bombs on screen, sometimes she just has to figure out how to trigger the escape door, and sometimes it’s just a matter of reaching the escape door.  The player ends up with some harder choices with Red than with Jumpman.

That whole thing where the game changes up completely just by changing two primary abilities makes me really, really happy 🙂  (It also means I get to perform lots more acts of evil level design ;-)[/text_output][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][line][custom_headline type=”center” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h2″ accent=”true”]Today’s Stats[/custom_headline][text_output]

• Workouts: 0
• Cigarettes Smoked: 12
• Healthy Eating:  Good breakfast, Tanya’s Soup Kitchen for lunch (not sure if that’s good or not), and The Artichoke for supper (I think I’ll count that as good)

Projects Worked on:

• Volunteer work at The Center of Wichita
• Jumpman Forever (after the sun went down and Shabbat was over)

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