Welcome back. Did you miss me? I hope not, since it shouldn’t be that long since last time. Anyways, if you haven’t yet read the first part of this rant, I suggest you go do it (unless you are already familiar with Jump ‘n Bump). Just click here and the magics of da Interwebz will… do it’s magic?
Moving on. Like I said last time, today we shall be having a look at my own plans for the remake. But since the original is already pretty excellent in it’s simplicity, that raises the question: What to change from an already great game? I say you give it deeper gameplay. Not more complex, but deeper. Since I’m ranting on and on and on about simplicity, it should be pretty obvious that I’ll be sticking to the nature of the original as much as I can and keep things simple.
Let’s start with the levels then, since that was probably the easiest aspect to come up with improvements to. In the original, the levels were always pretty simple: only five types of tiles and size was always fixed. I plan to change both aspects.
Layout for levels
Firstly, the level size. Sure, you could make smaller levels in Jump ‘n Bump by covering up the walls and ceiling with ground and so forth, but you couldn’t really make any special kind of levels, like more horizontal, vertical or just plain bigger ones. I intend to address that. Haven’t yet thought of whether I should make the size fully customizable or just provide several “set” sizes, but the bottom line is there should be more options for it. I guess I can’t make that decision before playtesting it. What I do know is that there will be a definite maximum size. If the levels are too big, it quickly eats away with the intensity of the game. You only have four players after all, so with too much free space the pace of the game slows down considerably.
Secondly, the tiles. All of the tiles from the original will be making a return, that’s for sure, but I have been thinking of new ones as well. To make the level more interesting, there should be some kind of “hazards” that affect the players. Not traps or anything that can kill you (well actually, haven’t thought that through yet), but something that will affect your movement, like the ice. Two additions that I’m pretty sure of are blocks that slow you down and limit your jumping, and blocks that crubmle when you stand on them for long enough. The springs might get accompanied by ones that spring you forward with a higher speed instead of up. I’ve also been thinking about teleportation pads (or I think rabbit holes might be a better fit), that will – surprise surprise – instantly transport you to it’s counterpart. I’m not how well that would support the core gameplay, but telefragging is always fun.
While we’re on the subject of levels and terrain and such, another quite big change I’ve been thinking of is the water physics, or rather the swimming. In Jump ‘n Bump swimming is very, very limited. When you land in water, you always sink just one tile down and immediately float back up. You can’t dive at will, nor can you stop and float still. Also, you have no friction. So for the remake some better swimming mechanics would be in order, don’t you think? A quick rundown of my ideas: You can dive freely, but not without penalties. You move slower underwater and while you can also stay submerged, you can’t do it indefinitely; you have a limited amount of air. If you stay underwater for too long, you lose consciousness, float back up, and remain unconscious for a short time. This gives your opponents an opportunity to kill you.
Lastly, two subjects that go kind of hand in hand. Powerups and controls. Yes, I’m thinking of adding powerups to the game, but as always, simplicity is the key. I’ve thought about this very carefully and I feel the ones I’ve come up with so far support the game’s core mechanics quite well. To keep things balanced most of them would likely have a short time limit. Here’s some of them:
- Double jump: quite self-expalatory
- Speed upgrade: you run a bit faster
- “Extra life”: you can survive the next hit
- Blocking: you can block hits by pressing down, but only while standing still on the ground
Now as you see, only one of the powerups mentioned would require the use of a new key. My aim for the remake would be, that I would only add one new key to the game: the down key. It would mostly be used just for swimming and powerups, but I’m still thinking ways to tie it into the core gameplay.
Man, this turned out to be quite lenghty, didn’t it? I think this would be a very good time to call it quits. If you have any ideas of your own, or just comments on my designs, feel free to drop them into the comment section. I’ll be letting this one sit until I get a prototype done, so don’t expect any news on this one any time soon.
I already have an idea for my next rant, so hopefully I’ll get it done in a timely manner. See ya folks next time!
sicksbitt 