Lookie here... another screenie:



This level is called Look Out Below. When jumpman picks up a bomb, girders begin to fall.

Here's nother screenie:



This level is called Sreddal (ladders spelled backwards). You've got to jump on the moving ladders to reach all of the bombs.

How did you make the player move with the moving ladder? Or is that already a default mechanic? And of course impressive work on progressing through the levels!

Thanks Kerm!

You ask a very good question. You have to follow the ladder... Meaning that if the ladder is going down, then you better be pressing the 'down' key; else you will be effectively moving up the ladder.


Edit:

With that said... Now for some moving girders:



This level is called Ride Around. You've got to jump on the moving girders to reach some of the bombs.

Let's play some "Follow the leader":

OK, that's just freaky. How many different game mechanics did the original Jumpman have?

Hmmmm... Let's see if I can recall all of them:

- Jumpman standard abilities: stand, jump, run, fall, bounce
- Jumpman special abilities: shoot arrows & bullets, jumps that cause explosions & destroy platforms, collect bombs to spell words, pick up ladder pieces to build ladders
- platforms (girders, ladders, ropes, & chains)
- moving platforms, falling platforms
- disappearing/reappearing platforms
- transporters
- wind
- optional screen "wrapping" mode (jumpman walks off screen in one direction will show up on opposite side)
- moving walls
- open & closing doors
- bullets (standard, zig-zag, bouncing hailstones, bullets that make you jump)
- lights out & illumination
- enemies (random movement, homing, waypoints, followers, gunslingers)
- falling bombs with explosions
- fire
- freeze
- collectable bombs (standard, bonus point bombs, moving bombs, jewels)
- most objects are scriptable that are activated by collecting bombs or trigger points
- there may be more, but that's all I can come up with right now


Everything in Jumpman is defined by a what I call a "game_object"; this includes: Jumpman, platforms, bombs, enemies, scripts, waypoints. Every object data structure is defined by 6 bytes . Each level data structure also contains some additional info like the name of the level. Each level is 1Kb with 165 objects max.

Click here for a collection of screenshots.

Quick update:

Took a break from creating levels to work on other aspects of the game.

- removed the levels from the main program
- created an external "level pack" file
- compressed the external level pack
- modified main program to open, decompress, and read the level pack
- added capability to save high scores to a file in archive memory
- modified main program to open & read high scores file

To do in this area:
- add a screen to select one of many level packs to play

It's been a while but here's another screenie:



This level is called Robots 1. It was originally part of the Jumpman level set. When Jumpman picks up a scriptable bomb, the script instructs the Robots to move to their next position defined by a list of waypoint vectors.

You will also see a rudimentary level pack selection screen. This list is populated during game initialization. Any file on the calc with a file extension "jml" along with a certain magic number embedded within the file is considered to be a level pack.

High score saving is also working. In the screenshot you may notice that a file called jms.jms is created and archived. This file is the high score file. This file is opened (or created and opened if it does not exist) at game initialization. The file is updated and archived when the user exits the game.

How about some Robots 2:



This level was originally included in Jumpman. It features robots enemies that make "smart" random movements rather than the use of waypoints.

I managed to complete a few more levels:



All of these levels were originally included in the Jumpman level set. In Robots III, the enemies make even smarter movements. In Runaway, the bombs get up a move. And Jungle is just plain ol' hard!

I now have 23 levels completed.

The Robots levels (and of course the others too) look like a lot of fun. Twenty-three levels is quite a set; that means you're well on your way to a final release, no? Are you planning a beta at some point that will include a partial level set, or are you focusing on testing the levels on your own, and will release it as a completed program?

Hi Kerm, thanks for the question and your kind words. I've already released a demo with 10 levels (see link in signature). I'm planning on releasing another demo in a week or so with new levels. My goal was to reach at least 30 levels before the official release.

Hatchlings is complete:



All I can say is... you better not stand around.

24 levels complete

Grand Puzzle 1 is complete:



In this level you can build ladders and earn bonus points!

25 levels complete



Edit: Created a new font based off the 1990s Apogee font:

Here's another level that makes use of the new font. It's called Spellbound and was originally a part of the Jumpman Junior level set.




I just completed the last level of Jumpman Junior. It is called Walls:



The walls can push you around, but they are not impenetrable. You can walk or jump against the wall to push through it.

Yeesh, that second one looks particularly hard! I will definitely look forward to pulling out my dusty TI-89 to give some of these levels a well-deserved try.

As always... thanks for the kind words Kerm!

Things have been progressing (a little slower than I would like) mostly on some behind the scenes things such as the creation of all of the level packs (8 level packs in all). I can now compile/make all my levels packs with a simple double click on a single BAT file -- you gotta love BAT files.

Here are some screenies:



Here is a snippet from my BAT file:


Code:


Line 1: tprbuilder -DJM_BEGINNER_1_4 jm_levels.tpr
This line uses a command line tool called tprbuilder from the GCC4TI & TIGGC IDEs to build my project called jm_levels.tpr (tpr is the file extension for GCC4TI/TIGCC project files) The -D option passes in a macro called JM_BEGINNER_1_4 (essentially the same thing as #define JM_BEGINNER_1_4 in C source code). This macro is used by the C preprocessor; and it allows me to specify at compile time which C code (in this case, level data) will and will not be included in the output file. It outputs a file named jm_levels.z89.

Line 2: ttpack jm_levels.z89 jm_beg_1_4.tt
This line uses a tool called TTPack by Thomas Nussbaumer (included in GCC4TI) to compress the contents of jm_levels.z89 into a file called jm_beg_1_4.tt.

Line 3: copy /b jm_level_marker.txt + jm_beg_1_4.txt + jm_pad_4.bin + jm_beg_1_4.tt jm_beg_1_4.bin
This line basically uses the DOS copy command to concatenate 4 files in binary mode. Jm_level_marker.txt contains a magic number to mark the location of the long name of the level pack. The name of the level pack is contained in jm_beg_1_4.txt. Jm_pad_4.bin contains a 4 byte padding of zeroes. This simply provides separation of the level pack name and the compressed level pack contents (it also gives me a NULL just in case the level pack name is not NULL terminated). And jm_beg_1_4.tt contains the compressed level pack from the previous line. This is all copied/concatenated into a a file called jm_beg_1_4.bin.

Line 4: ttbin2oth -89 jml jm_beg_1_4.bin jmb1
This line uses a utility called TTBin2OTH by Thomas Nussbaumer (included in GCC4TI) to convert the binary file output from the previous line to a variable (file) that the calculator will understand. The output file will be named jmb1.89y. On the calc, the file will have the name jmb1.jml.

All of that to generate a single level pack file. I have to repeat all 4 lines for every level pack.

I hope these details will help someone in the future.

So... What ever happened to Jumpman for TI calcs?

Good question. 3 years ago, my hard drive crashed and the data was not recoverable. I had made a recent backup of all my TI projects on a USB thumb drive. Good idea right? Yes... but not if you lose that backup. I frantically searched for it a number of times over several years without success. Very depressing to think you've lost everything.

Well... a few weeks ago that USB stick turned up; and I plan on resurrecting this project.

Here's two newly completed levels: Dragon Slayer and Hot Foot.

Dragon Slayer has conditional waypoints, timed girder drops, and spear throwing.

Hot Foot has explosions whenever Jumpman jumps... resulting in girder destruction. If too much of the girder is destroyed you may fall to your death.

Though certainly not as much as you, happy that you found that USB stick, and therefore its contents, again