So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I began work on the ‘necessary evil’ of implementing a map screen for Jetboard Joust so that users can view and plan their journey through the game. It’s been a good process though as it has forced me focus on some of the ‘macro’ aspects of gameplay which I have been thinking about a lot yet have never really nailed down until now.
Unlike most SHMUPs, progress through Jetboard Joust’s levels is non-linear to an extent. Levels are organised in a pyramid structure so that, on completion of one level, you have a choice of two levels to try next on the next ‘row’ (I’m calling them ‘sectors’) of the pyramid. This structure is taken directly from the ZX Spectrum game ‘The Pyramid‘ which had something of a cult following in the early 80s. It was never intentional but I’ve just realised that the player character in Jetboard Joust bears a certain resemblance to Ziggy from the ‘Pyramid’ games.
Originally I was going to have the entire game organised in one pyramid but, after a lot of thought, I decided that this wasn’t going to be practical as you would end up with a ridiculous amount of levels in each sector by the end of the game which would make finding levels that contained treasure etc overly frustrating.
Instead I am going to split the game into five ‘zones’, each of which has its own pyramid structure. Three (probably) of these zones will be directly accessible at the start of the game, the next two will need to be unlocked by gathering keys which are guarded by the game’s bosses. This is similar to the structure of the ZX Spectrum game ‘Sidewize‘ which I never played at the time (and only came across via Bitmap Books Spectrum Compendium) yet seems to have a lot of similarities to Jetboard Joust in the side-scrolling gameplay and crustacean-inspired aliens.
As the entire game world is going to end up being pretty large I needed another way for the player to navigate it other than the warp gates which simply move the player down to the next sector of the current zone. To solve this I have introduced teleports which allow the player to transport themselves to any other level which has a teleport activated. Teleports are activated by completing a level with a 100% survival rate (ie no babies abducted and mutated).
Of course, as well as designing a map screen, this meant I also had to design a teleport! I’ve tried to keep this looking like it’s from the same factory as the warp gates so the designs are pretty consistent. In retrospect I think I could have made it bigger but I’m not going to change that at the moment – it got a pretty good response on Twitter as it stands.
I’ve also added an additional cash bonus for completing a sector (an entire row of the pyramid). This gives another dimension to the gameplay and (hopefully) a reason for the player to visit more levels and stick at the game for longer. It meant I had to add a ‘sector clear’ section to the ‘Level Complete’ screen though!
The map itself wasn’t overly complex to implement, though drawing the lines that link the levels on the fly was fairly fiddly and it was also pretty time-consuming getting a zoom in/zoom out effect that looked decent. I wasn’t intending to have the map rendered at two different sizes but once I’d got the main map up and running it was clear that you needed to see things at a more ‘macro’ level when navigating between zones. I change palette as the player moves from zone to zone as well (this brought up a number of bugs in the palette-swapping code and shaders that needed to be fixed). I thought it would be good to allow a certain amount of ‘lookahead’ in the map so levels that contain bosses and/or special items are highlighted if they are within three sectors of the furthest points reached by the player.
The map can be viewed at any time via a link in the main menu and is brought up automatically when the player enters a teleport in order that they can select the level they want to travel to. I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to ensure it feels chunky, intuitive and consistent with the rest of the game. Hopefully it’s all been worth it! The observant amongst you will still spot a few bugs in the video…
Dev Time: 8.5 days
Total Dev Time: approx 218 days
The Zoomed Out ‘Mini Map’ Gives An Overview of The Current Zone
The Full Size Map
Your Teleport Is Ready, Sir!
Clearing a Sector, Activating the Teleport, Selecting Next Level
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