Jetpac - Fuel to Burn

metapraxis02 · June 2016

Not quite a Spectrum game, but based on the Spectrum game. Basically a fairly faithful recreation of Jetpac, written in JavaScript, with a "classic version" with old-wurlde graphic and an enhanced version that is slightly moderned-up

There isn't currently any touch support. Works on Safari, Chrome and Firefox (Performance is best on Safari). I have only tested on a MacBook Pro (and earlier on in development on a Gen1 macBook Air 11").

Has only really been played by me, so any feedback appreciated....

Available from Sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zx-spectrum-jetpac-javascript/

ranma_simon · June 2016

Ohhhhh...

weesam · June 2016

manages to look worse than the original: the badly drawn vectorish-art on top of scanned images is naff

metapraxis02 · June 2016

Fair enough; I appreciate the honest feedback! I certainly don't claim to be an artist - It was only done for fun (and as a learning exercise to play about with the canvas more than anything). That's what's good about these kind of forums, though - people will call a turd a turd! :) Some of the backgrounds work better than others; The simple rotating star-based ones probably work the best (and are closer to the plain black of the original, I guess). Classic mode gets rid of all that ****, and maybe that should be the default.

chriswyatt · June 2016

Classic mode looks good :-bd

rich_chandler · June 2016

Well I like the look of both of them, hope Rare don't find out and ask you to remove them....

Luny · June 2016

I think we need to pass this around and keep the source each. That way if it isn't allowed to be hosted, it will at least keep alive.
Is this underhanded? It is a nice piece of work and I feel should be preserved.

chriswyatt · June 2016

Chances are Microsoft won't notice or care, but I could be wrong. It appears to be quite skinnable, so if Microsoft did request that you remove them, I suppose you could give it a graphical makeover, and it would probably be different enough for it to not cause any copyright issues (says someone who knows next to nothing about copyrights).

metapraxis02 · June 2016

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately the version I posted up has a rather NASTY bug which means that the keypresses stop working after you hold down any key for more than 1000ms (lifting the key and repressing it starts the events being registered again). Long story short, it was a bug I introduced in that version, trying to sort out a problem I'd noticed with Safari when the browser tab was pushed into the background.

Anyhow, I have fixed the keyboard problem, and version 1.22 is up on Sourceforge. I've also reworked all of the alien sprites (they were put together pretty quickly!) and toned down some of the backgrounds.

If Rare get upset, I'll just totally re-skin the game without the Jetpac name and add a few different game play elements to differentiate it (I'd kind of intended to do that anyway). Hopefully they won't notice or get cheesed off, as it is just a little javascript game.

metapraxis02 · June 2016

Just in case anyone is interested in which rockets I vector-arted for the "enhanced version"...

(double-size:)

Level 1..4 - Energia,
Level 5..8 - Proton
Level 9..12 - Soyuz
Level 13..16 - Angara 5P.

The Energia is dimensionally correct, but the others are all stubbier than reality, just to make them work more effectively in the game (yes, I have a thing for Russian space hardware!).

If I can be bothered, I may modify the launch sequence so the strap-on boosters and core stages all separate and fall away.

Arjun · June 2016

metapraxis02 wrote: »

(yes, I have a thing for Russian space hardware!).

Ooeer! Fnar! Etc...

Good job on the remake! A couple of points:

* The movement animation of Jetman is a bit silly looking right now. His legs scuttle like he is on a treadmill set to full speed. :)
* If I keep the fire button pressed down, there is no laser fire.
* If I rapidly press the fire button, I lose the laser fire audio.
* Loved the intro movie! :)
* Any way you can compress the movie video further? It's currently larger than the size of the game and makes the 133MB download a bit annoying.

metapraxis02 · June 2016

Ta for feedback!

Yep, agreed with the jetman "scuttling" animation! I need to add a counter so the frames only update after X pixels of movement (my Sprite class doesn't have this capability, but it is easy enough to add it). This was already on the list (sadly, only so much spare time in the day). I also need to fix one of the frames of the animation where the closest leg looks a bit silly (a bit ministry for silly walks)!

Rapid fire sort of works -- It just "heats up" too quick at the moment (the idea being you can't just keep it pressed as the gun overheats - Should be a simple bit of tuning to double or triple the length of time it can rapid fire. The same thing actually happens with the jetpack if you keep it pressed; The rocket trail will become more red and then will stop working altogether (that one should overheat a bit more quickly, I think).

Glad you liked the movie. I enjoyed putting that together :) - I think I can most likely shrink it down quite a bit, as you are right -- it is currently a bit bloaty. I think that version is 720P and it really doesn't need to be, especially as it is put behind the TV scan-line mask, anyway. Native resolution is 1080P, and that is even bloatier, but looks pretty sweet.

metapraxis02 · July 2016

OK, per Arjun's feedback, I've done a v.1.23 and improved the scuttling jetman quite a bit (still could do with more frames of animation, but the frames that are there are slowed down a lot). I've increased the rapid fire of the laser to last three times as long as before, and I've shrunk the movie by about 25Mb (I should be able to shrink it a LOT more, but my Final Cut Pro trial has run out and I had to shrink it in iMovie, which is a bit limited in export options). The download is now 107Mb, vs 140Mb for the prior one.

Per Weesam's feeback on the shitty graphics, I've done a bit more background work, including adding some Energia launch infrastructure on the first four screens (the ones with Energia). I'm going to do some similar stuff for the other rockets as the Russian gear has quite a steam-punk look to it; It just takes quite a long time to draw as it is finicky.

And I've fixed a bug where the enhanced mode floor was a bit too short and Jetman could fall off the ground at the edge of the screen and by carried off to infinity by gravity (the classic mode one was the correct size, so that worked fine). Hopefully that is the last showstopper bug, and further stuff will just be tuning and refinement.

Jetpac - Fuel to Burn

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