PetJac v1.1 Developer ramblings

A lazy Sunday afternoon, time for a potter about with the next release verson 1.1!

Added a few extra tips into the scrolling message on the title screen.

Played level 1 up to the full two minutes of allotted time until the Baiter arrives. Managed to get around 93000. Lost a life to the evil Baiter though! You can play it safe and quickly to get around 60-70k on the first level (with the gold 50k bonus) or if you miss the end-of-level bonus, you can try and get the multiplier up to x5 and hope for lots of gems and gold! Once the Baiter arrives, you really have to be quick to avoid it killing you. 

Added a very basic keyboard control into the game, only to see if it can be played with keys rather than a game controller! The answer is... possibly. Will work on it a bit later to provide acceleration like the joypad method of 'smooth movement.' Also noticed that if you move the player with the joystick AND the keyboard - it honours both inputs and moves you twice as fast! Rectified this problem by ignoring keyboard inputs if it detects any movement from the gamepad. 

I think I can maybe just ignore keyboard control altogether if it detects a "Joystick in port 2" as therefore you must have one (and it's better to play with the gamepad anyway.) The only reason to add keyboard controls is for people who don't have a controller connected at all.

Think I'll do some work on a high score table, as I'm bored of staring at the one high score we have currently! Was thinking of several tables, maybe one 'pure' if you start from normal difficulty level 1 plus others for starting harder, with one for those nutters starting in 'impossible' difficulty!

On a gameplay note, I need to run through the levels to see if they can all be done in less than 60 seconds (the Gold bonus.) I think that this may be largely unobtainable on level 7!  As it's quite a tall, scrolling level, if you drop the rocket pieces or fuel from a height, you waste more time waiting for them to float down. I've tried grabbing all the bits you need and flying down towards the launchpad, but still haven't done it in less than 60 seconds. There is a table in the program where I can adjust the times for gold, silver and bronze bonuses so I could adjust this for all levels. I'll have to stick in my special, testing, invincibility cheat mode again! Come to think of it... it may still be there!

11pm UPDATE! - Yes, the old 'diagnostic' mode is still there! (unsurprising as this whole game was made from the same source code as Pivot Fight!) - Hint for anyone listening, press D on the title screen... that's as much as I can tell you! (You could of course look in the source code I shall release soon!) Anyway, level 7 is indeed quite impossible to complete in under 60 seconds! So... I need to test all levels to make sure this goal is attainable for all of them. If not (as in Level 7 being too 'tall') I'll have to adjust the table of times, which is currently set (for all levels) to 60 seconds gold, 75 silver and 90 for bronze... I think!