Bounce Jam’s Community Update is over.
To start this announcement off, I’d just like to say thank you to everyone who made Bounce Jam’s final update its best:
@rcreger (Plymouth Entertainment in-game)
@XxCarbotxX
@ManiacPumpkin
@F3Art (Even if it WAS incredibly indirectly, lol)
The community update has made this already good game better in everyway and it definitely wouldn’t look as good as it does now without the aforementioned!
Now, the moment everyone was waiting for whether they realized it or not, the final update list:
The Community Update
*Worked with @XxCarbotxX to redo the Special block sprite. Others will be re-done in the future!
*Added the long-awaited (By me, anyway) feature of Gravity blocks now being able to send you back DOWN just like how Flip blocks can!
*FINALLY added settings to the “Options” menu! Currently, all that’s included is a REAL FPS counter, but in the future i plan to add more!
*Fixed long standing bug of the Mouse block having more collision below than above
*Optimized the death orbs’ code
*Added sparkle animations to the spikes with random delays
*Modified level 1 to show off just how good the end wave effect is!
*Added a new particle effect: “Ground Particles”! Thank @rcreger for that change!
*The ball no longer truly “Respawns”, it now teleports back to the start. This will single handedly fix ALL the bugs related to respawning but will create others which i will do my best to solve!
*I finally figured out why the game is so laggy. I’m sorry to those were a fan of the ground pulse effect, we had to remove it…
*Added a new gradient to Bounce Jam that changes color based on level! (Inspired by DoM)
*Fixed the settings menu not updating visually
*Added a new way to play Bounce Jam: “Hard mode”, at the current moment this merely speeds up the physics but i plan to do more with it in the future!
*You can no longer die in the tutorial, you just recoil instead
*Added an Easter Egg to the tutorial
*Changed “rcreger” to “Plymouth Entertainment” in the credits
*Used the “Enabled” block to make it so blocks with pulse effects on them get disabled with distance (In-short: Optimization)
*Added a far more optimized pulse effect back into the game
*Optimized the end blocks
*Added @rcreger’s updated sprites to the game
*Added Plymouth’s Bounce Jam exclusive track: “Hippin’ Hoppin” to the tutorial
*Tweaked the recoiling feature seen in the tutorial
*Fixed bug where the ball still recoils to the left even if the ball is going left
*Fixed the “Go to level 2” button to work with the new system… Not like it matters since nothing has a level 2 yet
*After the Hard mode pop-up opens, the game will now get rid of the “FPS” in “Show FPS” and lock all the buttons. So you can no-longer accidentally turn off the FPS counter while getting rid of the pop-up!
*The kill button (“/”) just recoiled you in the tutorial instead of actually killing you after i added the recoil funcion – Now it completely bypasses any sign telling the ball it cannot die and kills it anyway. (Even in the tutorial)
*Fixed the ball not making any gravity-switch sound upon hitting the Gravity block after already being upside down
*Added a basic speedrun mode to the game called “Timer mode”! In timer mode, the game speeds up as you hit Special blocks (There’ll be more speed-based differences in the future).
- No sane person should do this , but i also made it so if you try Timer mode while playing on Hard difficulty, you start off with a +10 percent bonus from the get-go. Don’t do this unless you’re a god with a computer to match!
*Scrolling over the gamemodes on the main-menu now brings up a small description of said gamemode
*And with that – Bounce Jam now has a custom cursor (That i was forced to add). I personally love it!
*The overlay now changes both when Hardmode in enabled and when Timermode is on. (Hardmode almost makes Bounce Jam look like a horror game).
*Fixed CTRL not allowing you to roll over 1 block wide spaces and added ALL the arrow keys as valid keys! Left-handed people can now rejoice!
*Remade Bounce Jams timer both visually and internally. Speed runners rejoice!
*The timer on the HUD now ONLY appears in… Well, Timer mode. This surprisingly saves 1-2 frames in normal mode!
*Optimized the main-menu master objects code. This will not only help out people digging through the games code: But may improve framerate on the main menu a little!
*Went through an hour of pain to get the gamemode descriptions to fade
*The special blocks can no longer be hit twice and are FAR more visibly obvious when they’ve been hit. (Honestly i don’t know why i didn’t add this sooner). I also slightly optimized the special blocks
*Optimized the Door blocks, Rolling blocks and Block Collsions’ completely… (To think i had no idea what the enabled behavior did for a year). ”Block Collision” is essentially a paper weight now
*Started work on giving Bounce Jam’s main menu keyboard controls. It’s VERY wonky at the moment, but you can select a gamemode using keyboard controls right now.
*Fixed a bug that came up in some recent update involving the options menu… Turns out, i forgot to disable a switch while playing around with the games code
*The Bounce Jam ball now uses a single Once behavior that gets transmitted to all bundles. Honestly, i can’t believe I missed the bundle input/output feature for so many years…
*I went on a noting-spree, to make Bounce Jam’s code more digestible and to make sure i don’t forget anything. Feel free to take a read!
*Several less important blocks were given global onces’ and always’. Global always’ are risky, but considering how much people complain about FPS (At least, back in the day) i took my chances
*Fixed a bug that came up in some recent update involving the credits button sending you to the COMPLETELY wrong location. Turns out: The camera was set to move to the BUTTON, not the way-point. Human error, baby!
*I have 0 idea what happened to the bundle for “Back3” but i came up with a solution to save on code: Essentially, the way Bounce Jam’s Manual-camera system works with back buttons is that there are 2 modes: One with only the X coordinate, and one with both. I’m going to make all back buttons that use either mode have the same exact messages in the games code. It’s doubtful this will cause bugs down the line but it IS a possibility if i get sloppy HOWEVER it’s worth it to save on frames!
*Hitting the End Portals in Timer Mode now causes a cool countdown to begin instead of the usual “Next level” pop-up. Meaning if you decide to speedrun the entire “Game”, you no longer have to click the pop-up ASAP!
*Added a few extra notes and added particles for when the Bounce Jam ball hits the side of a ground block
*Packaged all the different controls into a bundle, may prevent glitches down the road
For those wondering what I plan on doing now that Bounce Jam is over: I’m currently in the process of remaking Old Super Mario Bros’ code from the ground up, and I have a new project in the works that aims to be a nice, several hour long experience with the initials “CC” (No, not closed captions)
Once again: