Jungle Jumper 1.2 is finally done and out in the wild, I didn't manage to get everything in there that I wanted, but it is a huge improvement compared to 1.11 which was out before. Let's start with some screenshots.
This shows a comparison of the main menu. As you can see the entire thing has gotten an overhaul.
I got rid of the blurred look of the backgrounds, which I think is a big improvement. I drew a new jungle vine, which I'm really pleased with, I always thought the old one was pretty bad.
I also improved Jorvis a bit especially his face and tipped his hat back a bit. I also made his tail a bit thicker. I also made three more versions of Jorvis hanging here wearing different costumes which I'll explain shortly.
As you can see the buttons also got an overhaul. Before it was simply a box with rounded corners and a bit of bevel and emboss. Now it is instead to slightly offset squares, they also shrink slightly when you press them. This also goes for the menu items. The start item is also wriggling back and forth a few degrees to entice people to press it :).
The new button on the right with the mouse changing pants appear when you unlock a costume, you can then switch between the different costumes by pressing it. This will change both the Jorvis in the game and the Jorvis in the menu so you can see the outfit you will be wearing.
There has been added a menu item "objectives" and here is a screenshot of the objectives screen and you can also see the improved highscores screen.
You can see the new objectives screen displaying all the objectives and the gifts you earn by earning the starts. When you earn the different gifts they show up on the main menu around Jorvis making him look more and more badass.
Lets look at another screenshot.
Here we have a comparison from inside the game. and you can again see the improved background. You can also see the improved mouse in one of the costumes. More on that in a moment. At the bottom you can see the new GUI that holds the current score and the objects you are are collecting at the moment. It also houses a new system. There is now an experience tracker and a multiplier, you loose your progress if you loose your hat.
Here is a look on the improved mouse:
As you can see the animation was only two frames and is now four instead and has generally been cleaned up. I'm also showing another of the costumes underneath.
Conclusion
The game is now way better and way prettier in my opinion. There is a lot to do in the game with all the achievements and gift so I hope people will enjoy it. But there is still room for improvement. The biggest thing still missing is good music in the game, I still hope to be able to compose that myself at some point, so people will have to do without until then.
The other improvement I want to make is something you can't see in the screenshot as I took them in the ad free version. The Admob banner is in the top of the game in all screens and it is really blocking some things. I planned on getting it set up to only show in the game, but this update had taken so long that I decided to fix that in a small upcoming update instead.
But now that I have been playing the game I realize how much the banner is slowing down the game. Whenever the banner animates, the whole game stutters, I'm also in the annoying situation that I have to change the position of the spider for the ad version of the game so you can see it lurking, but it will end up looking different in different games because the banner is different sizes on different devices. I'm seriously considering removing the banner from everywhere, except the pause and game over screen. At that point people have time to look and click the banner and it won't block anything.
I might not be completely pleased with Jungle Jumper yet, but I'm still very proud and happy with this update. I think I'll leave Jungle Jumper alone for a little while and work on a new game as I'm feeling a bit worn out about it.
A last note before signing off, I finally have Analytics in the game so I can get good numbers on how many people have the game in total, so I think I might start making a weekly or monthly report here about how many people are playing the game and how much I'm earning.
