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THE REFINERY
The Refinery is my favorite level. I probably spent the most time designing and creating this one. I got the idea for an oil refinery from the presence of oilcans and oil barrels on the original Girders level. Plus a refinery seemed like a very rigid, steel structure fraught with plenty of dangers--a setting well suited for a man vs. beast rescue mission!
Okay, so the Refinery level sort of looks and plays very similarly to the old Rivets level. It also shares a similar multi-tiered symmetrical layout. But the Refinery does have some new elements that make it different. First, there’s the escaping gas that travels along the pipes. Yes, it’s dangerous--so don’t touch it. Also there’s an oscillating drill platform that will help Jumpman get to the upper reaches of the level. And finally there is a unique ending that is a departure from the usual Kong-walks-off-with-girl routine.
The original design for the Refinery had a lot more gas pipes--bending and twisting their way throughout the entire structure. The idea was to bring danger to almost every area of the playfield. However, all of the extra piping and gas flows made the level look way too busy. I decided to scale it back so that I could match the common simplicity that was found in the original levels.
One problem I had while developing this level was that I needed more than the maximum of 15 ladders allowed per level. It may not look like a lot, but if you check out some of the early development snapshots you’ll see that there were around 27 ladders. In order to get around this restriction I had to modify the code to allow for more ladders. What a headache!
I also found that when I had a ladder going up and a ladder going down at the same location, one of them would be ignored. This forced me to spend a considerable amount of time rewriting the ladder routines to get around this quirk. Of course, I could have staggered the ladders like the original levels but I needed to stack them to achieve a certain look. In the end, the stacked ladders were just too hard to navigate during gameplay so I replaced them with some static supports.
One fun thing that I was going to do on this level was to have Kong take a swipe at Jumpman in his final climb to the lady (similar to the monkey obstacle in Crazy Climber). Unfortunately there just weren’t any good sprites to allow me to animate Kong’s arm in front of the background ladder. Plus I was worried that it might look too cheesy!
For some of the final touches I scattered a few oilcans around, tossed in a few blue flames, and created a new animated ending.
(The following photos show the level as it progressed through the production stages)
Click here to move on to the The Crane!
Website Content © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Hyperspace Arcade Entertainment. All game names, graphics, and logos are copyrights of their respective owners.
The Refinery is my favorite level. I probably spent the most time designing and creating this one. I got the idea for an oil refinery from the presence of oilcans and oil barrels on the original Girders level. Plus a refinery seemed like a very rigid, steel structure fraught with plenty of dangers--a setting well suited for a man vs. beast rescue mission!
Okay, so the Refinery level sort of looks and plays very similarly to the old Rivets level. It also shares a similar multi-tiered symmetrical layout. But the Refinery does have some new elements that make it different. First, there’s the escaping gas that travels along the pipes. Yes, it’s dangerous--so don’t touch it. Also there’s an oscillating drill platform that will help Jumpman get to the upper reaches of the level. And finally there is a unique ending that is a departure from the usual Kong-walks-off-with-girl routine.
The original design for the Refinery had a lot more gas pipes--bending and twisting their way throughout the entire structure. The idea was to bring danger to almost every area of the playfield. However, all of the extra piping and gas flows made the level look way too busy. I decided to scale it back so that I could match the common simplicity that was found in the original levels.
One problem I had while developing this level was that I needed more than the maximum of 15 ladders allowed per level. It may not look like a lot, but if you check out some of the early development snapshots you’ll see that there were around 27 ladders. In order to get around this restriction I had to modify the code to allow for more ladders. What a headache!
I also found that when I had a ladder going up and a ladder going down at the same location, one of them would be ignored. This forced me to spend a considerable amount of time rewriting the ladder routines to get around this quirk. Of course, I could have staggered the ladders like the original levels but I needed to stack them to achieve a certain look. In the end, the stacked ladders were just too hard to navigate during gameplay so I replaced them with some static supports.
One fun thing that I was going to do on this level was to have Kong take a swipe at Jumpman in his final climb to the lady (similar to the monkey obstacle in Crazy Climber). Unfortunately there just weren’t any good sprites to allow me to animate Kong’s arm in front of the background ladder. Plus I was worried that it might look too cheesy!
For some of the final touches I scattered a few oilcans around, tossed in a few blue flames, and created a new animated ending.
(The following photos show the level as it progressed through the production stages)
Click here to move on to the The Crane!
Website Content © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Hyperspace Arcade Entertainment. All game names, graphics, and logos are copyrights of their respective owners.