Hey there! I'm a huge sucker for retro platforming games, and I'm enjoying this. Definitely deserves more recognition.
Had a few runs on the Arcade, and I like most of everything -- perfect ZX spectrum graphics and UI, robust platforming/jetpack controls, and interesting level design.
One thing though, I realize the game is intended to be difficult to resemble the older classics, but I think taking the player back to the home screen is just a bit too far back, even before the cutscenes. I'm not sure if the ZX spectrum games did this, but I find that it takes away from my (otherwise solid) experience.
I wanna ask -- how did you achieve that text typing effect (as opposed to all the text showing itself at one go)? It's working beautifully in Prime Mover, and I've always wanted to have it in my game.
I've also been wondering about the separate screen system you have -- is each screen on a different layout? Or do you just have every screen tiled out on one layout, then scroll to each screen according to player position?
Hi! Glad you like it A few people have mentioned checkpoints so it might be something to add at some point.
For the typing effect I have all the text on a layout and each line is covered by a strip of black. Then each letter is revealed by moving the black strip right one letter. There are a few ways you can do this though, this was just the first thing that came to mind at the time.
I made each screen on it's own layout, I found this easier to manage because it avoids mixing all the events and objects together.