Announcing Jump Mechanic

Today I'm excited to finally announce my new game, Jump Mechanic. Jump Mechanic is a 2D action platformer for Windows PC with a focus on deep but intuitive controls and good game feel. The game features 24+ levels across 6 worlds, colorful pixel art, and a 30+ track soundtrack featuring original electronic versions of classical music.

In Jump Mechanic you help J.Me, a happy jumping robot and the star of a video game that takes place on a planet called First World. Everything is going great until J.Me's disillusioned creator cancels J.Me's game and deletes all of First World. Now J.Me is lost in a strange universe of game mechanics and has to keep jumping to survive. You can find more information about the game and on the game's information page or read more below.

The focus of Jump Mechanic is the mechanics. With inspiration from the Mario Maker 2 and the Super Mario World communities, I've developed a core moveset for J.Me that expands upon classic platforming gameplay while remaining easy to learn and most importantly fun. Players have precise control over J.Me's jump arc with three buttons for air control: twirl, roll left, and roll right. These air control moves combine with a wide selection of classic platforming moves like ducking, spinning, diving head first, and more to give J.Me an expressive and fun moveset.

I first started working on Jump Mechanic back in 2019 after becoming enthralled with creating levels for Super Mario Maker 2. While I ended up shelving the project after a few months of working on art and design, I couldn't let the idea go. I worried about trying to stand out in a crowded market of indie platformers, but ultimately I couldn't resist making--and playing--my platformer, and I resumed development full time in mid-2021.

Jump Mechanic is built using a custom C++ game coding library, a personal project I started in 2016 to replace XNA for my game development work. I'd also like to share the library as an open source project although there's still work to be done before sharing it, and I've decided to finish and release the game first.

In Jump Mechanic, I aim to follow a "maximalist" design aesthetic based on player self expression: big characters, more buttons, and a plethora of fun enemies and stage obstacles. I'd like to share more about how this philosophy informs the game's design leading up to the game's release. Up next I'm preparing a controls "deep dive" post talking about J.Me's expressive moveset. I hope you'll check back for that and more as I finish making Jump Mechanic!