Jetpac Refuelled Scribes Excerpts
The following excerpts detailing the development of Jetpac Refuelled was originally published on Rare’s Scribes letter page. We’ve scoured each edition in order to provide you with every mention of the title to be found in Rare’s posted answers in chronological order below.
We’ve also included a link above each heading which will re-direct to the original letters page that the question was featured in should you wish to view it in the original context – otherwise you’ll find that the entries below only focus on answers related to Jetpac Refuelled for a comprehensive listing for any fan wanting further information on pre-release content, hidden easter eggs, abandoned features and development secrets:
Dear Scribes,
You know what you guys made me realize? Right, I thought you guys were pretty sweet back when I first played Battletoads. That game rocked. And, you know, toads, nay, toads who can punch things in succession with other things; that always has potential to rock the Casbah, perhaps Casbahs. But it was only Xbox Threesiddy time, when booting up one of the machines with PDZ in the drive, did I realize my love for you (not sexually, well not right now, at least) transcends the very time I knew of your work.
Plainly, the first game I ever played, and therefore by extension, best game I ever played, was Jetpac. In other words, it was your damn little white space man with his exquisitely arranged rocket pieces of pure, unadulterated delight that, in essence, turned me into a dork. I hope you are happy. No, seriously, I do.
As penance, however, I request, nay demand you release a sexy hi-definition remake and put it onto XBLA forthwith! C’mon, you’ve released themes, gamer pictures, and the guy straight out mocks me with his shiny Rare logo every time I put in PDZ. You owe me. I think? I forget how threats and stuff work.
Just make it, it’ll be awesome. You know it will.
Miller
Jetpac was one of the first games I ever played as well. Probably after Manic Miner, but before Durell’s Scuba Dive. We’re like brothers, man. I’d buy a shiny Live Arcade remake as well, though that’s no guarantee it’ll ever happen… or will it? Or will it? The great thing about Scribes and its scurrilous reputation is that I could tell you such a game is in the works as we speak, and nobody would have any idea whether I was telling the truth or lying. It’s actually Knight Lore Live! No, not really. It’s 16-player competitive Pssst!
Ahoy Cap’n,
Just wanted to congratulate the team for Jetpac Refuelled on XBLA.
You could have just put out the original with “enhanced” graphics like most of the Arcade titles, this would have kept most of us old Speccy owners happy, but no. You added on a completely new game, the only thing I don’t like about it is it’s better than the original. You could have easily put this out as a full priced title and it would still be better than most of the dross out there.
Thanks once again, and keep up the good work, it is very much appreciated.
Dan Burgess
Basically blasphemy, but there’s a nice sentiment in there somewhere.
The team says: “Why thank you Dan, great praise indeed but don’t say stuff like ‘full priced’ or the bean counters might just make us do that in future. Then you’ll be cursing us for charging too much for stuff we may, or may not (oh I nearly let it slip) be releasing in the future.”
OMG Scribes is teh groundless hint central!!1#
Dear Scribes,
Congrats on the many nominations for Viva Piñata, the award for Leafos’ voice work, and creating Jetpac Refuelled to be excellent. Actually, when I recommended it to a friend, I called it a sophisticated Geometry Wars with heart. That’s pretty close to it, don’t ya think? And without further ado:
Cat Litter) As for the Killer Plant Ghoulies whose soil pots shattered on the cutting room floor of GbtG – why were they pruned from the final game?
Berry Skittles) Eyedol’s ending in Killer Instinct doesn’t make any sense. Car crash? Billy? Bracelets? Did someone from the team create the monster’s ending after consuming some illegal fungus? Is it something to do with the epic struggle between Eyedol and Gargos? Care to explain that one?
Those Oreos with the extra icing inside) DKRDS is tied as the most accomplished remake/special edition Rare’s done to date, along with Conker: L&R. Bravo! However, there is one problem that irks me and it’s as bad as censoring the Poo Song. Spinning the tires while trying to watch the top screen for the “GO!”, then tossing my stylus like a mini-javelin so I can steer the damn car doesn’t work for most people with the limitation of owning two arms. Octoman has no problems with the game though! Why wasn’t there an option for the classic manual boost?
Green Apples) Yay! Jetpac Refuelled is out! Here’s a quickie: How many folks from the team will have the “Infection” Achievement to begin with?
Gee, looks like I accidentally spliced my Scribes letter and my shopping list. Ah, well – I’m sure there are letters with crappier formatting. I’m off to some assemble some rockets while keeping an eye out for the Rare Coin so I can unlock DK64. Oh, nearly forgot, not knowing the title for the new Banjo game’s driving me batty. Thanks a lot. Until I dig up more random stuff,
Zenek
I’ve restored the missing ‘L’ to Jetpac Refuelled for you. Somehow you managed to make the exact same typo twice. Let’s not mention it again.
Goldfish Food) “I think it was mainly due to the fact that they were immobile. In a game which required the baddies to chase you all over the house, the static plants that patiently waited for you to be stupid enough to venture close enough for them to attack seemed a bit limited. Also many of the areas that they were due to feature in were also cut (the graveyard that formed part of the church / graveyard / catacombs area that was accessed from the garden and came out in the cellar if I remember rightly).”
Fruit Polos) It makes a lot more sense if you’ve seen Blanka’s ending in Street Fighter II. But you’re entirely at liberty to think of it as some meandering drug-addled paranoid rant.
McVitie’s Boasters) Been there, tackled that – see Marko’s letter elsewhere on the page.
Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes) “I’d say you about got it with your statement, but Geometry Wars is no less sophisticated – gotta love that game, so hard but so good! As far as Infection is concerned, three of the dev team, erm… ‘Infected themselves’ before passing it onto anyone who wanted to play with them. This started a little rash of XBLA players getting the achievement, see if you can find someone to give it to you.”
My shopping list is clearly superior to yours. I wanted to put ‘Millipede Food’ rather than ‘Goldfish Food’ to give a shout out to my giant millipede – the pet of champions – but you can’t actually buy packaged millipede food so it would have been DECEPTION.
Dear Scribes,
Good GOD! WHY OH WHY OH WHY!!!!! WHY Did you make Jetpac Refuelled soooo HARD???????
I’m struggling to get off level 9 – and that’s when starting on level 9. I’ve not even seen past level 11 despite numerous hair-pulling attempts.
1) Why did you go with one hit kill instead of an energy bar?
Due to the inertia of the Jetpac, there are always going to be moments when touching an enemy is inevitable and unavoidable – the most infuriating of which is when changing direction you get that slight moment of delay where you’re just hanging there, and then a bloody enemy just spawns on top of you… nothing you can do but scream and die.
2) Why do you steal all weapon powerups when you die?
This is like something from the dark ages… I’ve NEVER understood the logic of this in any game ever throughout the history of gaming!
3) Why did you make the screen bigger than the viewing area?
I don’t understand the logic in this at all – even when I set the viewing area to 100% in the options, still the screen area is hidden off the sides of the viewable area on my TV…
4) Why no difficulty setting?
So by now you are probably thinking, “well this guy’s just rubbish!”. I may well be… but then clearly so is 90% of the people out there playing the game… by making the game this difficult as default, you are clearly alienating the majority of your potential market and only appealing to the tiny select few hardcore 2D shoot-em-up fans (ironically the very reverse attitude of what I have come to expect from Rare).
As an oldie who clearly remembers the original Jetpac, I was overjoyed to hear about this game, even more so when discovering that the original was to be included with it… yet I now feel completely ripped-off… as a consumer there is nothing worse than shelling out money on products which you will never see…
Please please please open up this game for us more casual gamers.
Many thanx for your time and efforts,
ADE
You think that was a long letter? I edited it down to about half the size, and I’ve edited down these even longer team responses too. Strap yourselves in.
“OK, so let’s look at your ‘questions’ one by one, shall we…
1) Because giving Jetman an energy bar is madness for one, and would break the game to boot! Remember, this is a retro twitch arcade game and not Fluffy Puppy’s Adventures in Bog Roll Land – maybe we’ll make that next. Bad guys take 1.5 seconds to spawn and don’t become dangerous to Jetman until the spawn effect is complete, this is more than enough time to get out of their way even with the reflexes of a sloth. Oh, and if you’re carrying a rocket part or fuel canister you can take one hit without dying.
2) Maybe if you spent a little more time playing Jetpac than complaining about it, you would have realised that the weapon configuration is more important than its power level? The difference between maximum laser power and the ‘pea-shooter’ you start with is only a few percent, but it looks more, so you assume it’s more, interesting. You can quite easily start on level 128, wait for all the baddies to spawn, die and still complete the level without using an EMP or collecting a laser upgrade.
3) Eh? I think you have your logic a little backwards here. The viewing area refers to the amount of possible screen area the game takes up, not the amount of game we display on your particular TV – we have no way of knowing what your TV can display. You need to set your viewing area to less than 100%, keep tweaking it down until you get little black borders on the left and right of your TV screen then you can ALWAYS see Jetman. For the record we always take great care to ensure our games work on all TVs from 60? HD plasmas to scabby old CRT portables.
4) Three good reasons are because it would break Live Leaderboards, Achievements and Ranked Matches. The other very good reason is because we took a long time balancing the game based on focused user feedback during the final development phase and felt we pitched the game about halfway between the hardcore and the casual gamer. Now that the game is out in the big bad world this balance does seem to be about right.
“Ripped off? Charming! We give you a completely reimagined version of the game together with online play and the old version too, for only £3.41 – the original on its own cost more than that in 1983, did we rip you off then too?
“Maybe Jetpac Refuelled is just not for you after all, and for that we are sorry, but on the upside most people seem to be really enjoying it. Try looking over some of the tips in our Game Guide and on the forums – they’ll certainly help you, if you still want to try.”
Oh, hello, Mr. Scribes.
I didn’t see you there, but as long as this wonderful and coincidental meeting has occurred, I’ll use this opportunity to axe you a question. In Viva Pinata: Party Animals, will there be any bonuses for having played Viva Pinata: Regular Animals? For example, if I have a pet Buzzlegum who I’ve kept fattened with lots of joy candies to the point where she can now only just barely dance with her worker drones, will she be more lethal in pinata combat?
Thank you for what will surely be a timely response, and I apologize for not knowing how to make my tilde key work, and also my accent key, as I believe the word ’tilde’ has an accent over the ‘e’.
J.V. Carone
That’s just lazy. I’m not even sure it deserves a proper response from the VP team… but then again the response is unlikely to have hours of careful thought put into it either, so it all balances out.
“The bonus is that you will know all the species names, so you can identify members of the crowd as you run past. Plus if you’re losing you can make up something that sounds authentic to distract your opponents. For example: ‘Oh my goodness, did you just see that Mousemallow throw a Chippopotamus into that crowd of Salamangos’ – while the other person is desperate to see such a rare event you can zoom past them.”
Dear Scribes,
When I re-played Jetpac Refuelled just to krush my pal’s hi-score, I couldn’t help but think of a few Q’s to sling your way in return for some A’s. Time to give my love to the Jetpac Team, and by golly they deserve it for giving me so much bang for my buck. Here’s a tip for all future game developers: Shooting aliens doesn’t get old. Bungie, Epic and Bioware figured it out, and look where they are.
Robot %^&er dropped on my head!) What are the official names for the baddies in the game? (So I can stop using improvised names such as the ones that serve as today’s question markers?)
Damn totem thing won’t die!) How many variations, color/size/toughness/other, are there for the many baddies in Refuelled? Didn’t see that stupid fireball!) Is there a Jetpac GAWD on the team who has survived from level 1 to 120 in a single play through?
AHH! Not the spinning ball of death!) What is the best story the Jetpac team has regarding level names? I’d pick one, but I’d probably pick something obvious.
I can’t believe I crashed into that %#&ing space jellyfish!) I’ve thrashed the Blue Bugger’s romp through the known galaxy, with a full bag of Achievements too. Is there a chance that you can pull Jetman’s arse out of retirement one more time so we can loot the entire universe via (get ready for it) downloadable content? Pretty please with flashing, pixelated comet dust on top? Maybe a FOUR player mode? Nah, I’m asking for too much here, aren’t I? Best five bucks I’ve spent all year too…
Thanks for Jetpac Refuelled, guys! I’ve completely thrashed the game, and I want MORE. Go ahead and remake Lunar Jetman and I’ll slide you another green Lincoln. JR was the best thing Rare did in ’07 and I’ll be oh-so-happy when you reveal the next Arcade title.
Wait, when Jetman grabs the Gold Space Idol, why doesn’t a Huge Space Boulder try to crush him?
Zenek
I’m sensing a hefty response here.
JR programmer Nick says: “There are no actual official published names for baddies but we do have pet names for them. Face Crab, Brain Eye, Space Squid, Sun Eye, Mouselek, Totem, Moon Spider and Techball. A bit lame I know, things like ‘Harbinger of Painful Electric Death’ would probably sound better, but we were more concerned with making them look and play well. There are eight main baddie types with numerous colour and speed variations, at least three for each. To be honest though the challenge comes from mixing the different types at different spawn speeds on each level.
“Yes, there is a Jetpac GAWD on the team and it’s me – no really, it is – and you can see my Gamertag in the 200/200 club as I was the first to complete it and have the viral Achievement. You just have to work out which is my Gamertag – no, I’m not telling. By the end of development everyone on the team was pretty damn good at it to be fair, but only an Achievements whore like me managed to play though the whole thing AGAIN.
“DLC, you say – well that would be tricky as we didn’t make provision for it in the original, though at only 24MB we could conceivably just do another version – but no, sorry, really no. We did have four players at one point but for reasons I’m not going into here we had to remove it, I’ve still got a copy somewhere but I’m not giving it to anyone… Muhahahahaha.
“We came up with most of the level names during one evening by reading a book on cosmology and coupling the names of all sorts of space-type stuff and names of friends and family with our very weird English sense of humour. To be honest though, if you mix up the words Rim, Star, Brown etc. you can’t fail to make something sound funny, if a little puerile. My personal favourite is level 34 ‘The Giant Enemy Crab Nebula’, I’m sure you remember what was big in video gaming news about a year ago now?
“Oh, and by the way, that’s not a golden space idol so no boulder is required. It’s clearly a golden Alien 8 robot from our Ultimate Play the Game days.”
Dear Scribes,
Two things:
1. Grabbed by the Ghoulies: the official game guide mentions 3 unlockable prizes for beating the 21st Bonus challenge. The first one is said to be easily spotted (I guess it’s the nice video from early on in development) and the other 2 are said to be well hidden but worth finding. Now, I can’t find those two at all. Are they even there? Or is the game guide spreading misinformation?
Top ace game, btw. Don’t give up on Cooper!! An XBL Arcade game would be nice. A top-down co-op brawler or something.
2. Jetpac Refuelled: this is the most addictive game I’ve played in the last couple of years. I play it on a weekly basis since its release and I don’t see me quitting that habit.
…unless you might release a follow-up game. Which leads me to the question: now that you’ve outsourced the XBL Arcade ports of the two Banjo games to 4J Studios, does it mean that Rare is not developing XBL Arcade games by themselves anymore or can we expect more goodness à la Jetpac Refuelled someday if the fancy strikes you?
And another thing about Jetpac: having heard that there is a secret bonus level that you can access after surviving all the 128 levels in one sitting – is this bonus level a reality or some wild internet rumour?
3. Killer Instinct 3: oops, forget it. My fingers slipped.
Cheers from a damp and cold Germany,
Shimrod
Yay, not Banjo. Unexpected last-minute Gregg response (usefulness not guaranteed) to question 1: “Can’t anyone use Google these days? I can’t remember, but I found something (using Google) that mentioned ‘a deleted scene’ in addition to the original promo video. God knows what the third one was…”
We actually bothered to follow this up and ask some other members of the Ghoulies team, with results as far-ranging as: “Ah yes, it was a deleted scene that appeared in the ‘replay movies’ section though I don’t think it was called ‘replay movies’, maybe ‘replay cutscenes’ or something like that?”
And: “You got ‘Crivens gives chair’ too… according to the interweb.”
And: “I’ve had a hunt around the code and it looks like you get a golden bat instead of the normal bat in the dialogs/menus (it was the ‘selection indicator’ IIRC), and a golden heart instead of the pink one for the on-screen health UI.”
Are any of those accurate? Who knows. Should we really be able to provide the answer without thinking twice, let alone contradicting ourselves and coming across as a bit scatterbrained and senile? Er, probably.
Refuelled programmer Nick on question 2: “Secret levels in Jetpac? Pure madness I’d say, though never trust what you read on the internet – including this response. Will we be making our own XBLA games/ports in the future? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? Oh that’s right, we do, and we’re not telling! Seriously though, really glad you like Jetpac. Now rather than trying to just complete it in one sitting, how about trying to beat the highest scores on the Leaderboards?”
Dear Scribes,
I said six years ago you’d probably do it, and it looks like you may have at that — you lot are right on the edge of convincing me to buy an Xbox.
Granted, it’s a 360 these days, but you get it. I’m finding the lure of Banjo hard to resist, to say nothing of Jetpac Refuelled (loved the original when it popped up in Donkey Kong 64 years ago). But I’m curious; I’m told the 360’s Xbox compatibility isn’t 100% — will it run Grabbed by the Ghoulies? I always wanted to play that one. I don’t care what the hacks at GameSpot say about it, I think it looks like a blast. But, hey, I love haunted house games (I liked Luigi’s Mansion a lot more than general consensus would allow, for example), I love that Rare sense of humour, my wife’s called Amber, etc.
While I’m on the subject of old games (I haven’t written in seven years, you understand), I quite enjoyed It’s Mr. Pants, though it did take me years to find a retailer who even knew what it was. Shame about the distribution being so wonky.
Well, I’ve rabbited on long enough. Thanks for keeping on with the Scribes — still brightens up my day even after all these years when I check the updates page and find a new Scribes. Now if only we could locate our crazy Uncle…
Darien K.
Sequential Ghoulies/Jetpac letter madness! Luke marches in to take command of this one and enthuses: “Jetpac rocks! I tested that game in my previous role and loved it. In fact I only played it the other day!
“Grabbed by the Ghoulies can be played on the 360 as I have played it on mine at home as I wanted to show my wife the game. Another classic that people somehow missed!” Yes, something really ought to be done about that…
I don’t think It’s Mr. Pants had enough distribution for it to have a chance to go wonky. However, I did stumble across another UK game shop with a battered old second-hand copy that they seem hopelessly unable to shift – so anyone in the Neath area of South Wales, nip into the local branch of Game and you might still be ‘lucky’.
Dear Scribes,
As a long-running game player of the older generation, I have to ask one simple question. With your connection to Microsoft and your link to Xbox and therefore Xbox Live. Why do you not take advantage of your massive back catalogue to sell through the Live Marketplace? As someone who still owns (and cherishes) his AMS 464 and Spectrum 48k I can tell you that I STILL get out the likes of Sabre Wulf, Alien 8, Nightshade, Knight Lore, etc. I wait the five minutes to load and dive into nostalgic bliss of side hacking, or isometric view fighting and solving puzzles and I think some of the newer generation would enjoy the experience. I don’t know if it would be worth the hassle of transferring if so it would run on the Xbox but I can tell you there are oldies out there like me who would jump at the chance to play these old gems without the 5 minutes of SCREEECHING!!
Please take this into consideration as my Amstrad won’t last forever.
Lenny
Ah, the Spectrum. How can we take the UK version of The Apprentice seriously after what Alan Sugar did to the Spectrum’s legacy? I ask you.
The Ultimate properties haven’t lain untouched since 1986, as we’ve released souped-up/completely overhauled versions of Sabre Wulf on the GBA and Jetpac on Xbox Live Arcade in the last few years. There are all sorts of things that could be done with the IP, but we also have a metric truckload of other IP established since then which is known to a far wider audience. For every mail asking us to “please make a new Knight Lore” there are 100 politely requesting “OMG KI3 U IDEOTS” and we still haven’t done that yet. So never say die, but on the other hand we may never say Atic Atac 2 either…
Q: Are there any possibilities for a PC version of Nuts & Bolts? I’m a longtime Banjo fan and I don’t want to dish out $250 for just one game.
Kalen Hodge
A: Not very likely at this stage. Viva Piñata made it, but it was a much better fit for the PC market at the time. Still, look on the bright side, once you’ve got a 360 you can also download the tarted-up versions of Kazooie and Tooie. And Jetpac Refuelled while you’re there – might as well. Then go back and pick up Kameo and Ghoulies and Viva Piñata. See? Practically paid for itself already.