· Mega DriveChange of course: the prototype moves to the Mega Drive
The HTML prototype did exactly the job I built it for: locking down the rules of the game. Physics, jump feel, the worlds' betrayals, the rhythm. All decided there, where trying an idea costs ten minutes. Now I'm shelving it: it stays online, playable as it is, but I'll stop growing it. Its turn is over, and it served me well.
The reason is a surprise: I feel at home on the Mega Drive, far more than I expected. The 68000 with C gives me enough room to prototype directly there, no more detour through the web. And there's a bonus: on the Mega Drive I can make two versions of the same game. One on a fixed screen, the old way, one board at a time; and later one with scrolling, the world sliding by. Two ways to tell the same design.
So I'm starting over right there, on 1988 iron: two good, meaty levels, built properly, no longer drafts. Then, from that solid base, the port to the C64. The web brought us this far; the rest of the journey I'll make on the real machines.