While remaking AlienVania using the Collector Kyle, I noticed that due to the HUD at the top, it scrunched the game. Collector Kyle’s resolution is four times that of the original NES, but multiplied to be 16:9 widescreen, but then there’s a HUD on top of that which the HUD should be part of that. The game window resolution is fine, but its the height of the surface area that is too tall. Kyle’s gameplay window is a grid of 25 x 14 when it should be 25 x 13 + a HUD of 25 + 1.

To summarize, I messed up and need to remove a height line every room of every level. That’s what happens when you make a game in a week.The easy fix would be to make a transparent HUD and just overlay the HUD on top of the game’s play surface. I gave that a try and I think having a black bar HUD makes the game look special. The easier solution would be to leave the game scrunched as it is. With a limited release, only a few people have played the game and people may never notice once the 25 x 14 turns into 25 x 13.

While I was modifying levels to fit the new surface size, I did take the time to add more ladders rather than jump through platforms. That way there is less of a chance that a player can fall back to a screen they had just jumped out of.

On top of that, the artist @RavenmoreArt has produced more quality content that I’ll be adding into new levels for the game. Over the past few weeks I’ve made a few more snow levels, but without any sort of new mechanics there’s no hook to make the levels feel fresh or unique. Thanks to the new art, I can have explosions, flag poles, snowmen and festive lights. Although now that I think about it, the catch with the explosions would be there are no explosion animations, but I can whip something up.