Nejillian Flux

Nejillian Flux v1.1

Release type: Shareware
Release date: 1993 (original release)
Levels: 4
Author: Don'Pan Software
Registration bonus: N/A
Registration price: $15
Related games: Explorer Jacko

Nejillian Flux (sometimes found as Nejilian Flux) was supposed to be a carbon copy of Gradius, maybe with a bit of Life Force for variety. As it happens, RSD’s Game-Maker is a poor platform for scrolling shooters. They knew it, and improvements were on the radar, but they never quite happened. So I found some workarounds. Not good workarounds, but distinctive ones.

This was an early project. I can tell you how early because of an even earlier pastiche. When I was finishing up Linear Volume, I asked my client for a title. Linear Volume, he said; I went with it. I also mentioned my next project, a scrolling shooter based on Gradius. He told me to call it Nejillian Flux. It sounded good, so again I went with it.

To this point I had designed, I think, six games — three platformers, and three adventure-RPGs. Although I completed most of them, only one of those games — A-J's Quest — had been very successful. I figured maybe it was time to try something new.

I hit three technical problems: scrolling, map size, and power-ups. The most fundamental of those is the scrolling, or rather the lack thereof. Game-Maker only supports a strange shifting-focus scrolling, where the camera always tries to place the character sprite 1/3 of the way from the opposite edge of the direction of the character’s motion. If the character is running right, the game wants to put 1/3 of the screen to the left of the sprite and 2/3 to the right. The same principle goes for all four cardinal directions, which in a game with free movement can cause the camera to lose all reason.

There are ways to work with this trait, but for a scrolling shooter it is fatal. The two common workarounds are to point the background gravity sideways, or to adjust the character motion so that it must always move in one direction. Neither really works, but if done well the player gets the general idea.

Blasting a path in Nejillian Flux

A related problem is in the engine’s strict map dimensions: exactly 100 pixels, square. That’s 6-1/4 by 10 screens, which may be fine for an overworld map. If you’re scrolling exclusively to the right, that means in less than 7 screens you will loop back to the start. Think of Eugene Jarvis’ Defender.

My solution was to double-decker the levels, and to hide a tunnel between the two stories. The player would keep looping until he or she found the passage, from which point the level became linear until the end. An eccentric choice, but it was the best I could think of at that time.

I also ran into problems with the weapon upgrades. The engine does not allow for arbitrary character or control states, so you can’t simply pick up a weapon and use it. The only solution is to give any weapon pickups a hierarchy, and to limit their ammunition. So if you pick up a very powerful weapon, you may only have 20 shots. When you have expended those, you default to the next most powerful weapon for which you have ammo. If you want to use one of the lesser weapons, then first you have to blow through the greater ones.

Then there is the question as to what makes a tougher power-up, as Game-Maker is very black and white about power levels. If your weapon has a level of 150 and the monster is at level 100, then the weapon kills the monster. If the monster has a power of 151, then the weapon does nothing. So weak weapons are pointless, and powerful weapons are perfect. If you’re creative you can find some lateral solutions; in 1993, I was not that creative.

A couple of years after its first release, I revised Nejillian Flux with digital sound effects and some design tweaks, and demoted it to the Don’Pan label. Although the game sort of embarrassed me, it turned out to be one of my most widely distributed. For a while it seemed that every shovelware CD or Russian bulletin board boasted a copy.

Here’s a continuity note. When I was done with the game, I went on to design Explorer Jacko. The ship that Jacko steals, early on? Why, the Nejillian Flux of course.

- EJR Tairne

Story

Level 2 of Nejillian Flux

We should never have gone...

We were so naive as to the dangers space held. From the Earth, one can see little of the rest of the galaxy, much less the universe.

The first ship equiped with the flux drive changed all that, though most wish it hadn't.

The universe is not as it seems from the Earth, after all. There are strange things happening there... and it is not as empty as it may seem. Actually, the universe, in places, is made up of terrain not unlike that of Earth, while totally `new' substances make up the rest of it.

Level 1 of Nejillian Flux

Sorry, I know I ramble on, but this needs to be known. Well, the first ship, dubbed Nejillian Flux, after the man who invented the flux drive, Myran Nejillian, was sent out as a probe, but it was attacked and nearly destroyed by some strange beings.

The crew were picked up just before their air began to run out by a passing `scooter'.

The pilot was not from Earth, yet he appeared to be human. I don't know the story behind this, but it would probably make an interesting novel.

Now, the crew have to try to get back home, but without the flux drive, who knows where they'll turn up??

Instructions

The up, down, left, and right arrow keys move the ship in those directions. Tapping the space bar shoots, while hitting Enter drops a missile.

There is a secret way out of every round, and until you find it you will loop through the round continuously.

TIP: When you gain a spinning shield, try not to shoot, as you will likely destroy your protection.

Credits

A-J Games Team:

Writer/Artist/Sound Effects Guy/Idea Thinker-Over:

Eric-Jon Waugh

Immense Help/Tester/Thinker-Over:

Oliver Stone (Well, actually, he isn't officially on the team, but I consider him to be).

Availability

This game is distributed in the shareware directory of the Game-Maker 3.0 CD-ROM.

During the early 1990s the game also was available for download from GameLynk's Frontline BBS.

Also available on several shareware compilation CD-ROMs, including:

• Public Software Library 's PSL Monthly #2-12: Programming (December 1994),
• Terry Blount's Cream of the Crop #4 (1994),
• Gold Medal Software (1994),
• Night Owl #13 (1994),
• Software Vault: The Ruby Collection (1994),
• The Pier Shareware #5 (May 1994),
• Public Software Library's PSL Monthly Volume #3-01: Games (January 1995),
• Software Vault: Games 2 (January 1995),
• Public Software Library's PSL Monthly #3-10: Education (August 1995),
• Beachware's 1000 Games for Windows and DOS (November 1995),
• International Software Values' 10 Tons of Games Mega Collection 1 (June 1997), and
• Zodiac Super OZ CD (November 1997).

Archive history

Nejillian Flux was retained as part of the archive from the game's inception.

Links

Interviews / Articles

• The History of A-J Games, Part Seven

Listings

• archive.org entry
• demu.org entry
• Download Central entry

Misc. Links

• Play Nejillian Flux online

Downloads

• Nejillian Flux (548.0 kB)
• Level 1 Map (92.1 kB)
• Level 2 Map (87.1 kB)
• Level 3 Map (322.2 kB)
• Level 4 Map (191.5 kB)