The Return of A-J
Release type: Retail
Release date: 1993 (original release)
Levels: 21 (in final version)
Author: A-J Games
Retail price: $30 (with A-J's Quest)
Related games: A-J's Quest, Zoom the Super Bear, A-J 3
AKA A-J 2: The Return of Ostro. This game was offered as a registration bonus for A-J's Quest.
As with the original A-J's Quest, The Return of A-J is based on the Andrew-Jonathan comic strip. Instead of plumbing greater depths of design here, Return plumbs greater amounts of the source material. The game's design was spurred by the 2.0 release of Game-Maker, with its Sound Blaster sound and music support, and by the positive reaction to the previous game.
Now that I was a real game designer, I started to pour my energy into developing a more-of-the-same sequel. Its main gimmick would be multiple characters, each of whom followed an original path to the same goal. To prepare for this focus, I redrew the character sprite almost from scratch. In a short time I had learned much of pixel animation, and the previous sprite had started to bother me. The new sprite, I used as the basis for all four characters.
Aside from appearance the characters were only really distinguished by their vocal tics, which the new Sound Blaster support made possible. The levels were mostly recycled themes, using recycled tiles from the first game.
Of particular note is the character select screen, which features a sound clip from an obscure Max Fleischer cartoon that had caught my fancy.
A couple of years later, after the completion of development on A-J 3, I went back to revise the first two games and raise them to the level of A-J 3. I incorporated the second game’s much cleaner sprite into the first game. I adjusted most of the background tiles and some of the layout, added another level to the first game, and smoothed over some awkward concepts.
Although the first game made it through the upgrade well enough, after all the adjustments, Return wound up in pieces all over the hard drive. It was too much work to bring the game up to snuff, and I had long overwritten its original format, so I was stuck with a dissected husk of a game. I figured if anyone actually registered the first game, then that would motivate me to put all the pieces back together. Neither happened
In this updated version, 10 of 17 stages are complete and in place. An early demo included on the Game-Maker 3.0 CD-ROM illustrates the game's original shape and appearance.
| Previous | Current | Next |
|---|---|---|
| A-J's Quest | The Return of A-J | Zoom the Super Bear |
| A-J's Quest series | ||
Contents
Story[edit]
When the evil Prince Ostro tried to invade the town of Bearton with giant pretzels A-J Bear and his hedgehog, Hedge stopped him.
Ostro has escaped and Andrew-Jonathan has gotten together three of his friends to help him recapture him: Arthur Bruin, Freeport Grizzly, and Sasha Medvyed. Each has his own route, as they are vacationing in totally different places from one another. A-J, though, must be the one, once again, to destroy Ostro. Together, they can hopefully save the city again.
Instructions[edit]
Up, down, left, and right make A-J, Freeport, Sasha, or Arthur walk that way. Up-left and up-right (7 and 9 on the numerical keypad) make your character jump that way. Up launches the character upwards, and down makes him duck. When you tap the space bar, you attack with the most powerful weapon you've obtained, so far. The "B" key rolls a bomb toward an enemy if you've accuired any explosives.
The most powerful weapon is the flying disc. After that comes the slingshot. These have a limited supply of ammo, so you need to snag more, along the way. The third strongest is the wooden sword. The weakest weapon there is is the yo-yo.
Credits[edit]
GRAPHICS, SOUND, VOICE of A-J, and IDEA:
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
- Oliver Stone
- Seth Brown
- Recreational Software Designs
Archive history[edit]
The Return of A-J was retained as part of the archive from the game's inception. Complicating matters is the game's state of disassembly; on May 11th, 2011, an early demo version was retrieved from the Game-Maker 3.0 CD-ROM and uploaded to the Java Archive.
Availability[edit]
The demo version of this game was distributed in the shareware directory of the Game-Maker 3.0 CD-ROM. The full version has never been made available in any form.
Links[edit]
Interviews / Articles[edit]
Misc. Links[edit]
Downloads[edit]
- The Return of A-J (Demo) (547 kB)
