Month: January 2011

As you may remember, an early version of Spectrum Spelunker was the second place winner in Eegra’s Game-Makin’ Shindig back in 2008. At the time, I offered to make a background for a future version of the game, which Tim Jenkins (the project’s coordinator) took me up on. Then, of course, I spent two years not doing it, until recently Tim got back to me with a deadline. That usually helps.

(Click on any of those for the full-sized version.)

Tim’s specifications were fairly simple: Three layers; layers must tile/repeat horizontally; fairly abstract; no solid black outlines; four different colour schemes if I could be bothered.

This background is for the ‘Time Attack’ mode, so I wanted to suggest the feeling of time passing, but not using cheap, trite images like clocks floating around or some such. (There’s an hourglass in there, but somehow I’ve forgiven myself.) I also wanted to do something clever with the game’s parallax scrolling. Hence, the phases of the moon passing through the ‘face’ of the central monolith, when the game is in motion. The monoliths themselves hopefully evoke something vaguely ancient and time-y, and at the same time, they might seem to resemble pendulums or other tiny, cog-like clock parts.

I haven’t actually seen my background in action, yet! When there’s a video available, I’ll update this post.

UPDATE: At last, the official trailer for Spectrum Spelunker. You can see my background in action, a bit, as well as all the other backgrounds, a bit.

You can buy the new version of Spectrum Spelunker at the Mac App Store, right now. I believe a Windows version is forthcoming! Stay tuned. There’s also a (quite sexy) soundtrack available here. I listened to the Time Attack music while working on the background. I also listened to empty-headed anime girls singing twinkly Sex Pistols songs. So… there you go.