Thats right the Commodore 64 / Atari Era Video Game Classic, Jumpman, to Return Via Kickstarter Campaign.
It’s not often that game developers get to resurrect a classic that’s not seen a new commercial release in 30 years, but in the case of Jumpman, game developer Midnight Ryder Technologies is getting their chance with Jumpman Forever.
It’s been 30 years since Randy Glover’s video game classic, Jumpman, saw releases on Atari, Commodore, and ColecoVision platforms, but the game still maintains a small fan base after all those years.
“Jumpman is one of those games that’s remained unique enough that is still has a following,” says lead developer of Jumpman Forever, Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr. “It’s impressive to see any game remain in collective gamer memory after all that time.”
In 2000, Randy Glover provided rights to a few game developers to produce officially sanctioned Jumpman follow-up games, though only one developer was given the rights to do a commercial sequel. Originally titled Jumpman: 2049, Midnight Ryder Technologies unveiled the new tile “Jumpman Forever” as part of it’s Kickstarter effort. “Back in 2000, we were to the point where we released screenshots of the game, but, unfortunately, the project was canceled,” says Davis.
Now, 13 years later, Davis still receives emails asking if and when the planned Jumpman sequel would ship. “It’s sort of insane - I’ve been getting emails since 2001 from people who run across references to a new Jumpman game, wondering when we were going to release. With Ouya’s ‘Free The Games Fund’ matching what we raise - up to our goal amount- during our Kickstarer phase, it seemed like it was the right time to re-investigate the idea of doing the game.”
Davis says they’ve already spent quite a lot of effort on exploring what he refers to as the game’s “DNA” to produce a worthy sequel that meshes with the style and gameplay of the original game.
So far, Midnight Ryder Technologies seems to be on the right track - in the first three days of their Kickstarter campaign for Jumpman Forever, they’ve already raised 35% of their total goal.
We will be keeping an eye on this game in the coming months so remember to check back for the latest updates. In the meantime why not head over to the Kickstart page for info and help launch this great game.
Jumpman Forever Kickstarter Campaign: http://www.kickstarter.com/
