The History of Nik Jam Violator (1999-Present)
1999 - Around this time, I was playing with the idea of making a Vitalize! game, I wanted to make an adventure game similar to 2D Zelda games, using music I heard on BlazeFire radio. The game would be called, Nik Jam Vitalize Adventure. I tried to make a 2D Nik Jam sprite, and while at the time I thought I did a good job, the feedback was totally negative, I didn't know why, I thought it was good.. of course now I see the truth.
How did I ever think that was good?
Laziness, and the negative feedback resulted in cancellation of the game.
Early 2001- While working on Exciter, I thought of making a game called "Violator", this was supposed to be A Sonic game, but after thinking about NJVA. I decided I would make a new game called Nik Jam Violator, that would try to be like NJVA only with good graphics. After somewhat forcing Matrixx Hedgehog (a sprite editor who was famous for editing Sonic Crackers sprites to make whatever he wants), to make an edit of Nik Jam. Violator could start. I worked on a demo immediately.
September 9 2001 - SAGE 3 started, and the demo was up, barely anyone played it, but the people who did said it was very hard. For some reason or another, in 2002, it was cancelled. And restarted.
The game was originally going to be a 5 dungeon Adventure RPG, with collecting,
Action battling, and an overworld, much like the current NJV except without the
overworld. The demo had training mode, with 5 tough levels, with 5 lives, and
you had to beat all 5 of them, it was not easy at all, even I couldn't do it
easily.
Early 2002 - An easier game was created, with infinite lives, 5+ simple levels, no major overworld, just a Beat one level get to the next kind of thing. One level was created, and was released at March 2002 SAGE.
September 2002 - At one of the biggest SAGES in SFGHQ history, a new demo was created, with the same levels in the current one, except with an older engine.
September 2003 - After SAGE was over, and I had nothing released, I decided to continue Nik Jam Violator. I realize that there are some stuff wrong with the game, and I fix it. I also revisit the 2001 Violator, and realize how much better it was. So I implemented some stuff into the final game, now you do have lives, Hard and Very Hard mode was created (none of these are in the demo), and more SFX and graphics were created. Now the game was really playable, but since it was done after SAGE, I decided not to release it until this SAGE with a new demo.
March 2004 - The demo is released, the other levels will be worked on now.
September 2004 - I added a money feature, you can use it to buy levels for Exciter and Mario for the Masses. (not yet though) More Nik Jam voice acting.. The Beach level is still being worked on.
April/May 2007 - For some reason or another this game was put on permanent hiatus along with Exciter and Mario for the Masses. But recently I decided to continue this game (but not the other two just yet), thinking it had all the necessary tools to be finished. I added some new features. For example, now there are stations where you can collect Emeralds, Rubies, and Sapphires if you're running short (To prevent one from being unable to pass an Emerald-mandatory area when they ran out and all available ones were collected) as well as some other cool stuff. The Beach level is still not finished... A new level, Carnival Night, was created in 2005 to celebrate my 18th birthday, but I never released it. It will be released as an unlockable. Hopefully by SAGE 2007 I will have finished the game. In addition, all the levels from Nik Jam Vitalize Adventure, Sonik RPG (another unreleased project I made around the same time) and certainly the original Nik Jam Violator may be remade and released as unlockables.
May
27/28 2007- Finally finished Flamme Beach: Five years after the completion of
Ash Forest, Fire Castle, Jam Ocean and Ancient Ruins, four years after the
completion of Nik Jam the SAGE 0, three years since Nik Jam the SAGE Rescue
Mission was released and two years since the completion of Carnival Night.
July/August
2008 – After another hiatus I finished Stardust Volcano. All the levels
are done but now I have to complete the final boss, and the overworld hub.
It’s going to be tough to get this done by SAGE.
August
17, 2008: Nik Jam Violator is released to the public in full! After 7 years in
the making!