Made it

As can be seen from my updated list of medals, I've finally finished getting all of them.  I guess I did make it to the end; wasn't sure I would.

I'm still missing a couple of medals in my current record (three or four), so I'm curious to see what the game does, if anything, when all are reached.  I'm also curious how much longer I'll keep playing after getting to that point.  I didn't mention it, but I did manage to clear 10km finally (about 200 games after my post that mentioned just missing).

I also, today, finally managed to break my Stomper single run record (though I did kind of like it being at 1066; that's just such a critical year for the English language).  Didn't break it by a lot, but that record had held for about 4500 games, so it was nice to finally see progress there.  That record had lasted longer than my overall record, and far longer than my record for any of the other vehicles.

Anyway, I'm happy about that.  About time to go to sleep.  (I did finish Butcher's latest, to which I alluded in one of the linked posts.  I'll try to finish writing that up soon.  Good book; worth a read.)

A breakthrough?

Feeling a little better about my m4d sk177z (hah!) on jetpack joyride.  Since having to start over again on missions and such, I think I've been improving steadily (my average distance has been increasing), but not dramatically.  My longest game had only gone up by 1-200 meters (over 4000 games), and that was a little depressing.

I finally managed to nudge it rather more this morning (waiting around for a package); I just improved it by a bit more than a kilometer, which felt really good.  It would have felt a bit better if I could have managed a couple hundred more, and broken 10km, but it still felt quite good.  Interestingly, I did nothing else record-setting within the game; I did pretty well with each vehicle I got, but never close to a record with that vehicle.

Maybe I'll go back to reading Butcher's latest (very happy-making Christmas present), and savor the feeling a bit longer.

Oh, and a couple of notes on records I've never gotten around to writing down.  I recently confirmed that the Most Coins Collected in the profile not only includes those gotten via Final Spin, but even includes counterfeiter doubling.  Most Tokens Collected, by contrast, doesn't even include those from Final Spin.  Not sure if the contrast is a bug, or was a conscious design decision.  Definitely seems odd, regardless.

Jetpack vehicles

In all my articles on Jetpack Joyride, I've kind of been ignoring the elephant in the room. To whit, vehicles.

Some things are pretty obvious about vehicles: they make the game a lot easier, because you can't be killed while in a vehicle. They also improve your odds of getting more money (two free sets of coins when you get the vehicle, a third when you lose it. Plus, you can pretty easily get the big coin magnets) and spin tokens (nothing so specific here, but they seem to occur about twice as often when in a vehicle).

But what's let obvious is how they help/hinder various missions.

Certainly, as noted above, they all help with getting coins and tokens. But what else are they good for?

Well, none of them are any good for brushing the ceiling, walking, sliding on your face, or high fives. Also, none are good for avoiding coins (darned near impossible, when you have the magnet). None do anything for any of the missions involving buying anything, nor for using the Nerd Repellent.

Gravity Suit: this one is especially well suited for getting whole groups of coins (well, with the magnet), as the coin patterns it gets tend to have lots of little groups. This one is quite difficult for near misses of zappers and missiles, but can do both. For knocking over scientists, it is not very good; because of that, though, it is pretty decent for avoiding hurting scientists. For flashing lights, it's ok, and decent at going over zappers.

Bad As Hog: Near misses with missiles and brushes of flashing lights are impossible (well, with the exception that you can hit the very first light if you get Free Ride, and that ride is the Hog). It's very good for knocking over scientists (comparable to the stomper); for the same reasons, it's darned near impossible to avoid hurting scientists over any distance. Near misses of zappers are difficult. Really, the only thing this is very good at is covering distances (though that also means it isn't bad for collecting spin tokens). And it's so-so at going above zappers.

Crazy Freaking Teleporter: Godlike for covering distance and for flying over zappers. Terrible for near misses, though neither type is impossible. So-so for hitting flashing lights and for knocking over scientists. Pretty good for getting groups of coins, especially with the magnet. Also awesome for mission of avoiding touching floor or ceiling, as you can't do either in it.  It's also one of the best for avoiding hurting scientists, and the only one with which I have successfully avoided grabbing coins when I had the magnet.

Mr Cuddles: Very good for covering distance and hitting flashing lights. Not very good for knocking over scientists; hence, pretty good for avoiding hurting them. Decent, but not great, for near misses of both types. Pretty good for going over zappers.

Lil Stomper: (Unrelated: the name always makes me think of "Li'l Pepe", from Romancing the Stone.) Pretty good for near misses of both types, also for hitting flashing lights. Not bad for flying over zappers.  And, of course, the only one with which you can complete a mission by knocking over scientists.

Profit Bird: Best of the bunch for just about everything (except covering long distances; control gets wonky after a kilometer or so). Also not great for knocking over scientists, I suppose. But very easy for near misses of both types and hitting flashing lights (so easy, in fact, you can easily find yourself doing it accidentally). Suppose, too, not quite as good as the teleporter at going over zappers, but still better than any of the others.

So, that's the skinny (to the best of my knowledge) of how the various vehicles help and hurt accomplishing missions.  Good luck.

Further Joyriding

I've been playing a bit more Jetpack Joyride lately (to the tune of 3090 games and 7590km since I mentioned picking it up again). Haven't gotten all the medals, but I'm getting close.

Actually, it was kind of funny; I was at the local Apple Store with my in-laws, to help them with something. Having a few minutes on my hands, I played around with an ipad mini, and found a custom version of the game installed. Fun. The mini won't get me to go buy anything, but it's intriguing. I might buy one once they have a retina version available, particularly if my iPod Touch dies (it'd make a nice replacement for that).

I also played it again on a new iPhone at the store. It played a tiny bit differently. I'd wondered about the widescreen ratio, and the way that was handled was to keep the person a further from the left edge of the screen, so that the game stayed the same difficulty. Clever way to use the extra space, without making the game easier. Actually, I mis-spoke a minute ago. It looked a bit different, but it played identically.

I also figured out something the other day. You have a specific time period after teleporting, where you can't do it again. I thought that was just a game-balance thing, so you couldn't repeatedly teleport to get out of almost anything. That might be the effect, but I'm pretty sure the reason is because you teleport forward. So there's a short time where you stop moving forward, to get back to your original horizontal position on the screen. And I think that the time it takes to get back to that position is identical to the no-teleport time. Subtle, but interesting.

And I just want to say that the Profit Bird doesn't like me, lately. Last three times I've had the mission, 'Travel X Total meters in the Profit Bird'. Last time was 1250m, I got 1037m on my first run. Not too bad. The time before that: travel 500m, got 496m on first run. What are the odds that there would even be an obstruction there? The time before that: travel 1000m, got 995m on first run. Yeow! Only saving grace on that last one was that I got the Bird again that game.

Now, a small complaint: I'd really like to be able to get all the stats on the prior run (or, even, on the current run). The stats are obviously kept, so it'd be cool to be able to see them. Not a big deal, but it would be nice.

Oh, and a minor strategy note. I originally mentioned not liking the gravity belt, that I found it more disruptive than the shoes. I recognized, even then, it having potential for allowing one to get further, and I've since experimented with it. In fact, I rarely play without it nowadays (less than 10% of the time, I think).

Gadgeteering

Those playing a lot of Jetpack Joyride have probably noticed that certain gadget combinations have names. I've finally made a list of all of them. Here they are:

Air Barrys and Grav-Belt: High Mobility
Air Barrys and X-Ray Specs: Futuristic Fashion
Air Barrys and EZ-Dodge Missiles: Air Dodger
Nerd Repellent and X-Ray Specs: Nothing to See Here
Nerd Repellent and Free Ride: Disaster Averted
Nerd Repellent and Flash: Not So Lonely
Insta-ball and Grav-Belt: Serious Bounce
Insta-ball and Freeze: Just a Little Further
Insta-ball and Flying Pig: Fantastic Contraptions
Missile Jammer and EZ-Dodge Missiles: Mild Missiles
Missile Jammer and Dezapinator: Quality Control
Token Gift and Magnetic Tokens: Spin Doctor
Token Gift and Free Ride: Instant Satisfaction
Token Gift and Lucky Last: Beat the House
X-Ray Specs and Free Ride: Transport Tycoon
X-Ray Specs and Lucky Last: Fortune Teller
Gemology and Flying Pig: Glazed Ham
Gemology and Coin Magnet: Kaching
Gemology and Flash: Petty Cash
EZ-Dodge Missiles and Flying Pig: Miss Piggy
Magnetic Tokens and Coin Magnet: Magnetic Personality
Magnetic Tokens and Lucky Last: Great Odds
Flying Pig and Coin Magnet: Smash and Grab
Flying Pig and Flash: Odd Couple
Free Ride and Turbo Booster: Speedy Steakfries

So, mostly funny. Some seem fairly obvious, and some are quite clever. Regardless of what you think of any of the specifics, a cool idea to name them.

Also, to update an earlier post: it appears that one of the subsequent patches removed the ability to ignore missiles at high speeds.

And two extra tidbits on specific gadgets. It appears that doing a Free Start (either kind, and whether won or purchased) when you have the coin magnet gives you all coins before the end of the Free Start, not just those that you're close enough to attract. Oh, and yes, that's even true when you're also using Gemology. It isn't the case with Final Blasts (again, purchased or won), although you do get some amusing eye candy when you are close enough to attract them.

The other involves the Nerd Repellent. While it does turn off Flashing Lights, that part of it is inactive if you have a Flashing Lights mission. Even to the point of the Lights being on at the start of a game, and turning off when you finish the mission. I would imagine the same is true of High Fives, but I've never tested that one.

Update: It turns out that High Fives do not work with Nerd Repellent at all.  There's also one oddity with flashing lights and NR.  The first flashing light doesn't light up, but still gives the visual effect of having been touched, when NR is active and you have that mission.  Weird.  Bug, I guess, but not a big one.

Gadget Central

I mentioned, previously, that the new version of Jetpack Joyride has a feature called gadgets. I've now had a little time to play with them, and have a few thoughts.

Air Barrys: I like these. When you touch the screen while walking, you jump into the air very quickly, high enough to jump over any obstacle (I think). They're fantastic for any mission involving high fives or walking. They're probably also awesome for 'go Xm without using the machine-gun jetpack', if you only have that jetpack, although I haven't tried that.

Nerd Repellant: Graphically amusing (all scientists disappear, flashing lights are turned off, and tumbleweeds blow across the bottom of the screen), but useless. Annoying that this seems to be the only gadget required by a mission.

Insta-ball: Meh. Get a bit more distance. Think I've only used this one once.

Gravity Belt: Would seem the converse of the Air Barrys, but I find them really annoying. The changing physics (falling faster) makes the whole game play differently, so they hurt more than help. Annoying side effect: you can knock over scientists by falling, forcing failure on 'go X distance without harming scientists' missions.

Missile Jammer: Looks like it makes a certain percentage of missiles fail. Seems pretty useless, but this is the only one I haven't played with at all.

Token Gift: Get a free Token at the start of the game. Nice, useful. I use it on most missions that require finding a certain number of tokens (or certain number of spin wins).

Freeze-o-matic: Meh. Get fair bit of extra distance the first time you hit the deck. Would strongly contemplate using them if they worked more than once (after a blast or after dying from a second chance).

X-Ray Specs: Visually cool, but mostly useless. Only real use I can see is if you need a certain vehicle for a mission, but are mostly focused on another mission that's hurt by having a vehicle (such as X high fives). Even then, I think they're pretty iffy.

Gemology: Small percentage of coins are turned into gems, which are worth more (although I haven't yet worked out how much more; I've forgotten how big most of the coin groups are, making it difficult to calculate). Generally useful.

Ezy-dodge Missiles: Missiles move much more slowly. I think there might also be a side effect of a larger proximity for near-missile calculation, but that's totally a guess. I use them occasionally for near-missile missions, but am not thrilled with them.

Magnetic Tokens: Tokens are attracted to you, and thus, much easier to get. They're less likely to kill you, so it's a generally useful gadget, but I think less useful than many others. I've used this only a few times.

Flying Pig: A piggy bank, at random intervals (which can be close to zero; I've seen two on the screen at once a couple of times) appears, scattering coins. If you run into it (or it gets plowed by a missile, which is awesome), it drops a load of coins. I use it occasionally, generally in tandem with the coin magnet.

Free Ride: Start the game (unless you "won" a head start the previous game, in which case it appears as soon as your head start wears off) in a vehicle. Allows the 'Another Way In' Achievement (I think only if you start with the teleporter, although I haven't paid close enough attention to be positive about that). Doesn't allow you to use a bought head start. This is one that I use all the time.

Coin Magnet: Just like a magnetic vehicle, except without the vehicle, and not as strong. Very generally useful. This is my 'go to' option when I don't need anything specific.

Lucky Last: You win on your final 'final chance' spin. I'd like this better if it were possible to have it happen more than once (ie: if the final spin is a blast that hits another token, or gives a second chance that yields one or more tokens). As it is, I only use it when I have a mission based on number of times winning final spin. Even then, I think it's rather iffy.

Flash: A dog runs along the floor, knocking over scientists and picking up coins (sometimes jumping for them). Cool to watch, but not especially useful.

Dezapinator: Has a small chance (one in ten, maybe? Maybe even less) of disabling any zapper. This is another generally useful one that I use fairly often when I don't have two other, specific needs (or have a mission like 'fly over X zappers'; if they're disabled, flying over doesn't count).

Turbo Boost: Every so often (once every 1500m or so, I think) a little machine will fly out from behind you, and leave three rings in the air in front of you. These rings will blow up missiles, disable zappers, and make you go faster for a bit. I like this one, but it does make a bad distraction sometimes. Mostly gets up-marks, though.

That's all of them, and they're enabled in groups of three. The first group is immediately available, and each other group is enabled, in order, when you buy two more gadgets. So you need to buy ten before the last three are available.

I go back and forth over whether I like them or not. Choosing them is strategically interesting, but almost all of them change the way you play. They do have interesting effects, though, and go a long ways towards making some missions easier (or harder, come to that).

Joooyyy-riding across the universe...

Boldly going forward 'cause we can't find reverse..

I wonder how well the rest of that song would work...

Anyway, I stopped playing Jetpack Joyride a while ago, because my iPhone lost the record of all the missions I'd accomplished on it (over half of them).

But after some updates, and finishing Tiny Tower, I decided to take a look at it again. And it looked different before it even started up, as the loading screen had some silly status messages (I think one of them was something like 'Growing 5 o'clock Shadow'). And going to the stash had another big difference, as it had something called Gadgets.

I still don't know about all of the gadgets, although I immediately played with a bunch of them. Essentially, you can equip up to two of them, and each one gives you some advantage. An ability to jump a certain height, which might be good in a first pas through the game, or bouncing further than usual upon dying, getting additional coins, breaking a certain percentage of zappers, etc.

I don't yet know a whole lot about them, but they're rather intriguing. I did note that quite a few of them are extremely good for particular missions.

I'm still trying to get used to the play of the game again, though. But it's still fun to play. Most importantly, I hope they fixed the bug(s) that caused losing mision progress. I'll probably talk about the game a bit more later.

Ignore the missile? Ignore the missile

I almost forgot; I've been meaning to post this for a while. It seems that, in Jetpack Joyride, somewhere between 2500 and 3500m in, when not in a vehicle, missiles effectively stop being able to hit you. I think it might still be theoretically possible for them to hit you, but I've been unable to make it happen. The downside to it is that it doesn't seem possible to get a near-miss, either. In fact, that's how I first noticed it, when trying to get near misses. I'd not quite manage to get myself in the right position, and the missile appeared to go right through me.

Fun to watch.

Anyone have a more specific idea of where the cut-off is? And should this be considered a bug, or a feature?

Free Joyriding, today

Almost forgot to post it, but today (until midnight pacific time, maybe?) Jetpack Joyride is free. That is all.

Reconfirmation

Accidentally ran the iPad out of juice again yesterday. Same result as before.

Amusingly, got quite a run playing tonight, where I got the coin doubler like eight out of ten games. Have a feeling I'm not going to be happy when the other shoe drops, and I get a run like that of head starts. (Although one of the good things that it took me a bit to notice is that, with the newer missions, the head start isn't nearly as annoying. Not that it isn't frequently annoying, but there are a number of missions (fly above X zappers, zig-zag, don't hurt scientist for X meters, don't touch floor or ceiling for X meters) where it actually helps.)

Jetpack annoyance

To avoid getting duplicate medals all the time on my ipad (since I prefer playing on it, but the iPhone is the one with 62 missions accomplished), I tried restoring a backup from my iPhone to my iPad, and playing from there. That worked reasonably well, except that I found that there's a bit of copy protection in there: I wasn't able to buy anything after doing the copy. So you can't do a full set of missions after that; you'll inevitably get stuck when you get to the 'buy an item from the stash' mission. Very annoying.

Not sure what I'm going to end up doing about it.

New day, new bug

Ok, extreme irritation here. I was playing Jetpack Joyride again this evening when it crashed and dumped me out to the iOS main screen (this was on my iPhone, not my iPad). Well, that's happened before; not with the latest release, but it's happened. So, return to the program a bit later, and it's at the main game screen. Ok, that might not be unexpected, what mission was I on, again?

The three missions look familiar: reach 500m w/o collecting coins, play 3 games, collect 5 vehicles. Ok, that's not good. Go to the stash. Still have my (485k) coins and upgraded outfits, jetpacks, and vehicles. Ok, that's good. What about badges? Yep, as I suspected, back to zero. Lost badge #013 before I could record it (Badge of Good Luck, maybe?), plus my other 70-ish badges I'd gotten on this device. Grrr...

Guess I'm going to have to restore from backup, and hope it gets things right.

Update: Well, I lost two badges (079 and 013), but the restore got everything else right. Irritating, but I'll live with it, I guess. Oh, and now I see that I managed not to lose the app I'd bought earlier today on the phone. Yay for things going as they should.

Bug, worse

The power off bug on the iPad is even worse than I thought. It happened again last night, when the battery died while I was sleeping. What really irritates me about it is that I had quit the game entirely before going to sleep. Not sure where that leaves things, as far as who is driving the bug.

It's very frustrating, though, as I'm playing hugely better on the iPad than on the iPhone, of late (not sure why, but my average distance per game is close to double). My record longest is also significantly longer (8900 vs 6800, IIRC), but my longest distance in a single run of a vehicle is longer on the iPhone for five of the six vehicles.

Bug, confirmed

Well, it appears that the bug that reset my missions and such recently is reproducible. At least, I ran the battery down to zero again yesterday while playing, and everything except possessions and coin count was lost again.

This is especially annoying as I had beaten my personal best again on the iPad (not by a lot; something like 8400 instead of 8100, but it's still irritating). At least I hadn't put any effort into achievements since the first reset.

Anyway, if you have an iPad 2 (this has never happened with my iPhone, although I haven't run that down since the latest upgrade), even with the latest version of the game, it looks like you better not run the battery all the way down. And now I've checked; syncing the iPad right afterwards doesn't help either.

The picture is the profile page, afterwards. Note the picture of the avatar, the coin count, and the best score. Time to get in touch with Halfbrick, I guess.

Full, ordered list old jetpack missions

In my shorthand, though it should make sense if you've played before.

play 3 (1)
reach 500m, no coins (1)
collect 5 vehicles (2)
collect 2 tokens (1)
10 hi-fives, 1 game (1)
slide 50m on face (2)
1500 coins (1)
10 lights,1 (1)
smash 5 (1)
buy item (2)
get stomper x3 (1)
cash 3 tokens (1)
finish 3-400m (2)
near missile (2)
200 coins,1 (1)
reach 500m, no veh (2)
travel 3km (1)
use head start (2)
travel 750m hog (2)
5 tokens (1)
10 near misses (1)
gravity 30 (1)
300m on foot,1 (2)
5 spin prizes (3)
finish 5-600m (1)
300 coins,1 (2)
'porter 300m,1 (1)
3 tokens,1 (2)
15 hi-fives,1 (2)
reach 1km, no coins (2)
final blast (3)
5 near missile (2)
rub roof 300m,1 (2)
2km in vehicle (1)
reach 1.5km (2)
250m hog,1 (1)
10 tokens (2)
75 hi-five (3)
500m 'porter,1 (3)
500 coins,1 (2)
1km on foot (2)
15 lights,1 (1)
1km w/o mg pack (3)
300m bird,1 (2)
1-1.1km (2)
10 near miss,1 (2)
knock down 25 w/stomper (3)
rub roof 1km (2)
2500 coins (2)
500-550m (3)
300m gravity,1 (2)
15 tokens (3)
smash 10 (1)
50 lights (2)
4 tokens,1 (3)
1200m 'porter (2)
400m stomper,1 (2)
100 near miss (3)
gravity 50 (1)
750 coins,1 (3)
25 hi-five,1 (2)
1500m no vehicle (2)
1750m no coins (3)

And it seems that my iPad went back to the new missions after completing that set. Maybe they kept that set for a first pass through the game?

Jet-ing strangeness

Played Jetpack Joyride earlier on my iPad. Battery died while playing. Ok, nothing unusual (well, hadn't happened before on iPad, I think, but many times on iPhone).

After it charged, I brought the game back up, and it had lost almost all of my stats. But it still had my items and my coins. Ok, that's weird. Weirder, while I was looking through the stash, I saw several achievement indicators go across the top of the screen.

Wait, which mission was I on? Brought up the mission list. It was the first three missions from the original game. Huh. But didn't I see...?

Yep, I saw the latest additions to the game in the Stash (Santa suit, etc).

So I'm not sure what's going on. Just for grins, I'm playing the original mission set, so I'll be able to post them again, in order, with difficulty levels for all of them. Soon.

Update: I forgot to mention; I don't mind losing most of what was lost. If the coins/possessions had been lost, I'd have been a lot more upset. All that I miss are a few of the achievements that were tough (germaphobe, in particular, but also tee hee two (now a secret achievement?) and bullseye), my longest run (was over 8km, and I've only gotten over 7km three or so times), and the list of tokens (but only because my odds of getting duplicates have now gone up).

Second update: Just noticed that the nice icons aren't (all?) there, as well.

Jetpack Medals

I still don't have a complete list, but I thought I'd list the medals that I have (yes, the names are predefined, they aren't randomly generated. I have a couple of them on more than one device). I'll probably update this as I get more.

001: Lonely Badge of Singularity (final update)
002: Double Badge of Rainbows (Update)
003: Sleepy Badge of Naps
004: Quadruple Badge of Bypass (Update)
005: Funky Badge of Jazz
006: Delicious Badge of Custard (Update)
007: Not So Lucky Badge
008: Prestigious Badge of Bacon
009: Sparkly Badge of Learning (Update)
010: New Badge of Double Digits (Update)
011: Annual Badge of Celebration (Update)
012: Dogs Badge of Walks
013: Super Lucky Badge (Update)
014: Adventurous Badge of Travel (Update)
015: Shiny Badge of Honour (Update)
016: Shiny Badge of Completion
017: Shiny Badge of Achievement
018: Momentous Badge of Age
019: Shiny Badge of Excellence (Update)
020: Shiny Badge of Courage (Update)
021: Tipsy Badge of Celebration
022: Shiny Badge of Persistence
023: Shiny Badge of Resilience
024: Shiny Badge of Skill
025: Shiny Badge of Accomplishment
026: Shiny Badge of Dexterity
027: Shiny Badge of Technique
028: Shiny Badge of Prowess (Update)
029: Shiny Badge of Finesse
030: Shiny Badge of Aptitude
031: Shiny Badge of Talent (Update)
032: Shiny Badge of Sparkles
033: Shiny Badge of Greatness
034: Golden Frothing Badge
035: Shiny Badge of Deliciousness (Update)
036: Shiny Badge of Curiosity (final update)
037: Shiny Badge of Insight (Update)
038: Shiny Badge of Love
039: Shiny Badge of Creativity
040: Crisis Badge of Midlife
041: Shiny Badge of Brilliance (Update)
042: Badge of Meaning
043: Shiny Badge of Delight (Update)
044: Shiny Badge of Superiority (Update)
045: Great Badge of Honor (final update)
046: Great Badge of Completion (Update)
047: Great Badge of Achievement
048: Great Badge of Excellence
049: Great Badge of Courage
050: Great Badge of Persistence
051: Great Badge of Resilience (Update)
052: Great Badge of Skill
053: Great Badge of Accomplishment
054: Great Badge of Dexterity (Update)
055: Ominous Badge of Assassination
056: Great Badge of Technique
057: Great Badge of Prowess
058: Great Badge of Finesse (Update)
059: Great Badge of Aptitude (Update)
060: Great Badge of Talent
061: Great Badge of Sparkles (Update)
062: Great Badge of Greatness (Update)
063: Great Badge of Deliciousness (Update)
064: Great Badge of Curiosity
065: Great Badge of Inspiration (Update)
066: Great Badge of Love (Update)
067: Great Badge of Creativity
068: Great Badge of Brilliance (Update)
069: Racy Badge of Controversy (Update)
070: Great Badge of Delight (Update)
071: Great Badge of Superiority (Update)
072: Special Badge of Honour (Update)
073: Special Badge of Completion
074: Special Badge of Achievement (Update)
075: Special Badge of Excellence
076: Special Badge of Courage (Update)
077: Special Badge of Persistence (Update)
078: Special Badge of Resilience
079: Special Badge of Skill (Update)
080: Special Badge of Accomplishment
081: Special Badge of Dexterity
082: Special Badge of Technique (Update)
083: Special Badge of Prowess (Update)
084: Best Badge of Birth (Update)
085: Special Badge of Finesse
086: Funny Green Badge (Update)
087: Special Badge of Aptitude
088: Special Badge of Talent
089: Special Badge of Sparkles (Update)
090: Special Badge of Greatness (Update)
091: Special Badge of Deliciousness
092: Special Badge of Curiosity
093: Special Badge of Inspiration
094: Special Badge of Love
095: Special Badge of Creativity (Update)
096: Special Badge of Brilliance
097: Special Badge of Delight (Update)
098: Special Badge of Superiority (Update)
099: Devastating Badge of Bradman
100: Badge of the Centurion
101: Shiny Badge of Spotted Dogs
102: Awesome Badge of Awesomeness (Update)
103: Heroic Badge of Heroes (Update)
104: Glorious Badge of Glory
105: Wonderful Badge of Wonder (Update)
106: Great Badge of Greatness (Update)
107: Amazing Badge of Amazement (Update)
108: Familiar Badge of Imagery
109: Brave Badge of Bravery (Update)
110: Lucky Badge of Luck (Update)
111: Prestigious Badge of Prestige
112: Honourable Badge of Honour (Update)
113: Warm Badge of Summer (final update)
114: Freezing Badge of Winter (Update)
115: Historic Badge of Fruit (Update)
116: Historic Badge of Sensei (Update)
117: Historic Badge of Raskullyness
118: Historic Badge of Zombies
119: Historic Badge of Echoes (Update)
120: Historic Badge of Racing Rockets (Update)
121: Historic Badge of Blasting Off (Update)
122: Woody's Badge of Programming (Update)
123: Sierra's Badge of Art
124: Muscat's Badge of Design
125: Last Badge of the Collection(?)

And yes, that last one does have the question mark in the game. I didn't add it.

And apparently my early guesses about the names were wrong. At first I thought it was done mad lib-style, as <ADJ> Badge of <Noun>, but you can see that isn't totally the case. Later, I thought they chose all of the <ADJ> badges to be sequential, but that also isn't true. It looks like someone took the time to individually name all of them. That must have been quite the pain.

So,
sixty-eight seventy-three seventy-five
eighty ninety-one 115 125 down, if I'm counting right, and fifty-seven fifty-two fifty forty-five thirty-four ten none to go. Dunno if I'll keep playing long enough to get there, but that's the results of
7900km11000km of progress over about
43004950 games (Update: not sure about total distance or total games anymore, after losing what was my primary game log.  I'm sure there are at least 84300 more games now, but I'd be guessing at anything more specific).Feel free to add any others in the comments, and I'll update the main list.

Other update: Fixed some formatting after the list, it should now make more sense.

Later update: Had miscounted at the beginning, but now have an accurate count.

Thoughts on old Jetpacking

I mentioned that there were originally 62 missions arranged with 15 levels of progress in Jetpack Joyride. I meant to put together a list of them, so I'll put that at the end of this post. I should point out, though, that my list isn't in order; I never got around to sorting it.

And I should mention two small downsides to the new approach of picking missions of the game. Both are results of random selection: you can get a mission more than once, and there's no synergy between missions. To expand on the latter point, in the old set, you'd generally end up with relatively compatible missions at one time (and, I think, the better you were as a player, the more true this was). With the current picking, it's impossible to determine. Neither of these is a big deal, but they're slightly annoying.

One other bit of oddness comes out of the randomness (although it's possible that this one results from upgrading to the newest version (a much smaller upgrade, that mostly just adds some Christmas window-dressing and better mission icons) in the middle of the set of missions). Last time, I ended up with two difficulty stars left over after I completed the Barry level. We'll see if that repeats; it was odd. And no, those two stars did not carry over into the next mission set.

And one more note on the new mission set. I ran into one last night that says something like 'Travel 500m without touching floor or ceiling'. Unlike most missions with similar phrasing, this one can be done anywhere in the game, not just to start the game.

And one final thing on the big upgrade: there's also a new achievement, Dragon Fruit. Equip the Fruit Jetpack, and find Mr Cuddles.

Anyway, on to the list of all 62 original missions (in shorthand) with difficulty where I remember it:
Play three games (1)
Knock a hole in the wall five times (1)
ditto, 10 times (1)
Slide 50m on your face (2)
Fly 500m w/o coins (1)
ditto, 1km (2)
ditto, 1750m (3)
Travel 500m w/o vehicle (1)
ditto, 1km (2)
ditto, 1.5km (2)
Collect five vehicles (2)
Collect 2 spin tokens in one game (1)
ditto, 3 (2)
ditto, 4 (3)
Collect 200 coins in one game (1)
ditto, 300
ditto, 400
ditto, 750 (3)
Collect 1500 coins (1)
ditto, 2500
Collect 5 tokens (1)
ditto, 10 (2)
ditto, 15 (3)
Travel 300m in stomper, one run
ditto, teleporter
ditto, gravity suit
ditto, profit bird
Travel 250m on hog, one run
Travel 400m in stomper, one run
Travel 500m in teleporter, one run
Travel 2km in vehicle
Travel 1200m in teleporter (3)
Travel 750m on hog
Change gravity 30 times, one run (1)
ditto, 50 (1)
Knock down 25 scientists
Collect stomper 3 times
Cash in three spin tokens (1)
Win prize in final spin, 5 times (3)
Use bought head start (2)
Use bought final blast (3)
But something from stash (2) [can be another mission]
Travel 1km w/o machine gun jetpack
Reach 1500m
Near miss from missile
five of them
Ten near misses from zappers
ditto, in one game
and 100 (not one game)
75 high fives
10, one game
15, one game
25, one game
Brush 50 flashing lights
15, one game
Finish between 500 & 600
300-400 (1)
1000-1100
500-550
Rub roof 1000m
300, one game
Walk 1000m
300, one game

Jetpack addenda

I mentioned that missions have become fluid. In a minute, I'll give the list of missions for my second pass through. But I forgot to mention a couple of other tweaks. The odds on final spins seem to have changed a bit (I say seem to have, because it could just be normal, random variation); added tokens and head starts seem more likely (the former by a lot, the latter by a bit).

In general, the game also seems a bit more difficult. Part of that is the greenhouse area, just because of the color scheme (the yellow zappers don't stand out as much as against the other backgrounds). I thought, perhaps, that threats might have gotten a touch closer together, but now I think that probably isn't the case. I suspect there might be slightly fewer horizontal zappers, though (they're less dangerous than the vertical or diagonal ones). But I'm not completely sure. I do know that I'm not doing as well.

Hmm. I seem not to have copied down all of the missions the second time, so I'll just mention some of the ones I hadn't seen before:

Travel 450m w/o harming scientists (2)
ditto, 700m (3)
70 high fives (3)
ditto, 55 (2)
20 flashing lights in one game (3)
1400m on hog (3)
275 coins in one game (2)
9 tokens (3)
1200, no coins (2)
3 groups of coins in one game (3)
reach 1750m (2)
reach 2400 (3)
travel 8km (forgot to copy down difficulty)

Joyriding on jetpacks...

I've been playing Halfbrick's Jetpack Joyride for quite a while now. I'm not great at it, as my best game is a little over 7km, but I have played all of the missions over fifty times.

Well, they decided to upgrade a couple of days ago, and this was a much bigger upgrade than any of the previous ones. Previously, "winning" consisted of going through 62 missions (you can solve up to three of them in one game) of varying difficulty.

In this upgrade, there were some cosmetic changes (most notably, adding a greenhouse section to the previous corridor, lab, warehouse, and aquatic areas).

But the big change was to the mission set, which had not been modified in previous releases.

My first time through, here are the missions I went through:

Go 250m in Lil Stomper (1 star)
Go 500m without collecting any coins (1)
Brush by 50 flashing lights (2)
Collect 2 spin tokens in one game (1)
Get 5 high-fives from scientists in one game (1)
Finish a game in 500-600m (1)
Fly over 50 zappers [it says, in one game, but it isn't] (2)
Smash the wall 5 times (1)
Destroy the profit bird (1)
Reach 900m w/o machine-gun jetpack (3)
3 Near misses from missiles (1)
Collect 300 coins in one game (2)
Travel 250m on foot in one game (1)
Get 100 high-fives from scientists (3)
Travel 150m in Mr Cuddles in one run (1)
Collect 7 spin tokens (2)
Travel 750m without collecting any coins (1)
Brush 12 flashing lights in one game (2)
Fly over 90 zappers [again, it says 'in one game', but doesn't mean it] (3)
Destroy Crazy Freakin' Teleporter 5 times (2)
Play 10 games (2)
Rub roof for 300m in one game (2)
3 Near-missiles, one game (3)
Buy item from stash (2)
Collect 3 tokens in one game (2)
Travel 350m w/o hurting scientists (2)
Go 4km (1)
Travel 350m in Lil Stomper, one run (2)
Have 10 near misses with zappers (1)
Travel 1000m w/o machine-gun jetpack (3)
Get 10 high-fives in one game (1)
Get 7 groups of coins [this is even easier than it sounds] (3)
Travel 400m on foot in one game (1)
Win 7 prizes in final spin (3)
Destroy Hog (1)
Brush 15 lights in one game (2)
Go 6km (2)
Rub roof for 500m in one game (2)
4 Near-missile (2)
30 high-fives in one game (3)
Go 1100m w/o collecting coins (2)
Go 300m in profit bird in one run (2)
Buy and use final blast (3)
Fly over 100 zappers [ditto] (3)
Smash wall 8 times (1)
Collect 1000 coins (2)
Travel 1250 on foot (2)
Destroy Gravity Suit 3 times (2)
Brush 17 lights, one game (3)
35 high-fives, one game (3)
Finish 1000-1100m (2)
Rub roof 1000m (2)
Collect 4 tokens in one game (3)
5 Near-missiles (3)
Travel 1100 w/o machine-gun jetpack (3)
Travel 1750m on Mr Cuddles (3)
Fly over 25 zappers, one game {and this time they mean it] (3)
Travel 1750m w/o collecting coins (3)

A couple of things to note here: lots of new missions and there are fewer than 62. A bigger surprise awaited the second time through. The missions changed, although I'll detail it more later.