Jump 1.4: BGM, In-App Updates, Backlog, The Spining, and more!

The new version of Jump is here with lots of new additions and bug fixes. I've added in-app updates which hopefully will work (we'll see from the next version!) so for those of you who are leaving after this month, you should be able to continue to get free updates forever! I'll release a video tomorrow about all these new features and will put out new videos here after every update so maybe that's one reason to stay subcribed? 😆 I've also got a really exciting new app coming next week too!

What's New:

Music: Add your own music to the new folder in Jump/Music or select tracks in the app. You can have one song throughout the whole app, a different song for the Home page (I plan on really fleshing out the Home page in the future to make it truly feel like home), and add music per-system as well if you want the Wii Shop theme on Wii for example. But actually, it goes much deeper than that. If you create folders inside Jump/Art for each system and add tracks there, it'll play through all those tracks. For example, if you create Jump/Art/gba and fill it up with 10 songs, it'll play through all ten of them when you are hovering over GBA games. Currently it'll play them alphabetically on a loop - no shuffle option yet. I'd like to add that later. And to take it one step further, if you name a track the exact same name as a ROM file, it'll play that track when you hover over that ROM. So if you want the Lavendar Town theme to play whenever you hover over Pokemon Red, and your Pokemon Red name is exactly 'Pokemon - Red Version (USA, Europe).gb' make sure your Lavendar Town theme music file is named exactly 'Pokemon - Red Version (USA, Europe).mp3' and it'll play whenever you hover over Pokemon Red. This is how you can get a custom song or sound for every game. You could download only Mario's 'Woo hoo!' sound effect and save it as an mp3 with the same name as your Mario game and have it play whenever you hover that for example. I'll work on this more and I'm sure there'll be issues and bugs as it's new but have fun with it! Currently this setting is under Settings -> Look which I realise doesn't make sense but I'll organise the settings menu better in a future update!

Backlog: There's now a new section in jump called Backlog, designed as a way for you to make a note of which games you are playing, wishlist the games you wish to play, and mark those you've finished. You can select any game in Jump and choose Backlog then choose its current status. It'll then appear in the Backlog section which is, by default, on the right side next to Android games. You can of course hold your finger down on Backlog and drag it somewhere else. You get all the usual views for your games: Grid, Shelf, Tower, Case. You can also add games directly from within the Backlog like you can in Collections. Backlog settings are in Settings -> Look. You can customize how the marks look, where they appear, and even cutomize their icons and colours to really match your own style! You can assign a hotkey to the Backlog page in Settings -> Backup & about -> Controls & buttons. You can also export your backlog in 'Settings -> Backup & about -> Export the backlog' which will create a CSV file you can use to take your backlog with you anywhere so you never forget it! The regular 'Export to a file' backup will also carry your Backlog now too if 'Library details' is checked. I'm trying to really ease the transition between handhelds as much as possible (my new app will help with this greatly!)

Kids mode: There is now a Kids Mode / Partner Mode / Untrustworthy Friend Mode, however you want to call it. Go to Settings -> Kids Mode, set a pin code and lock Jump. Now no settings can be changed. The only thing that can be altered is games can be added or removed from Favorites (should I add an option to disable that? In case they delete all your favorites? 😂) Nothing can be edited, no settings can be changed, all the person can do is play games. You can still swipe from the top of the screen to access the rest of Android (should I add an option to lock that too? 🤔) Please remember your pin code! If you forget it, you should wipe Jump's storage through Android's app settings.

Time and battery: For users who are using Jump as their Android home screen and don't want to have to swipe down from the top of the screen or otherwise interact with stock Android at all, the time, battery indicator and battery percentage can now be displayed in Jump! Go to Settings -> Look and scroll down to find Time And Battery to play with these settings.

The Spining: I call this new update 'The Spining'.

The most popular view in Jump is the spine view. I've never used another frontend that uses spine view, and there is a reason for that. Spines are notoriously difficult to find. If you have any good resources, please get in touch! Until then, I've spent a lot of the past week working on templates for games that don't yet have spines. On the top shelf in the picture above you can see the previous template for games that didn't have any spine art: just a simple colour that should vaguely resemble the device and the name written on the spine. Underneath you can see the new version. I took some good spine images, used Photoshop to erase the titles to get a blank canvas, and then wrote a script which wrote the name of all the games on the spine using databases of available games. But that wasn't good enough. Users with misspelled games, ROM hacks, or rare unverified games still won't have any spine. So I took it a step further and actually implemented the template creation directly into Jump itself. Now, if you have any game in your library that doesn't have a proper spine from the art library yet, Jump will automatically generate a spine for you using these new templates. You can see in the screenshot above that some spines have logos on them - I realised that I can download logo packs and put them on spines instead of the game titles and that may look better. If that's a popular decision, I'll add more. Also, you may notice and be aware that there are 3 different spine variants for the Mega Drive. Mega Drive blue, Mega Drive black and the red Genesis spine. I created all 3 variants and in the app under Settings -> Art, you can choose which variant you'd like created for you. I think this is a huge upgrade for the app! Spines are still not perfect and keep letting me know how to improve them. But I think this is much better than before!

In-App Updates: As mentioned at the top of this post, but mentioning again here in case you skipped it (I see you, Stephen!), updated should now be available directly in the app. We'll have to wait for the next release to see if it works properly (It should!) and then updates should be really seamless. I hope you will continue subscribing here to keep supporting me putting all my effort into this but I've been very clear since the moment I released this that I don't want it to be subscription-based and if you'd like to cancel your subscription that's perfectly within your right and I'll make sure you always continue to get every update forever!

Atari 5200 added!

Quality of Life Updates

Long-press menu cleaned up: When selecting one game, settings are now cleaned up and arrows '>' show when you can tap on a setting to expand it and view more detailed settings. It still needs more refining but should be cleaner than before.

Page themes show their clothes: When viewing a theme, you can see which shirt every page is wearing. I think I've gone too far with the 'dressing' analogy and may have to remove this in the next update.

System game number badges improved: The numbers next to system names which show how many of those games you have are now easier to read. Rather than just being a coloured font, which made it hard to read with certain themes, they're now coloured boxes with either a black or white font on top (it'll automatically change depending on how bright or dark the colour is). You can change each system's colour by holding your finger down on the system name in the system bar, the same one you use to rename or rearrange systems, and you'll see the new colour option to change the colour to anything you like. Maybe you want to rename Mega Drive to Genesis, make it red, and select the Genesis spine in the settings. Maybe you want to make every single system's number black and white because you're making your own really minimalistic theme. Go for it!

System order: Speaking of ordering the systems, go to Settings -> Library -> Systems -> Order. Here you can choose the order for the systems. A-Z, by maker, by release date, or your own sorting.

Removing assigned buttons: Some assigned buttons can now be set to 'no button' freeing them up for other uses. In the near future, I'll make every button in the app reassignable.

Rearrange games in Collections: When you enter a Collection, hold your finger down on a game or press Select to bring up its menu and choose 'Move in collection' and choose another game to switch its place with. In a future update I'll add a more visual moving system, nudging one by one. Right now it's a 'Switch game A with game B' situation.

Add your own spine image: Open a game's options and go to Art -> Use my own spine image. This was requested a lot!

Bugs fixed

A LOT of bugs have been fixed since 1.3.5. I made my own personal 1.3.6 which fixed a lot of bugs before then moving on to 1.4. I can't even remember all of them but these are the ones I made notes of.

• 'Get new and missing art' fetches properly (Get your new spines today!)

• DraStic now launches games

• My Boy!, My OldBoy!, Citra MMJ, PICO-8, EmuCoreX, ARMSX2 (Play Store version) now available to choose as emulator options

• Flycast and Redream can now launch .gdi and .cue files

• GameCube and Wii can now see .gcz, .wia and .tgc

• PICO-8 carts show their labels in the grid

• PC games can now launch in apps other than GameNative. I don't believe GameHub has any way for a frontend to launch into a game. GameHub Lite can.

• Using a TV as a second screen should now work

• External drives should now work with Jump (submit bug reports if this is still broken)

• Coloured bands on the sides of spines are gone. This was added by accident in the previous update!

• GammaOS on the RG DS now supports Jump properly. GammaOS has its own way of projecting 2 screens which had to be worked around.

I once again want to say a HUGE Thank You to everyone who is using Jump! It's amazing! So many people have subscribed that I may actually be able to keep doing this as a job which would be my dream come true. I hope this new update is great and please feel free to submit bug reports if any issues arise! I'll aim to put out a 1.4.5 bug fix update in the next few days after taking all your feedback. There are a fair few new features here so no doubt some things may not work perfectly. Thanks for your support! ❤️