Greets and thanks for stopping by! I am new at Itch.io but have been making games with Scratch for 8 years. Development is fast with Scratch, so I picked the best of several recent game ideas to use for my first development blog. Please follow along and share your comments, suggestions, etc as I turn this already fun stub into a full-fledged, awesome game.

Ideas and To Dos.. ****new MUST DO*** replace all images with voxel versions (in progress)

1. add player facing left, auto turn right and left scroll if no player input, and fall (game over) if too far to left of screen
2. stop and optimize everything :)
3. better startup screen
4. finish placeholder image replacement and start working on animations
5. rotating sun in background?
6. more music (my music)
7. polyphony sounds/ play sounds when sprites enter screen, or specials like hulk toss
8.  different levels with graphic themes (night time w/ fireworks, slippery winter, superhero catching bad guys level, Denver) unlockable after cumulative point score
9.  alternate objects - bicycle / motorcycle / bus / cop car with flashing light / bench / bus stop / food cart / cat / low brick wall/scooter rider / garden planter / bushes / power pole / super fast train / coke machine / snack machine
10. fence / animated fountain / One Way sign
11. bus drops off player at beginning of run
12. bird in trees can be scared away for extra points, similar etc
13. 1st reaper turns you into ghost until.. ?(alters your look and movement) 2nd reaper ends your run
14. dog reverses direction when you land on it (maybe special dog wearing collar?)
15. parkour flip moves / wall bounce /2 and 3 object combos
16. story mode
17. longest time off ground score at end of run
18. permanent high-score list with initials save (or Scratch name for Scratchers)
19. money system to buy powerups at store (coins, % of run score, both?)
20. buyable powerups - better jumping / double jump / fall through / faster speed / pet / no landing on mountains / more low objects, less high
21. on-screen powerups - score x2, x3 / bonus time / wings
22. achievements - hulk tossed to rainbow / score XXk points, become ghost, then human twice in one run / airtimes (no ground) / object combos
23. unlockable players - skater with skate tricks (or skateboard as on screen powerup?) / hero (can accumulate powerups) / grim reaper (collect pedestrian souls for bonus) / graffiti artist (tags buildings, signs, etc for bonus points)
24. really slow background parallax
25. credits screen for Scratch and music

Changelog:

30 Oct 2017 - linked project and started this dev blog

31 Oct - I was making new .svg images to replace my placeholders but was also learning to use MagicaVoxel.. and now I'm modeling new images as voxels :) I had no choice, I tried a mountain and it looked so good in game! This is going to raise the quality of the entire project up a few notches. Since my game is actually hosted at MIT, all changes are live instantly, so play a round every once in a while to see what new models have made it in so far. And I definitely recommend MagicVoxel for freeware voxel editing. I had to dig through various github pages, Youtube videos, etc to really get some of the more advanced controls under mental wraps, but it is easy to learn and a blast to play with.

1 Nov - Yesterday was fun but long, making voxel models to replace the .svg images. Since they are 3D and must be rendered, the render lighting changes the model's final colors. I may end up trying a few versions. I'm also considering animating the player. The big news is that I was going to wait until I finished adding new images before advancing the project version count but this morning I awoke to an idea for fixing the sprite depth layering, and it worked. Now they layer according to height. Tall, thin objects still look kinda weird going behind short, wide objects. Oh well, looks like another long day of voxel modeling. Hopefully, I can finish them all today., ..but I doubt it. I decided upon a better lighting solution and more oblique voxel angle to enhance the 3D look of the sprites, otherwise it is a lot of work for very little return. Of course, that means re-rendering and resizing all my costumes from yesterday, but it will be worth it. I'm pulling out all the stops on this game. At least they are already modeled, although the car isn't final yet.

4 Nov - Almost finished with the new 3D models. Next up, animation and adding the first level change. I spent the last few days learning my voxel editor, MagicaVoxel. I can't recommend it enough, get it while it is still free! https://voxel.codeplex.com/

6 Nov- Added long-overdue restart functionality via an ugly button. I'll fix it once I have all the buttons added, still have a ways to go. The two things I'd like to work on next are animating the player and adding levels. But as a kind reviewer at Scratch pointed out, it really needs a tutorial on the scoring system, which seems to make perfect sense until I try to explain it, lol. Which makes me think I might need to change it. Currently, it has a constant scoring system with the amount determined by the last object you touched. Harder to parkour objects (low objects, people, car and dog) are worth the most points, the rainbow only scores +1 point, and the mountains actually cost -1 point. The ground is deadly at -100, so if you have to touch it, you want to be jumping immediately onto anything else, or your score will begin to plummet. Whenever you land on a new scoring object, the value of that object will flash by quickly. 
I suppose a simpler version would be to remove the constant factor and make it o you only score once per object. The difference in gameplay woul be that currently, you want to try to stay on high scoring objects as long as possible whereas with the revised system, it would only matter where you jump, slightly decreasing the strategy involved. I plan a skateboard level or powerup, maybe the current constant scoring system would be better adapted to pulling tricks like grinds while skating? Parkour moves?

7 Nov - Yay, new version number! Headed towards 1.0, which for me will mean the game structure is finalized, I can start inviting beta testers and applying the final tweaks. Can't wait to get there! Anyway, the updated version is because I am changing the scoring, as mentioned yesterday. Now you just score once when landing on an object rather than using the old constant scoring method. Most noticeably, scores are waaay lower but this also changes best play strategy.
Previously, you wanted to land on a high scoring object and stay on it as long as you could, which didn't exactly sound "parkour" to me. Now your best strategy is to jump to as many high scoring objects as you can, even back and forth if possible. Definitely more "parkour" but some of the chill aspect of game play is gone as now you must act and react quicker and more often. I had been using a dumb jump (fixed amount) with plans for unlockable players and powerups for improved jumping abilities. One player finally asked for the ability to jump down which I'd also plan to make unlockable. Now, however, with improved mobility a must, I think I am going to make the standard jump vary in strength according to player key press. The dumb jump is a rocky road anyway as a basic game dev rule is don't ramp difficulty via poor controls. I think in a minimalistic game, it often works, but as this game becomes more complex, it works less and less.
Oh yeah, the decreased scoring will actually work well because I will turn your "score" into "$" you can spend at the Jump store. I guess now that I'm "going off Scratch" here at Itch.io, I can no longer incorporate trademarked images like Hulk and David Lee Roth in his warpaint running the Jump parkour store, so variations will be forthcoming.