To keep the character from sinking into the ground, I would run a while loop on every act that checks if the character is sunken and if so, raises the character 1 pixel. You can do similarly in all 4 directions. Be sure to use a while loop, not an if statement: with the while loop, the character will just fall and land perfectly right away, with the if he will slowly rise out of the floor frame by frame instead. I haven't tried this, but I guess you can loop-increment the position 1 by 1 too, this might keep the character from flying right through the floor when falling fast: while((int) y > getY() && !hitFloor) { setLocation(getX(), getY()+1); } while((int) y < getY() && !hitHead) { setLocation(getX(), getY()-1); } Instead of setLocation(getX(), (int) y);

I mean the GNU Image Manipulation Program (and Inkscape). It's Free/Open Source and served me much better than Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop.

Pretty neat idea! It would be nice if the pieces of trash were a little bigger (or maybe everything should be bigger, and get scrolling to work).