Spider

View File MM Utility for Dragon 32/64 A small patch file for the Dragon 32/64 version of Manic Miner Written in 1997 by Paul Burgin Several options are presented with either a Y/N prompt or numerical input: Infinite lives Number of lives Continue facility Starting level Submitter Spider Submitted 04/11/2022 Category Tools and Patches  

Thank you! 😄 😄 You can add that easily enough, either break when its finished loading at the pause then do: POKE 44210 , 050 POKE 44258 , 000 Not sure on the effects of an infinite death, might result in a lockup loop because the original game code if it detects more than a couple of identical life losses such as a bad landing skips the screen entry again and just starts back at the "loss of life, make a noise and flash the screen" part. Fall any height may be helpful POKE 48050 , 000 Then USR 43621 Not sure on font, I did like the original but found it a bit 'not quite' somehow so picked an "easier on the eyes" one You can edit the game itself if brave enough, I've not really figured it out as its not JSW! 😮 😄 But its worth a mention here I think anyway.

Talking of Ted, I made this a while ago... ChipFactory.tap Please read:

Welcome and thanks for joining 🙂 Its nice to hear from the author directly as such and I think given you used just (more or less) manual editing rather than a bespoke editor you did really well. 😊

I do try to feature other platforms here for JSW and MM , although modified/edited games on other platforms using their engines are very few and far between. 🙂

BBC Micro POKE &67D6 , &40 = Immunity (alternative to above if it does not work correctly) As previous, this is only valid for the original Software Projects release by D.J.Coathupe

BBC Micro (JSW1) , Original release not the 2021 updated JSW1 by TobyLobster POKE &17CD , &63 = Infinite Lives BBC Micro (JSW2) POKE &169C , &63 = Infinite Lives

Thanks. 🙂 Yes I'll fire the necessary pokes over when I next email him, probably in a week or so.

To confirm the above, this is from the grace.tun file for both a standard game and (identical or almost in both your files) from the ones you attached: The difference is clear 😄 , You can see the right hand one is virtually 'dead' whereas the left one contains data, in repeating (sort of) patterns. To further satisfy my curiosity, I replaced grace.tun in both the files you supplied to check. I can confirm that the tune playing code is correctly there, my previous comment about it being AWOL I guess (without checking) was it likely performs a call to the routine as its "AY" rather than "Beeper". Attaching the 'test' files, but as I put I've replaced the 'blanked' out file with the original and the tune plays as expected in-game: TEST_FILE_where's woody_test.tap TEST_FILE_STRANGEL.tap 🙂

You're welcome. 🙂 One thing that occurred to me shortly after I'd left my PC, was to check the actual music data itself, as its in iirc three files. If you look at the "grace.tun" for these two files (I also looked at my archive of them and its the same) you'll see this file is full of effectively blank data, a repeating pattern of #00 #FF , similar to how the S.P version of Manic Miner filled the 'dead space' actually. I took a look at another two different JSW128 files and they had actual 'data' of some description in this file, so its fair to say the 'tune' was purposely cut out. The odd click may well because it may still try to read that pattern and occasionally its enough to cause it to make some noise assuming the code is trying to control the AY chip directly not via ROM routines.

They do not have in game music. I've tested in Spin in 128 and +2A mode as well as in Fuse in +3e mode. A cursory glance at the code shows its checking for it being enabled or not SET vs RES however (not sure on this as its AY chip) there's no apparent code for the actual playing of it. Indeed a few bytes around this area appear to have been NOP'ed out, this could be normal for JSW64/128 engines however (I don't have time to check as I write this) Summary: No, its not you! 😄

You could actually be 100% correct, I never really consider it "by design" but as their no 'toilet run' it does make a bit of sense. Debating on providing a poke (not the attribute one above) to TipShop , not necessarily as a bug-fix but as a 'cheat' in a way , ie "allow left exit from East Ballroom." Call it something I -needed- to do for my own sake if nothing else as once I started looking, I could not stop! 😮 😄

OK fixed. Took a bit of finding. To cut time down I decided to just insert a row of identical bytes, moving 100 bytes at a time and observing the crashes/results to the room via a refreshed snapshot. Once I'd figured out this "quick way" it was not that difficult to locate the data. Its stored with a byte character for a cell, regardless of type, similar to how PGD does it, by this I mean you can use "water cell x" in any room as you merely use its value in that location. I did not spend time looking at room compression. In the end I decided upon (after trying a few dozen cell types) a choice of two really, one to fix it and one to make it more cosmetically appealing. Check our "special place" for specifics on this. See the attached small 40seconds videos below... of "patch level one" and "patch level two" respectively. 🙂

Perfectly summed up. I can't add more as I agree!

Although not too relevant maybe, about 8 or so years ago , I ported some games over from the Spectrum to the BBC Micro. I had to disassemble them and rewrite them from scratch , even though they were adventure games. Then make loading screens etc and tidy them up. I did attempt to contact the authors of these. I approached one author who replied to me and was quite happy provided no rights were lost (I can't remember his exact words, I may still have the email) The others did not reply although its quite possible they never got the mails. I was careful to ensure I prominently displayed their original copyrights untouched. I did add my attribution as it was a conversion as such however I did -not- put (c) on that line at all, merely a quick line of text that I had "built" this for this platform. I heard no complaints since. They were relatively well received by the Acorn community at the time. I did only a few months ago discover a walkthough of one of them on YouTube, and to my surprise the original author had posted a comment (he was one of the ones I was not able to contact) and his comment said "Its a good game, even if I do say so myself lol" , another one actually has a comment on CASA solution archive saying something like the conversion had the "blessing" of the original author. 🙂

Nail / Head with limited tech knowledge , you could (although you should not) I would just speculate a very tech savvy one would possibly just possibly reach a different conclusion or thoughts (even if the outcome was the same, perhaps their comments would vary and carry some weight) vs one who did not know anything about technology at all. You do raise a valid point with MS too. Yes I know. To be fair at least it does say now rather than (possibly) doing it anyway. I have seen something "possibly interesting" in a very old version of a Windows service pack actually, plain text too! Unsure if by omission or design. If it was physical items it would be easier to say for sure really, as said 'law' would be relatively clear on that. Having said that, as you know just because its digital does not mean there's a "free for all" , although we are talking a very old design anyway with little (any?) commercial value at least that I can see, I'm no expert though at all. To be honest if the trademarks are valid and apply and say I held them and was not happy I'd be more interested in going after those making monetary gain from physical items aka t-shirts / badges etc rather than someone reusing a 38year old game design 😉 EDIT... MtM raised some good points in this topic too.

Its an interesting thought and I suspect it would come down in the end if it ever went that far to what a judge or magistrate thought was a 'copy' or not. I see 100% what you're saying, if he's a different colour or bright level "is he the same" ? Its also going I think to vary as its digital, for instance you'd likely not get away with using a well known trainer logo inverted or tweaked with say something as its physical. Although in theory it should be treated the same tis probably not. There was a case many years ago I think where Sinclair won a case against another machine as the ROM was the same but the judge could not "see" the rom but they won on the grounds the keyboard was. I recall reading this in a magazine back then, I can't recall what machine it was sorry. I keep thinking the Jupiter Ace but I could be wrong.

Ballroom East is ID 11 or 12, depending if you start from ID 0 or ID 1 for a room. The earth cell colouring (or the fact its 'earth' by its colour definitions) has a lot to do with it. Temporary fix: On that screen POKE 22603 , 000 Vid:

I see. 🙂 I've just had another go to refresh my memory. The actual "problem" here is not so much the barrel (although as you say that does lead to Willy's demise) its the fact that Willy always falls into the gap, he does not attempt to 'move left' once he starts to fall, due to (afaik) the game control engine itself which at a guess is likely influenced by PGD and AGD both from the same author. I did a mockup of a 'quick fix' although implementing it may be a bit more tricky as the room data compression I've not looked at! It seems easier to fix it that way even though it removes much of the barrel jump challenge. Hmm. EDIT... The room data does not seem that difficult to manually edit. The problem will be finding it unless I set a memory write breakpoint for that pixel and keep going until I find the routine. It may be easier to kludge it as the room names are not stored with the room data, they are in a separate piece near the end of the code itself. A random edit setting a couple of hundred bytes to zero in what looked from a decimal view of "data" did this. Willy was not killed by guardian collision into earth cells (I did not expect him to be) EDIT2... Its not loadable into PGD (yes I paid!) but I expected that. If the data is stored in the same order as the room names are and if they are all the same data size and if I can figure it out it may be possible to simply change that block and the one above it back to air. Its a lot of 'IF's" though... 😮

It does explain why I had much difficulty in this room. 🙂 Compared to the original. I thought it was me out of practise 🤣🤣

Thanks 😄 hehe. Yes lets hope Fabian does rematerialize at some point. Oh regarding on jswcentral your comment about this games completion, link I can't say I've noted that myself, I may if I can try that at the weekend as from a cursory glance at the map it looks possible (pixel illusion) but I do not doubt you at all. 🙂

And another, posted with 'authors' permission 🙂

Thanks @IRF , oh its fine I knew it was aimed sort of at everyone but sort of "targeted" (for want of a better word) at Danny but I wanted to chime in with my findings too. 😄 , I see what you're saying now. Thanks for the pictures, it does explain well, as they say "a picture speaks a thousand words" I had assumed the data was 'as is' but I guess it was changed for a reason, compression perhaps. Lets not forget Norman got "two into one" here, a remarkable feat. 🙂