Spider

I like that idea in principle. In theory the 'start position' could be likely placed to avoid M.W initial contact, perhaps say a choice of starting the guardian at any number of fixed blocks along its path, avoiding starting at the screen edges and/or near another entry point if MW can safely drop into / climb up into the screen too. The alternative 'fix' would be to give him a few seconds immunity after a life loss, to allow him to get himself out of the situation but that still means its cost a life to get this reward. Modded JSW2 offers this and makes a reasonable attempt at preventing an instant death situation by restarting the last position but this can actually cause an IDS to happen sometimes! (there are two 'base modded' versions of this 'few seconds immunity' version) one that fits in to the 48K machine with just that extra and one with cheats and a teleport that needs a 128K machine, merely because there was no sane space to fit it into the 48K, but this is off topic really as the JSW2 'engine' is not quite the same as the JSW one, the latter being much easier to 'play with' Back on topic, I do like the idea provided the starting positions are set within block limits. Some screens care would have to be taken to avoid guardian contact with each other, Forgotten Abbey would be a prime candidate for this as they do overlap each other quite a bit. It does not sound that difficult to code in theory however it would not really be for me to decide upon that, I have a vague idea on how to set / alter the positions at random but it would likely be a mess!

More precisely, Ophoven in Belgium. 🙂 As its a YouTube video and these can annoy some (myself included, but I'm not a great Y.T fan anyway if I'm honest) if they auto-play in the browser I'll just provide a link. https://youtu.be/fYeU-cdawZA 😮 Text as provided: Translated via Google (in spoiler)

I did not get chance (read: time) to do anything with this yesterday but I note its been "tested" now. Emulation issues, well if possible its always worth trying another one. Although I cannot recall offhand which emulator it was, with one of the rare 'custom' CPC versions of Manic Miner the lower third of the screen flickered with a purple effect. Original game not effected (odd coding of third party tweaks in game perhaps) however other emulators worked OK. All I'm saying is display issues may be emulator related possibly given what they are trying to do. The keyboard issue sounds very odd, I'm not sure if the Apple II has some kind of inbuilt keyboard buffer (Acorn style really) or such. There may be a post on an Apple 'retro' forum with even more details and perhaps some direct feedback from the author about any issues. 🙂

I had similar issues getting an Atom emulator to work, it just would not behave properly. There may be a MESS variant of an Apple II emulator to try, although my (now a few years old) initial experience of MESS was not great, much preferring separate emulators for each platform where possible. I'll see if I can do anything with the above and with a spot of luck post something here too later today or tomorrow 🙂 EDIT... A cursory glance at the G.H shows it -might- be necessary to build the game from the sources. I can see the huge value in providing these and its a credit to the author however for those just "wanting to try it" a ready built snapshot / memory image / media image would be helpful. 🙂

Top work and research Danny! 🙂 🙂

Unsure if that's a typo or intentional. 🙂 "chop" (ie: Lamb Chop) or "shop" EDIT... Can't immediately think of any games with suitable 16x16 Lamb or similar sprites however there are bound to be some. Something tells me educational titles possibly if not games.

Shame there's no "care" reaction to give for the above post. 🙂 Very true. The caverns do have a small air-grace period anyway. From a slightly tech point of view, you'll note that unlike the "regular pokes" that give infinite air tend to redraw the last block over and over again, this does not 😉 Shame I lost my notes on how I did that, it was just a couple of small changes though but that part of 'what to do' was not really well covered in the disassembly iirc, it took me a bit of figuring out to get it to work as I wanted.

I have no idea why but the thought of checking the TS completely slipped my mind 😞 That's unusual as I'm a reasonable contributor to it (when I can) and usually check it quite a bit too. Oh well. 😄

Missed this somehow must of skimread it sorry. Its not a bug 😉 It is intentional to allow the game to continue once the air supply has been exhausted. Please see description on download page or first post in this topic, the third italic paragraph: 🙂🙂

I'd not like to say, although I suspect a bit of both! The JSW room "Nomen Luni" is subtly renamed (only in the Acorn version) "Nomem Luni" 😉 possibly as a reference to a tight squeeze in memory perhaps aka "noMEM" as bear in mind depending on video mode there's precious little memory left. There's a separate discussion about the full vs cut-down versions of JSW2 for this platform too, JSW1 not effected. I can go into detail on that at some point as it is a source of confusion even now. EDIT... There are topics (or should be) in the JSW and MM forum area's with a selection of screenshots from these games. The topics are old however and do need updating anyway at some point.

No its not 🙂 So I approved it 😄 Just a joke, yes its 100% fine, thank you! 🙂

It feels slower. 🙂 The later caverns (some of them) are wildly different for instance there's Meteor Storm and Final Barrier is almost impossible and totally different layout. It just seems to play harder somehow, as though the collision detection is a bit 'meaner' hehe. It does flicker badly 😞 which is a great shame as the JSW engine on the same platform does not and plays lovely!

Only problem no "rollback" with it , and its -much- more difficult than the ZX version!

I was going to post a ist of the 48K ones, but I suspect although most (might, not checked) matched it may cause more problems than it solves. 🙂

One thing I did want to mention and its not actually that important, I did note I could not find any BBC or Amstrad SpeedRun's for JSW or MM 🙂 I may of missed them however. The former is of interest to me. Perhaps that's my que! 😮 😄

No, not that I'm aware of. 🙂 I've not looked at the code for it, but I'd suspect it follows a similar pattern to regular JSW, although that uses just four bits this 128 version may use 5 or 6: Regular JSW48 looks like this, or similar:

🙂 No, thank you for being happy to do this and also for creating them too initially. I'm not sure if you want to do it in one topic or several depending if its JSW or MM based or an MM and a JSW post in one topic, I'll leave it entirely up to you. 🙂

Yes that may be the ideal location. It should by default attempt to parse / show the video but there's a black banner in the editing window for each one you post in to turn it into a link if you prefer. As a sidenote too many 'live' ones in a post can cause browser issues but this is rare (seems to effect those using I.E most) But I'd love to see some in a post/topic. 🙂 OMG 😮 I fully concur.

Welcome @RuffledBricks As per our original email, thank you for such a comprehensive review/feedback on this project as well as your speedrun. 🙂 The game was mainly built with three 'primary' (if you will) main participants with other input indirectly from a couple of others at least*** *** My memory is a little hazy on this although I do recall a few names and it was quite a while ago now. Although its been partially suggested and I'd not want to "blow my own trumptet" the mini 'lockdown' edition of MM I built up at the end of March may be worth a glance from yourself. It seems relevant again these days! Once again, welcome to our community! I'm quite sure you'll fit in here very well. 🙂

@RuffledBrickshas posted an excellent review/feedback video on YouTube, I'll link it rather than embed it directly: https://youtu.be/jdZcYaEkdK8 🙂

Thanks Norman. I must admit I was exceptionally short of time when I typed my initial post in, and I'd not really considered any side-effects as such as you mention. I dare say it could be reworked to take account of those, in that if MW is falling or jumping the action continues until he lands, same with the crumbly floor perhaps or the conveyor. The crumbly I'm slightly 50/50 on as that could work either way as sometimes its beneficial to jump "on the spot" to provide correct timing. Horses for Courses I guess with that one. 🙂

As per the slightly odd title! This was a thought I'd had a few months ago but dismissed it at the time. The basic premise is to freeze the game unless a movement key is pressed, however the air supply will continue to decrement during this state. Inbuilt pause perhaps should be disabled too. This may sound odd however consider the fact that as the guardians and conveyors etc are also frozen, time may be of the essence now as MW will have to either jiggle left/right or jump (wasting more air) to ensure that guardians etc are in suitable places for his manoeuvres. The main loop where guardian and other tasks are called could be bypassed into the free space area with something along the lines of: > Decrement the air supply and update the display for it etc > Are we pressing any key ? If so is it a movement key (left/right/jump) > If it is not a movement key, jump back and decrease the air supply > If we are pressing a bona-fide movement key for MW then provide that movement and call to animate/move guardians and conveyors > Jump back to the main loop I have not really explained this too well I suspect however if you pause (no pun) to consider the fact that air will be lost positioning MW in certain caverns it will make the game more tricky.

I was thinking, I wonder if 128K models are going to be different in some way emulation wise or not and if doing a 48K mode selection (killing in effect all 128 extras) instead of a USR0 (leaving you at 48K mode with paging and sound available) would make any difference. I suspect not. Although probably not a huge concern, using 'cloned' emulations such as perhaps Scorpion 256 or more common Pentagon 128 could also perhaps effect this, but I suspect this may vary more on emulation program rather than machine type. ^ The above could be complete nonsense.

Thanks Norman 🙂 Appreciate the updated tool. I've fixed the post issue. For some reason it had (upgrade quirk perhaps) reset the editing time limit to "525600 minutes" , its not really meant to be set that high if a site uses it anyway, typical things are usually a few hours to a few days in my experience if its limited at all. 365 days in effect as 52600 / 60 / 24 = 365 , if my sums are correct! , anyway I've rectified said concern. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Thanks Norman. 🙂 I do remember reading a long time ago half the problem on emulation was due to the way the PC keyboard was connected, being legacy IBM standards (both AT/ATX types and PS2) , Apple might not be effected earlier ones using ADB for their keyboards before everyone moved to USB. To confuse the matter a bit more it is possible (but I've not checked) that different emulators could respond / cope in slightly different ways too. I do think there's something in emulation settings that may help as some have a choice of Iss2 or Iss3 keyboard. I'm not aware of the difference having not had time to research it, although I do suspect its an internal ULA change with regard to how the databus is dealt with (maybe) It should be noted that I've not researched the above, that is all "straight from the top of my head" , errors and omissions to be excused. For convenience, he topic regarding the key scan can be found here Back onto the main topic directly, I'm still highly impressed by this. I did have a vague thought the other day in perhaps a redesigned JSW or even in the original certain "below ground" rooms such as Wine Cellar / Abbey / Under The Drive" could facilitate the lighting effects.