Spider

Well, that's a good point! :) I guess you could say its the combination cavern.

Oh I see :) I'd not really read it :blush: I was busy playing the game!

I've never really overly worried about any spelling/typo issues in assembly comments :) , ultimately they are only there as notes.

Thank you. :thumbsup: Yes its really a score submission for a "start to end" play of the game. I did think about your use of snapshots compared to rzx's rollbacks and in regards to how the game progresses its about the same I suspect. With snapshots if you make a bad mistake, have an accident or perhaps do not like the way you played a cavern you simply reload the last one you took and start from there again. Its similar with rollback with rzx's in that if the same erm 'concern' arises you just step back to the last point at which you saved your progress. I've updated the scoring. You can see it on both the main download page and the first page of this topic here. :)

Confused by what you mean by "from the Wacky Amoebatrons screen for the second time" :unsure: Its a score for one complete game loop (rollback or snapshots does not matter) ie: first to last screen once only then stop when you re-appear in the first cavern again and note the score. :)

I'll retest this tomorrow but I had a minor (no pun intended!) issue on 'normal' , in particular I could not pass leftwards due to either my poor timing with jumping or M.W hitting his head on the red cell. A small .rzx is attached as I plan on doing a recording of the first x levels again... first_few_levels.rzx ... also a screenshot to illustrate: Its quite possible it is me at fault here :) , but time is limited to investigate this right now.

That's quite good, I like the alternative piano too.

The POKE will work for that cavern, well "second to last cavern" for most ManicMiner games, including those that don't have unlimited air. Just makes it a bit easier to complete said cavern! Its not a bug, I'm not sure what you mean by other screens, that POKE only effects that cavern. I have and can provide a range of suitable adjustments to the air supply if needed for other screens, easiest with a tape file as its a bit of Basic (hence me suggesting tapes) as large .pok files, some emulators ZXSpin in particular have issues with. :)

You can set manual tape control for tape files with some emulators, I do anyway :) If you want more 'AIR' in Solar Power generator without spoiling it too much, use the Emulators options to do a: POKE 64188 , X Set X to be: 69 = 30 Seconds extra air 76 = 1 Minute extra air 88 = 2 Minutes extra air Beware of much higher values. These are sane numbers chosen for a reason. :) Note this does cause a bit of odd erm extension onto the next line. To fix this you need to set 40768 to 40799 to 0 (or ignore it)

Menagerie, the problem I used to have was the 'top row' timing in that the rightmost guardian I'd jump over or out the way of and hit a fire cell on the roof area. The ways around it are either more careful timing (so its not near a cell when you jump) or you can cheat a bit and jump on the spot a few times to buy a few seconds to get it into a more sane place. I'd forgot to mention Solar Power, the main issue on that is the air limit due to the beam, well that and timing the jumps to get to the top of the screen again! EDIT... Can you use tape (.tap) files ? In that if I post an erm 'patch' you can load it then load in a version of MM ?

No prize other than a thank you! :) Oh and your username in the top-x ranking (at least if/when someone gets a higher score) Hardest level,. I'd thought about that a long time ago but its going to vary between players. For a while I used to either be able to do Menagerie first time or it would take a couple of attempts, its not a problem now I have a technique! Regarding Ore Refinery, I find it best to not panic as there's plenty of time/air for what you need to do. I don't have a specific technique for this one, it seems to vary a bit for me! Warehouse is a bit difficult but (if you watch my recording of this level) I don't use the conveyor on that level.

I don't think its a problem as its not really any difference to using "roll-back" with an rzx recording :) Only thing I will say is stop if/when the game is complete and returns to the first cavern again.

One thing I am pleased to see is the 'fall off the platform' effect that plagues JSW2 (Spectrum) and MM + JSW (Amstrad) is thankfully not present! :) By this I mean if you stand M.W at the far end of a platform and press jump then attempt to move left/right you simply fall off rather than jump in that direction. The Spectrum version of JSW1 and MM behave more sanely (imo) in that regard. Lost far too many lives in JSW2 by this. Realise the answer is simply to stand one frame in then operate the controls but with timing sometimes critical its not always easy to retrain my mind for this. As I say thankful to see this 'effect' is not present. Although I've not looked into the cause it seems almost as if the left/right vs jump keys are tested in the opposite order.

To expand a fraction on Danny's post, I did at one point have a modded JSW2 game a couple of years ago but it never really got finished. More recently a slightly different JSW2 game was started but I've not had chance to make any progress with it, its more a longer term 'as and when' project.

Still open for valid score submissions. :)

Attached are my playtests from beta3 for each 'mode' from 00 to the start of 06 aka "Menagerie" :) Trainer_00_to_06.rzx Normal_00_to_06.rzx Expert_00_to_06.rzx

I'll post a recording tomorrow if I can of the next few levels. I did have a vague recording of the following two however my playing was so bad I decided to not keep the .rzx. The 'Menagerie' is quite interesting :)

The difficulty / skill levels are a good idea. :) We did something vaguely similar in MM10CC where there were in effect three separate games, same levels but an 'easy' mode with more air per cavern, less nasties etc, the 'normal' mode which played as per original and a 'difficult' version with a few more hazards. By your description so far I think you've about covered something for all playing abilities! Looking forward to seeing it at hopefully not a too distant point in the future.

@Mtm , we all have our own playing skills/abilities I'm not in my own opinion that "good" a player. The point being we all (or should) enjoy it, no matter how good or bad we are! That's the important part. :)

Attached is a small "first few levels only" .rzx recording, specifically 00-05. This was performed an hour or so ago: first_levels.rzx Recorded in Spectaculator. Plays back fine in that and ZXSpin (0.7) Thank you for your detailed explanation of the collision detection too. :) I followed most of it.

:) Thanks for editing to add a selection of screenshots. Does (in my opinion anyway at least) draw more attention. EDIT... Although I've not progressed very far, I was wondering how the collision detection worked, in that would it be in theory possible in your game to have a guardian pass through say a 'fire' object without trigging ? As we know with JSW/MM that means its counted the same as M.W catching said cell. Only asking the above as it may allow some interesting design twists perhaps.

Sorry to see the download has gone. I've not had a great deal of time to do much with it, although I did like what I saw. The vertical guardian on the third cavern reminds me of Wanted: Monty Mole a little bit. The main gameplay to change the collision to be the energy type bar vs instant life loss is an excellent idea too. :) EDIT... I'm hoping the lack of others feedback has not dissuaded you from further development. :( Perhaps a screenshot or three would help. It does look highly promising! :) If it means anything ( ? ) the 'screens$ examples' topic I posted mid-March that I wished to receive feedback for (as to which pattern was preferred, nothing more involved than that) has about 125 downloads in all and 0 replies.

Had another play with this yesterday, once I get a bit of time hopefully later I'll post more feedback. :) I do like what I see so far though. Regarding 'Search Load' without going into it too much, here is a small few seconds animated .gif to save you the bother, might have to click the image to animate it. As I mentioned in my 'why I thought' post above, why I thought of this. Its done during loading (no loading border) , pretty unique at that time. Mind you the loader gave me (and still does to be honest) headaches. Regarding the +2A/B / +3 issue yes I suspected a port issue, have seen similar on other games. Floating Bus issue if I recall, . Interestingly or not there's a very simple (read: untested by myself but I should as I have a +2A and a +3) hardware modification that can reduce this issue. Will you be uploading an updated version soon perhaps ? :) I'll retest the version I have anyway.

That's quite good fun! I like the item collection sound and the collision effect too. Note: Does not work in later machines (+2A/+2B and +3) as you only see the "Press enter to start your quest" message , the rest of the title screen does not appear. Fine in regular 128's though (toast-rack and grey +2 models Talking of the title screen, I think some inspiration for that came from one of the first appearances if not the first of the Search loader, TechTed 48K specifically. :)

I'd not tested it. :) I suppose a tiny bit of cavern tweaking would allow it to happen but I do see what you're saying now.