Spider

Ah the enhanced one. The "look like a Speccy" one is here:

https://jswmm.co.uk/files/file/56-manic-miner-amiga/

Complete with potentially graphical issues, I never looked to see if it was a chipset issue or something else.

EDIT... I could not start your file, the 'trainer' screen I could not get past the 'start' option to load the game, despite trying a few combinations including swapping keyboard/stick and J ports (END+J) , the mouse does work left/right for the options just can't find a key to 'start'

I may need to update UAE as its quite old (!) version I have still. 🙂

I think its more not being able to see much 'ahead' that is one of the issues, even if you are well aware of where the guardians are its difficult and remember they might*** be always moving even off screen.

*** Unchecked.

AMOS used if I recall.

I still want to re-evaluate the 'other at that time 16bit vesrion' aka Atari S.T actually, assuming I can get it to run.

Found when looking at an old backup for something completely unrelated.

Wanted to bump this (as much as I hate doing so) as its slightly updated and given where it was , it may of been overlooked. Plenty of charsets to pick from.

It -does- really need a full re-write however, I'm slightly horrified at my own Basic and the way I wrote it!

Quick note: I have noticed on some snapshots (it might be the emulator they are saved in or possibly different 'versions' of the .z80 and/or .sna format) that if the game immediately starts, followed usually by Willy jumping without any player input the cause is likely because 'Kempston' flag was set but the interface options in that emulator were not.

For Spin, look at 'keystick' and set it to Kempston. The downside here is it might make the 128 'menu' difficult to use, press shift and 6 or 7 for that.

On real hardware, you do get spurious inputs sometimes on some games if you choose Kempston and the interface (the interface, the stick has no bearing on it) is not present.

Its worth where this happpens to look at the snap / image to see if the emulator has indicated Kempston or not.

15 hours ago, MtM said:

Thanks Andy, he has done some maps has old Pavero hasn't he?

Yes 🙂 I think its safe to say it probably runs into the hundreds now 😮

12 hours ago, IRF said:

You're right to point out the need not to take the snapshot during the title screen/ scrolly message, as that might defeat the purpose of the exercise!

As you know there's a few ways of doing it, depending on what state the file is in , in the first place.

Generally I'll do one of the following:

Insert a small pause into the loader before it USR's to 33792 , such as just a PAUSE 1E2 (pause for 2 seconds) and take the snap there. Just have to be quick, pause it then take the snap.

Insert a breakpoint at the same place aka 33792 before its bothered to set the StackPointer etc, or perhaps after that. When the emulator stops, pause it while the debugger is open if possible then take the snap here.

The advantage of these is if needed while its paused you can drag an .scr into the window and have that saved too if needed.

17 hours ago, IRF said:

The check for the interface only occurs during the title screen. If the snapshot is taken once gameplay is underway, then the variable should be fixed for the duration of the game.

Oh yes I know. 🙂 But I've seen some snapshots taken on the title screen and maybe a "note in" or at the start, so without checking where the Z80 is going to read next etc.

I know what you're saying. 🙂

I'm so sorry to hear that.

Although it may mean little (I hope it does mean something) similar happened to me a few years back with two people with just over two years between. To be direct, Its not been the same since.

I do respect 100% (trust me) you're not able to finish this but hugely appreciate the fact you're willing to "pass it on" rather than let it wither away. Hopefully someone will contact you via messenger here*** if they wanted to.

I cannot myself partly for the above reasons , still now.

*** You may want to enable "email notification of messages" for the options here in your control panel to save you visiting the site to check for messages if you wanted.

Its worth looking at the snapshot to see where the PC is too, before it does anything at all. Then you'll maybe be able to determine if its "gone past" the check for the interface or not...

How goes the progress on your creation @Jet Set Willie ? 🙂

Small collection of manual tweaks:

Show the Swimming Pool object (as its normally collected automatically)

POKE 57248 , 068

This sets the rope colour to be bright green, acting as a sort of 'vine' from Orangery. Because its no longer white ink on black paper, the code will not try to 'automagically' collect the item for Willy.

Prevent (easy/accidental) 'Top Exit' from Dr Jones

POKE 59420 , 172

Add a fire cell to the top right-hand area just above the water cells.

Prevent top exit escape from Watch Tower

POKE 62166 , 000
POKE 62167 , 171
POKE 62169 , 010
POKE 62173 , 004

Change the conveyor from right to left (not essential) move it down one column and extend its length a little bit so it does not look out of place and finally shorten the ramp length to 'fit' the newly placed conveyor

Prevent top exit escape (cheat?) from Rescue Esmerelda

POKE 52971 , 047
POKE 61321 , 032
POKE 61344 , 008
POKE 61406 , 000
POKE 61420 , 014

This makes use of the otherwise (in the original game) room 47 aka " [ ". Start by changing the up exit from Esmerelda to be room 47, alter its name by removing the single character then change the air colour to be blue paper representing sky and change the border colour and finally set the down exit from 47 to be Esmerelda

Game Map by Pavero

https://maps.speccy.cz/map.php?id=WiLLYiNThEMiRRoRVeRSE

Map (Assembled by me, tidied and finished by Pavero)

https://maps.speccy.cz/map.php?id=ManicJetSetWilly

Video of my play , taken early January using "random by room" mode

Any more updates to share ? 🙂

Sorry its a bit blurred:

Just now, Sendy The Endless said:

That was always a big drawback to me with MM... Not hearing that little "kiss" sound when you get an item. There's nothing like throwing yourself onto a pile of items and hearing that noise 10 times in a row : )))

You're welcome. Some third party versions do this although if I recall they are all based on the Bug-Byte version. My work above is not far off a copy of that.

Will rewrite this as a simple assembly routine. I did think about having one Basic one to detect which version but I'd already done the very quick ones above at a request.

The assembly will simply detect the version, apply the code and exit as I see it anyway.

Following from the topic over at Spectrum Computing here about small game changes, here's a rough/ready patch for Manic Miner:

Software Projects version:

mm_item_sound_SP.tap

Bug-Byte version:

mm_item_sound_BB.tap

As these sit in the 'empty space' area's , its quite possible they could malfunction with third party games however in general there's plenty of space to change the new CALL instruction at 36752 (SP) 36741 (BB) to go somewhere else to make the sound.

Needless to say, applying the code against the wrong engine will likely have undesired effects.

Source in spoiler:

16 hours ago, Sendy The Endless said:

yesterday I realized I was building the game in the wrong variant

I do get a bit confused with the options, at first many moons ago I did not understand why there were so many, but it does make a bit of sense after studying the chart, so they can be compared to decide if you want more/less guardians/features/rooms. In essence (although as you know there's a fair bit more to it than this) , from the .pdf with 2.3.7:

16 hours ago, Sendy The Endless said:

There's a bug in JSWED where batch exporting rooms from variant X to variant V causes every other room to go missing, so I had to export each room manually. I also noticed that all my items were missing in-game, despite appearing in JSWED, but thankfully that was sorted out by simply deleting and re-instancing the items.

I have had odd quirks before with absent rooms, I think in my case (it was quite a while ago) I chose to export perhaps a dozen or two rooms, and some of them appeared. It might be worth letting John Elliot know about this in case he one day plans any updates. AFAIK the last update was 2015 (or 2012, not sure) , he does have an account here but I'm not sure if you decided to contact him if a PM here or an email via his site would be best.

Thanks. 🙂

I've updated the Deserted Isle picture, and turned him around too, so he's not facing the tree.

The 'cheat' room, I've removed because I had assumed it was fire cells but the definition 'UDG' is the same for both earth and fire in that room, so I'm assuming they are actually 'earth', and in The Bow they are 'fire' hence Willy cannot normally exit leftwards.

🙂

16 hours ago, MtM said:

Is MW going to be a different colour on every screen?

Diversity ? 🙂

The fountains are a nice touch. 🙂

14 hours ago, MtM said:

The Andy Green one looks slightly rude, unless it's just me 😉

I'd see a GP if telephone handsets appear 😉

Assume you've seen these actually

That's looking very good. 🙂