Spider

That is an excellent suggestion. :) I was aware of what it would do but before I saw it "in action" I was not really aware of how much it does improve it. For those who prefer it in decimal it is 62121 , 14 Here is an expanded 'combi' pic of before / after so you can see the Water cells clearly to compare: Out of curiosity I took a quick look at the C64, Amstrad and BBC versions of this screen in JSW1 and all of those also have the same Water cell 'paper' colour as the background which matches this 'new change' :) I was not able to confirm the MSX/Einstein variant however given its cell design I suspect that will have black paper due to the way it was 'built' from the Spectrum version at least as I understand it.

Well it is an editor I guess. :) Game Maker information can be found here Here are the relevant Blog entries pertaining to Manic Miner: Part One , Two , Three , Four , Five

Initially I planned on two topics for this: One called "The final barrier through the ages" or similar and another one for the Central Cavern, after a little thought a single topic seemed a bit better. Anyway here are some comparison screenshots of both the Central Cavern and The Final Barrier from various platforms. :) I do realise I have not covered all platforms here however there are some genuine reasons for this plus these are the relatively popular versions. It is quite interesting to see the differences between them when they are directly placed next to each other. The actual game-playing image sizes do vary quite a bit so I have set them to be (within sensible proportions) similar, but not exactly the same resolutions as that would spoil the comparison effect. The images displayed are in the following order: Amstrad CPC , ZX Spectrum , Oric Atmos , Commodore C16/+4 , BBC Micro , Einstein/MSX , Dragon 32 , Commodore 64 , IBM PC. Central Cavern: Final Barrier:

I never read it that way. :D Not sure on the #10h vs #0A fingers business. ;) I do sort of use it occasionally for some values, for instance C9 = 201 = RET and FF = 255 those have been etched into my mind for many years. I think though if my 'start' was on the BBC or similar machine then I would of used it more frequently, one thing I have just thought of too is there's no inbuilt hex tool in ZX Basic either, that may also explain things maybe :unsure: , mind you there's no ELSE either something I never really was concerned about until I used other dialects of Basic then realised how much use it is, I still sort of half write things then realise I have to change them accommodate this awol function.

Regarding the 'loader space' , there are quite a few things you can do to save a few bytes, and these *do* add up quite well. Let me provide some random examples, there are more but these may help, read them as 'before vs after' PRINT AT 0,0 ; ... PRINT AT NOT PI, NOT PI; LET A = 0 ... LET A = NOT PI LET A = 1 ... LET A = SGN PI CLEAR 28000 ... CLEAR VAL "28000" ...or... CLEAR 28E3 POKE 23659,2 ... POKE VAL "23659" , VAL "2" FOR X = 0 TO 64 : PRINT " TEST " : NEXT X ... FOR X = NOT PI TO VAL "64" : PRINT " TEST " : NEXT X GOTO 50 ... GOTO VAL "50" ...or... GOTO CODE "2" (use CHR$ value to figure this out, CHR$50 = Ascii "2") , obviously only works with some values but it can be a bit of a saver sometimes. Variables seem a fraction faster in upper case, although I've yet to figure out why. There are also some good ways of saving having to type border/paper/ink/bright/over/inverse/flash if you want to simply set the screen colours, it can be done in one or two pokes. EDIT... Added a splash of colour. I'm happy to check out any bit of Basic (or part of) if you wanted me to suggest any 'space saving' , can always PM it or perhaps just copy/paste it rather than attach a tape file, either here or a PM if you only wanted a 'partial' thing. Obviously you lose readability the more you do this and it can be annoying to try to debug issues too, but it does save quite a bit of space potentially. Try saving a tiny bit of Basic (then see how big it is) then save it again once you've 'adjusted' it. CLEAR recommended before save too.

Its not something I can easily get my head around despite trying. I do keep a few 'well used' values in memory obviously :D Can only guess its because I started my computing life on the Spectrum as such although I was also later using BBC and then Amstrad, both of which (the former especially) prefer hex aka CALL &xx Talking of emulators, Zero supports "poke memory" via hex if you remember to prefix them with a $ sign aka $C9 for "201" etc etc. I don't think Spectaculator does (not that I can see at least) although its debugger *always* defaults to hex upon entry. I don't have Fuse installed so I cannot recall how that behaves.

Perfect. :thumbsup: Pleased to read you saw it without the 'extra' clue. Converted your fix to decimal for those who prefer it in that format: POKE 42557 , 4

That was quick, well done. :) Did you look at the spoilered clue ? I have not worked out the 'fix' poke for it yet, although its only going to be 40960+(256 * x rows) - 19 to step it back to the right place*** (estimate) , x being about 15 or 16. *** as its easier to say +256 - 16 than say + 240 if you're guessing :D I might have a look at this later today time permitting.

Not a trick honestly. :) Can you see the small (clue?) difference here between these ? The left pic is the original, the right pic is the 'fixed' one. Its not the white paper on the right hand 'river bank' that appears intentional like white sand/cliff. Another clue: I have not obtained the poke to fix this just yet, a bit of a fuddle to get it but not too difficult... From memory on the 'full loading screen' version of this I did, I fixed quite a few things I'd noticed but this is confined to a single (another clue?) fix.

There are sometimes odd effects which can explain that I think, well kind of. You get some odd, occasional effects where if you are stood on the left side of a screen and jump up (Dr Jones is good as he's off the floor here) and you appear to 'hit your head' and/or jumping left causes him to hit something and he falls. Regarding the climb, yes although its possible via moving left/right between the screens to climb safely, well as safe as possible. :D

If anyone has any more it would be good to see them. I have not researched this as such yet though.

You've guessed it. ;) Here are two for starters: Kokotoni Wilf, Level 5, as multiple guards: Again on Level 6, seems he has had a promotion, just who is that sat in the Pilot's seat ? Who could this be in the crowd cheering Daley on in 'Decathlon' ? , look closely: If you can't see him look above the 'C' in the leftmost 'Ocean' logo, although he is repeated (as is the whole scene) a few times.

Pokes above updated as they were BugByte specific temporarily. :) There are now Software Projects/VentaMatic/Mad versions too of each. The tape files are the same for all versions.

Larger 'air bonus' upon cavern completion: POKE 37051,45 (BugByte version) , this just uses a further left digit to 'add to the score' , it will not corrupt the game with "too many lives" until you get at least 1 complete round in, as well as a few more caverns. The above poke for the Software Projects/Ventamatic/MAD releases: POKE 37062,45 Less air reduction with Solar Power Generator: POKE 36236,0 : POKE 36237 , 0 : POKE 36238 , 0 : POKE 36239 , 0 : POKE 36240 , 0 : POKE 36241 , 0 , these reduce by about roughly 50% the air reduction when Willy is in the path of the beam. These are for the BugByte version. The above for the Software Projects/VentaMatic/MAD releases is as follows: POKE 36247,0 : POKE 36248 , 0 : POKE 36249 , 0 : POKE 36250 , 0 : POKE 36251 , 0 : POKE 36252 , 0 Finally, cavern air grace period: There are two listings. First one is a 'hand holding' one that will load the game code if it is not present and then ask you to choose between 30 seconds / 60 seconds / 2 minutes or max which is roughly 2 min 30 seconds. The second listing is commented and smaller but relies you choosing a suitable value aka 10 LET D= x (x being the value you want) 60 seconds is not unreasonable it seems from playtesting. mm_air.tap mm_air_2.tap Pics of listings: The line that does a zero to 40768-40799 is simply to hide the extension, if you omit this you can see the 'true length' of the extended bar.

That's quite good. :thumbsup: The actual changed jump effect while climbing the 'ladder' reminds me slightly of the way the Professor climbs in FNS.

Shift/Space aka "abandon" :)

Slightly unrelated but I had an opposite issue actually as I wanted to restrict it but keep the sprites the correct colour, after some changes to the code it still would not play nice (in that case) until I changed AND to ADD ( ! ) then it did exactly what I needed. Idea to try that came from the 'moving room' data where ADD is needed to get it to work properly... On topic, how are things going now Metalmickey with progress ? :)

Welcome David. :) IRF is quite correct there is no 'item collect' sound on MM, there is on JSW, both on the Spectrum platform. On other platforms, there is a noise on the BBC, C64 and Amstrad versions I had to hand to verify. I could not get the Dragon one to load (currently) to check that.

I did read this but it did not quite "sink in" at the time. I have just watched the .rzx as I downloaded it at the time then had to go and sort something else out. Anyway I see what you mean about the 'pig frames' vs 'willy frames' now. How odd as they are both 4 'each way' as such. There is code to force the sprite change in that room and a random guess would be as that is likely being checked constantly (otherwise he'd change sprite during play when you moved) then it is likely just overriding it. The 'fast time' when in the toilet is also appreciated too. :) I note that 'break' does not work actually *during* the 'dash' either, another useful change. The original does (I just tried this, do not recall ever having tried that before)

Would be worth trying to see. :D

99% sure on the C64 and some other variants (BBC springs to mind here) he does use all animation frames. I think one variant he walks at normal speed although which I cannot remember offhand...

That second one is great. :) I prefer that. It does make ramp 'jump through' a bit more difficult and (for example) extra care is needed to avoid an IDS if you jump over the * in 'To The Kitchens' as you can jump through up to First Landing if you're not careful. It does have some interesting uses though. The Nightmare Room I simply jumped to collect the object :lol:

Good stuff. Setting it to '2' while in Banyan Tree is good as he has a path to run provided guardians do not interfere**. I have set it to 1 to 'resume' play to rescue him from the toilet on the odd occasion too. :D ** If they do can always set it to First Landing I guess. That reminds me there's no reason the 'bed trigger' could not be set there actually either :unsure:

Talking of spare space, I take it you saw the various trim levels I built ? :) If not then condensing the sprites and / or room data will leave larger gaps suitable for 'extra's if required. Here's two quick pics: Rooms: Just removing " [ " and shuffling the others up to suit: Sprites: Things to note about this. Care was taken to not move the Flying Pig, Barrel, Maria, Toilet or Foot. The reason being these are sort of hardcoded in for their addresses, although easy to change it was simpler (in the long term) to work around that even though it did cause more work/thought initially in the move... The random bits are unused data or keypad routines.

hehe that's great. :) I did notice the 'journeys locations' and the changing sound effect. The effect from Master Bedroom to Off Licence has a pleasing almost 'horn' like tone to it. I tried that at double speed too and it still sounded good.