Spider

Only fair to do JSW2. Not 100% sure on these...

I may try these "forbidden" areas in JSW2+ in a week or two when I have time.

Following on from this (sorry)

Black or White ?

MS_JSW_WHITE.tap

MS_JSW_BLACK.tap

No more silly loaders from me from now on.

Another one...

I think its zx-art mainly ?

I'm honestly not that sure.

The 'regular' screens are here for convenience if it helps, before I "fiddled about" with them hehe.

They have a simple Basic loader attached so they'll load in OK with just the Tape Loader or LOAD ""

MM_Mick Farrow - Manic Miner (2014).tap

MM_Andy Green - Manic Miner (2018).tap

Basic is just:
 

10 POKE 23739 , 111 : LOAD "" CODE
20 BORDER 0 : PAUSE 0

23739 temporarily supresses (until a CLS) the print 'pixel data'

Random sidenote: I did try them with inverted pixel data and/or splitting attr+pixels out loading attr first but this only really lends itself well to certain screen designs, not these unfortunately. It does work well where there's a similar paper colour all around, such as the Magic Knight series and The Hobbit (to some degree) and some of the Wally Week ones.

@Sendy The EndlessI like what i see so far 🙂

4 hours ago, MtM said:

Does Andrew Broad still read these forums, he does not seem to have been around for a long time?

I'm not sure but I hope even if he has no "interest" (not really a suitable word sorry) he would occasionally browse here and read.

I think that's the record for the largest post 😯 36052 characters in 580 lines.

You know it should of been 32768 or 33792 characters length 😉

Following on slightly, I thought about Manic Miner...

There's one in "Miner Willy meets the Kong Beast" , two in "The Endorian Forest" and I thought there was one in "The Bank" too, but it is possible to reach the second from top right platform , just under the item (not a resting place I'd tried to visit before)

Regarding the rightmost position in "The Endorian Forest" , I did think it was possible to get there but given the nearby fire cell above, it is not.

1 hour ago, Sendy The Endless said:

Re: Cuckoo's Nest, I think we might need a name for places that you can go within a room, but you don't need to. The top right platform in Top Landing is a good example, while the two to the left of it are obviously FHGs. I like these little spots and tend to think of them as an integral part of room design. They can fill up space and make rooms more interesting and less predictably functional, giving a space flavour.

Yes I agree, they do add atmosphere to the room. I am not sure on a suitable name though.

Another example maybe the 'halfrow' in Foot of MegaTree too. 🙂

1 hour ago, Sendy The Endless said:

I tend to call them Park Benches in my head. I put one in JSW: RR. It's in the screen "Down a Manhole", that's a narrow vertical room you descend through, but you can stop off on a little alcove with a pipe and a waterfall and for some reason I think it's a cool place to stand and maybe take a screenshot : )

Its always a nice touch to add a 'resting place' for the player, even though they could pause the game it is more the thought.

I'm not sure anyone has managed to complete this platforms (no pun) version unaided without cheating. It may not be possible with the original given some of the caverns, the 2021 update -should- be possible.

There is a cheat built into the original to level select/skip similar to the 6031769/typewriter but the latter I was not able to find anything from a very very cursory look at the code, but I can't read 6502 so I may of missed it. I was looking for text strings indicating something.

I may have an attempt at this when I can. The biggest issue is the emulation recording is not great with the two I've tried, the sound is always out of sync and I no longer have any 'real' Acorn hardware.

28 minutes ago, MtM said:

40 years this year since MM, 40 next year for JSW, who could possibly have thought they would still be going so strong all these years later? I hope we all live to see the 50 year anniversary in 10 years time! I hope that MS gets some kind of recognition too

Yes I did plan on something game-wise for MM but I have to confess I don't have the sane time for it, I do have (will find) time to do "something"

Yes JSW next year too.

What would also be good would be to hear from the authors of these games on other platforms if they wanted to say anything specific about it, I can think of about half a dozen names here.

27 minutes ago, MtM said:

Hexen one such game?

Hmm. Duke Nukem maybe ? Or Wolfenstein ?

I've not played either. I still have my original Quake(s) 1/2/Arena somewhere. Was a Wolfie (hidden) level on Doom thinking about it.

Just a bit of fun.

Using both Andy Green's (2018)  and Mick Farrow's (2014) loading screens with two effects...

For reference, the new loading screens look like this:

Eight .tap files are provided, yes .tap as they load at conventional speed without 'trickery' hence no .tzx needed.

 Please load these at normal speed, ie: turn off flash/edge/fast loading !

Two for each effect and two for each author which makes four and I was initially going to leave it at that but...

... that is with the screen set to black before any drawing commences, so I made a duplicate set minus the colour controls (which are in the Basic loader anyway) so it can be seen how they work because blank black paper will hide part of the effect.

Enough said...

With the "ZigZag" effect with a black screen first:

Mick Farrow_2014_MM_ZigZag_BLACK.tap Andy Green_2018_MM_ZigZag_BLACK.tap

The same "ZigZag" effect without a black screen:

Mick Farrow_2014_MM_ZigZag_RAW.tap Andy Green_2018_MM_ZigZag_RAW.tap

With a "Top/Tail" effect with a black screen first:

Mick Farrow_2014_MM_TopTail_BLACK.tap Andy Green_2018_MM_TopTail_BLACK.tap

The same "Top/Tail" effect without a black screen:

Mick Farrow_2014_MM_TopTail_RAW.tap Andy Green_2018_MM_TopTail_RAW.tap

It is well worth a couple of minutes to try each one, they don't really take much more time (just over a minute) to load in compared to a standard screen.

.rzx of this and yes its quite easy to get over the other side of the nest, not sure why I never tried before! Its also easier to get the item this way too, if you don't mind losing a life!

Cuckoo Test.rzx

Attaching the test file used for this, this is (almost) standard JSW*** , aside from the start position being set at this temporary location the file has the following changes:

Keypad codes, messages, data and some other things removed, easier to show a pic than type it out:

The following 'core' changes are also present in the test file:

Attic Bug fixed - standard bug fix method

Conservatory Roof fire cell removed - standard bug fix method

Banyan Tree earth cell swapped for water - standard bug fix method

Single item on The Beach

First Landing item not moved to an invisible one in the hall, instead it is just removed

Different charset (loaded at 64768)

*** I've used this file as a 'base' to build from previously although now I have a much better one with concatenated sprite and room data but this is off topic here.

@IRFHe might be able to jump through the ramp and then walk over the green water cells, and jump up but he can't (as you pointed out) get back from there.

Danny is correct I suspect really as without cheating it is possible to get here - I will check this as soon as I can.

I was debating on room 47 " ] " actually too.

@jetsetdannyI've adjusted the topic title and description -slightly- to reflect the word "Hallowed" , please edit post/topic as you see fit. 🙂

I think the magazine article as in "directly reading the magazine" would be a bit better however I have a vague notion the pictures being taken with a camera on a monitor so they would be a bit blurry. At that stage I don't think they had got (magazines) a 'freeze' device, plus I think those were taken in the Software Projects office. Maybe. 🙂

Still nice to see. I've not found anything similar for Manic Miner, as in a "preview" of it well before release but that is a bit before my time perhaps.

2 minutes ago, Ligan said:

Cuckoo's Nest isn't really forbidden, though

Unsure on leaving that one now or not... 🙂 🙃

Just now, Ligan said:

Cuckoo's Nest isn't really forbidden, though 😮. This specific position would kill the player but otherwise it's totally possible to reach the right side of the leaves.

I was half debating on that screen because I could myself not get there without being killed given the cyan guardian (might be me) as well as " ] " (which I've removed as I could not be sure if he could reach it just anyway) but nothing to see in it!

Willy takes a walk on the wild side to visit area's he's normally forbidden from:

8 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

It's quite a cruel punishment for being inept enough to lose a life! 😉 

🤪 🤣 Well, that is true.

Nightmare Room I made a bit more erm 'fun' without making it much harder.

I've just updated the .zip above, I've not changed the game code at all, merely added a couple of other things. See my post above for the specifics.

I decided to build (well, modify) something for this...

More for fun than anything else.

The text file included in the .zip explains all (well, most of it)

< FILE REMOVED > As it is now in the Downloads system , here

.zip updated:

1. Slight change to readme text file, including the date and a couple of typo corrections

2. rzx playback added

3. A quick and simple loading screen added to game tape file (game code untouched)

Yes problem is you could set the safe restart to the top, but then that also allows a player to cheat if they are not great at that screen, in particular I am not brilliant at moving right to left , when finishing the outer extremes of the game. One solution would be this maybe but its far from ideal.

EDIT... My post was eaten 😞 I did write quite a lot before.

14 hours ago, GPC said:

I will take a look at those and brilliant to know

For convenience @GPC

Original release of JSW for the BBC Micro here

Updated 2021 release of JSW for the BBC Micro here

Original release of MM for the BBC Micro here , note keypad protect has been disabled, just enter anything

Updated 2021 release of MM for the BBC Micro here

Sidenote: There is a Electron version of MM (as it was never released on this machine originally) here if you want, as per the above reworks, it too is 2021

I've excluded JSW2 from this platform for now for your testing because there's two versions of it, and its not quite as simple as "version A or version B" , I can expand on that if needed.

🙂

I thought about a 'cruel and unusual' delay for this , I may build a test file tomorrow if I can just of half a dozen rooms to see how annoying it can be. 😉

Thank you. 🙂

You may be aware the BBC versions of JSW and MM were rewritten/updated a year or so ago, and the new ones play much nicer in that they more reflect the original ZX versions. I've not had chance to check if you've tried these on your channel yet.

A post on Facebook earlier reminded me of this preview, although I had seen others elsewhere. I've used the pics from my archive collection rather than the ones on FB.

Sorry the quality of them is not great. Better ones might be on archive org...

The cover:

The article itself:

Finally, further on in the magazine an advert for the game itself: