Metalmickey

You probably should re-upliad the corrected file as V.5 to avoid confusion, especially now V.4 has been subject to recorded playtesting..

I am thinking about one last tweak .. i'm considering whether or not the monk in The Chapel should actually be changed back to only facing one way, the more i think about it the more i think it might well have been intentional for the little purple fellow never to have to face beelzebub, especially as in JSW2 and 2+ i wouldn't mind betting that this would have been picked up on and corrected as the saw in the Cuckoo's nest was.

Also the purple Maria second from right in the Nightmare room is not waving her arm like the others .. i'm thinking about changing that

Again these are minor changes but since i have made so many i will probably end up calling it rev5 .. or 4.5 or something like that

Thanks for your comments, glad you like the new rooms and apologies for the unintended hidden item which i have now removed, i have replaced the file so feel free to download and have another crack at it  :)

Referring to your comment about the differences in the speed of the game engine in JSW2 and 2+ yes i remember when i bought the game and played it for the first time, my first impression back then was how slick it seemed but much harder as a result which was a little off-putting in some ways but i was nonetheless compelled to keep playing mainly because i wanted to see what the new rooms looked like.

I really like the 2+ version and was pleasantly surprised that it was actually written by Derrick Rowson himself ..

As for my mini-project in the contributors section i will be taking a look at that to see what else needs doing 

Thanks for taking an interest in my little project, hope you enjoy playing and completing it, look forward to the RZX once you've completed it. I do have one done but it's of a previous release before i modified the Megatree rooms.

In answer to your question about my considerably bigger project, i am indeed working on a JSW128 game which will still feature every one of the 60 original rooms and keeping them in their original location I will probably have to make a few modifications for access purposes but i intend to keep this to a minimum. My aim is to create an extension to the house, this of course has the added benefit of giving me a 60 (or 64 in my case) room head-start.

I also want to make the player access all of the rooms in order to complete the game, it will take me a long time to build all the rooms and it would be a bit of a waste to leave them unexplored.

This also will help in giving me a bit of guidance as to the look and feel of the rooms as well as some much needed practice in using JSWED 

If you have a look in contributors section you will also see where i have made an experimental version creating a path between the Forgotten Abbey and the Security Guard rooms so i have a few more ready made rooms there. 

I've not long started this project and i will perhaps begin a new topic with more information about what to expect once i'm about 150 rooms in

I see your point, the Bunker was developed when i very first started using JSWED and was the very first room i created, i spent quite a lot of time deliberating on whether there should be another exit. I originally decided against it and created 'vent' graphics using the water cells so as to make it look like there is an exit there but inadvertently made the floor beneath one cell too high so when i went to playtest it I found that Willy was able to make his way upwards to Under the Megatree i just went along with it knowing that the player would have to make his way back to Under the Drive to collect the remaining items, unless of course a way has been figured out how to get off the conveyor after collecting the top item in the Tree Root .. i don't think it's possible. if it was just a matter of being potentially tedious having to work your way all the way round the house to collect the items in Under the Drive i'd probably have just left it as it was but seeing as this could be seen as a deviation from the script so to speak then perhaps it's worth making some necessary adjustments.

Once again i have edited my previous post as you will see it is only a very minor alteration to the room .. even if it does make a big difference.

My next project is creating a 128K version (obviously moving away from the as Mr Smith intended theme) which, i hope, will be the first one to use all of the available 256 rooms   :o  .. i'll start another topic on that once i'm nearing the half way stage .. if the internet is still around by then... or someone else hasn't beaten me to it 

You might find the link to J Wiseman's website in Danny's post doesn't work but if you add a 'l' in your browser on the end of the url so it says html instead of htm it'll work   :)

I think the unused item from The Attic is a pair of beer bottles stacked next to each other (on in front of the other, but diagonally offset so you can see both)?

 

Final(?) tweak - the topmost item in The Bunker perhaps looks a bit odd floating in mid-air, without a supporting platform.  (I realise that the items in the adjacent Tree Root are also defying gravity, but at least they're 'wedged' in a corner!)

Ah yes i see it now, i'll probably move that floating item, it was originally placed there as a gentle hint that this would be the way to proceed through the game since there is no (that i am aware of) way of getting back to the tree root without life loss .. i'll probably move it down a couple of cells.

by the way, the other change was to revert to the original item in the hall that Spider suggested in case you didn't spot it  :)

Yeah i made use of the water cells in The Hall, OK maybe not that subtle but i think it works somehow, 2 reasons why i think this is as Matt Intended:

 firstly it's in keeping with the adjacent Front Door flooring which uses the same cells there, secondly it has the same sort of theme as Ballroom West which has the same flooring arrangement .. i also thought about replacing the cells on the top floor of The Hall but decided in the end i was just over-thinking things

With regards to the Items, yeah i've been looking at the odd looking item in The Bunker, not happy about it, it doesn't seem to resemble anything, maybe the graphic got corrupted or he might have just started developing it but hadn't got round to finishing it off. I think the same could be said for the unused item in The Attic which I have placed in OFOTCN .. although there is at least a shape to it .. i might just leave that one as it is .. it goes with the 'they're-coming-to-take-me-away-ha-ha' theme of the room...

as these are only minor modifications I've replaced the file in my previous post which also includes the corrected item shape in  Special Branch 

some good detective work but there is one other alteration i've made .. actually there's two but there's one in particular that i'm quite pleased you've not noticed yet, i did intend it to be a subtle addition   ;)

Thanks, think i've got to grips with it now, made a few more modifications. See if you can spot them...

Hoping this is the final release

JSW AMI R4 .zip

Thanks Danny,

As you will have probably gathered from this post this project of mine is simply to attempt to create a version which is as close to what Matt Smith would have done had he had the time to playtest thoroughly, for example, adding a conveyor in Conservatory Roof and replace some of the lost screens that were corrupted with his TRDOS code and of course ironing out every single bug and unintended anomaly whilst making as little change to the screen layouts as is necessary

As you can see i released a few playtestables so far but before i release by final release i have decided to wait a while to see if anyone has spotted any problems that i haven't solved or even new ones that i may have inadvertently introduced.

hopefully my final product will be as close to as Matt intended without removing too many IDS's no matter how annoying they may be.

On the subject of your previous post i think also it's worth remembering that whilst in 1984 we didn't have the benefit of Rollback but we did have the benefit of pressing Shift-Break to re-start the game (that's if the big foot hadn't got to him first) making a mental note of where one went wrong and having another go.

If you get time, have a quick look at my latest release, and if there is anything that you think needs tidying up please let me know and i'll include it along with Ian's and Andy's suggestions in my final release. Also have a look at the text doc, i've tried to make it reasonably detailed without going overboard

Hopefully by then i will have mastered the art of using the Speedlock loader and introducing a picture. I intend to release a .tap file with 2 versions, the original one which takes you to the keycode entry screen and a second one with the Speedlock loader in place which takes you straight to the screen

I've just noticed that the item shape which you've added to The Hall is the one from Above the West Bedroom, rather than the one from West Wing Roof as per Andy's suggestion.  (Mind you, both items are 'floating' in their original settings.)

I do admit i am in 2 minds about this and i am considering going with your original suggestion as it is completely in mid air and not against any other earth or water cell, i mentioned this briefly in the attached text doc. I originally chose the one in the Above the West Bedroom because i was just looking at other bigger items. 

I even tried making my own item at one point, it looked rubbish so i abandoned that idea..

Yup i think i will do that, it does involve minimal alteration to the Tree Top and there's no extra cells to add. As for the psychedelic addition to OFOTCN (getting lazy now) it was a choice between that or changing the room name to Cloud Cuckoo Land and adding a load of Cuckoo Guardians but that involved too much work for me and besides, the original name fitted the screen nicely i decided to keep it .. certainly a room one would not want to spend too much time in. As well as the movie reference it was also something of a cheeky nod to Matt's crazy genius mindset  :P

Whoops, sorry about that, have now attached the correct file on my previous post

incidentally, although this may belong in another topic here are the WRITETYPER key combinations to gain access to rooms 61-63 which of course in the original version would have just given us access to a mass of corrupted game data and random flashing cells and the inevitable IDS...

13456+9 - Room 61

23456+9 Room 62

123456+9 Room 63

 something that perhaps Skoolkid might want to add to his trivia page

I'm quite surprised at how simple it was to 'fix' this one .. i think a thorough playtest is in order to see what the implications are throughout the rest of the game .. might incorporate this into my next release .. 

EDIT

This causes a few problems entering a room via rope such as the Cold Store to Swimming Pool for example.. see RZX...

it's a bit quick

Rope issue.rzx

Of course another well known but undocumented quirk, anomaly, or bug call it what you will is that when Willy does a moving jump and exits to the room above his trajectory is halted changing his jump to a standing one, in addition his jump height is restricted regardless of how close to the top of the screen below he was .. i dare say there's a technical reason for this, i'll leave it to the experts to work it out... :huh:

I was thinking along those lines and i had a go at doing something like that but i can't seem to get my ZX Block editor to work properly .. i probably need to read up on the instructions, i'll go back to the original topic and study some more...

My thoughts are something along the lines of creating 2 versions in 1 .TAP file. The first being the completely 100% as Matt intended version complete with the original loader (just the plain blue and yellow screen and red flashing message) with keycode entry, then later on in the tape an alternative Speedlock or turbo loader version with a cool pic like TNE for example bundled with the text file .. might even submit it to WOS for what it's worth

As promised, my latest revision...

JSW AMIrev3b.zip

...we're being far more cautious that Matt Smith ever was - I recall reading an interview where he said that he was aware of the potential for infinite deaths, but he couldn't be bothered fixing them (or words to that effect)!!   :P

 i think it's a fine line between increasing or restoring playability by removing the really unfair IDSs and not removing too much challenge from the game by deviating from the original layout of the room which would also mean that we would remove the spirit of 80s computer gaming, casting ones mind back to the many 8bit computer games on the market back then it was pretty much a certainty that most of them were nigh on impossible (for me) to complete due to elements of unfairness in them most of them intentional. Besides  .. you have to admit there's something of a (black) comedy element to watching WIlly repeatedly falling to his death because you inadvertently hit the jump button at the wrong moment .. unless of course you've just collected 80 odd items .. that's not quite as funny i guess :unsure:

Evidently he knew what he was doing when he created the rooms and the IDSs within many of them, I worked on the Conservatory Roof only because I had an inkling that he hadn't quite finished developing it, of course with the Orangery i made as discreet a change as possible and only at the very top of the room. Who knows, maybe he would have done something similar...

ah you see that's just Willy's rock and roll lifestyle... when you have a swimming pool in your manor why not take the plunge... tempted to leave it in but have now applied the fix, let me know when you've playtested the rest of the new layout and i will attach a new file with any further amendments that are needed .. i dare say my new screens are bound to have numerous IDS scenarios...

Guess i should have thought of that  :rolleyes:.

This has given me an idea for another little venture .. in a different project i am going to attempt to remove all possibilities of IDS throughout the entire game .. this of course would remove the spectacular suicide leap off the top of the house onto the barrel in the Ballroom East and some modification may need to be made to Entrance to Hades somehow .. or maybe i could just make those to instances the exceptions to the rule. I can see that there is a function in JSWED to tackle this but i think manually editing the rooms would be more of a challenge...

Thanks for this, I can see that moving the cell diagonally as you have shown would mean that he has a safe landing were he to miss his jump onto that ledge however, i could be wrong but that would mean that should Willy walk off the ledge to beneath the far left item in the Conservatory roof he would end up in an IDS in the orangery. . I've come up with an alternative, i've just moved it down a couple of blocks thereby keeping the safe landing and at the same time preventing the exit out of the Orangery without using the stairs. This inadvertently created another way of exiting the conservatory roof and being able to collect the item at the very top of the Orangery but i don't think that this has taken too much challenge out of it

JSW AMI Rev3a.zip

Oh, one other possible tweak to Conservatory Roof that I've just thought of - perhaps you could extend the length of the Conveyor by one cell to the left?  Still with a rightwards conveying action though.  (With an additional Water block under the exended part of the Conveyor, for 'support'/aesthetic purposes.)

 

That would preserve the original challenge of having to make a vertical-jump-on-a-conveyor in order to collect the second-from-left item without losing a life.  And being forced to walk without stopping to sneak under the red guardian (and then jump back up) in order to reach the leftmost item.  (As things stand, the player can jump over the guardian and collect the second item, by standing on the two Water blocks to the left of the conveyor.)

 

P.S. The extra (aesthetic) Water block in Banyan Tree looks good - was that in your first release, and I missed it, or have you just added it?

I looked at the Banyan Tree and i considered that the missing water cell above the rogue earth cell could easily have been unintended, i think it was one of my first modifications that i made whilst changing the earth cell

I think you're almost there with Conservatory Roof.  All items are collectable without loss of life, the tight timing for sneaking under the red guardian is maintained, there's no shortcut through the ramp (i.e. from outside to inside the roof structure).

 

However, I've noticed that there is an unfair Infinite Death Scenario in the Orangery, if Willy walks leftwards off the bottom-most Water block (the one above the first 'o' of 'Roof').  I suggest you move that block rightwards by one cell, so that it sits above the second 'o' of 'Roof'.

 

That, in turn, then opens up the possibility that the player might miss the left-most Water block when trying to access the left-most item, and fall into a different Infinite Death Scenario.  So you could add an extra Water block at the top of The Orangery to catch Willy in that circumstance - at the same height as the existing highest Water block in that room, but a few cells to the left.  (Above the letter 'r' should do it?)  I suggest you playtest jumping left off the lowest platform in Conservatory Roof from each of Willy's frames of animation, to make sure that you've eliminated the IDS's.

 

I'll playtest the rest of the new rooms later, although I did notice an interesting use of a new Rope in the MegaTree... 

 

One other observation - have you removed the Code Entry screen altogether?  It would seem a bit of a shame, what with you having fixed the bug in it (especially since it let you through on the second attempt anyway!)

Thanks for the feedback, i couldn't see what you were referring to at first but then i realised i had uploaded the wrong file. I've now replaced it complete with alternative loaders but i did make a few extra modifications based on what you've said here, have a look when you're ready 

JSW_AMI Rev2.zip

Here's my second and probably final release, i think i've just about gone as far as i can with it though i'm still open to suggestions regarding any further tweaking... 

i've included a more detailed text file with it, enjoy