JianYang

Good points.

There are several options:

- Put all the SAM-levels in one file (we already have that) and all the non-SAM-levels in another

- Put all levels in one file but remove some items

- Put almost all levels in one file and remove the worst ones

- Fix the engine to allow for more items

The last one would probably be the gold standard, but right now I don't see it happening.

All the other cases are aesthetic trade-offs. In any case nothing will be lost unless Bayron goes crazy and deletes all his work so far. We just have to load different versions of the game.

I guess I favour to remove some levels because there are some levels that I think don't belong in a Manic Miner game (The two Twilight Zone Levels from the SAM and In a Deep Dark Hole(?) from the Oric come immediately to mind) and feel more like Nintendo/Mario levels.

In the end it's an artistic decision and the artist is Bayron.

I trust that Bayron can find the 10% good ideas between the 90% nonsense that I suggest. And I appreciate you supporting him/her in the process.

On 6/8/2024 at 4:03 PM, The-Red-Bayron said:

I would have to reduce the amount of items from The Deeper Caverns and Down, Down, Deeper and Down as the editor will not allow me to put in more items after 256.

Then maybe it's not worth it?

For most of us loading times are now less than one second. Compromising quality for this minor convenience doesn't sound too good to me.

Maybe just assemble the best levels that together stay under 256 items?

16 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

with 4 more appearing as extras are gained.

So JSW64 supports extra lives? Do you think there could be a better way to grant lives instead of just giving the player plenty at the start?

21 hours ago, JianYang said:

put an extra item next to the Kong beast switches

I've just made it for the first time past Son of Kong Beast in Deeper and Down and I see you were way ahead of me. Great job!

Some ideas:

Why not combine all the LL  and SAM levels into one big game?

Since there are no points anymore, maybe put an extra item next to the Kong beast switches to give some incentive to the player.

Maybe increase the number of initial lives as there are no extra lives anymore.

Not really a JSW game by any purist's standards, but it's fun.

https://sloanysoft.itch.io/willie

Review (not mine): 

Probably more in the "loosely based on"-category. Based on a quick image search.

A very enthusiastic review.

2 minutes ago, DigitalDuck said:

and Willy's head is solid while walking left.

I never knew about that one.

2 minutes ago, DigitalDuck said:

I'm happy to implement an option to turn off the wall jump

I'll take it. Thank you.

1 hour ago, DigitalDuck said:

It wasn't present in the original engine.

Could this be an option then? I would really love a setting that has all the original behaviour. Not that it's a big deal, but out of principle I like my Manic Miner to behave exactly like 1983 Bug Byte Manic Miner. Maybe at the very bottom of your todo list? I would be even more grateful than I am now.

8 hours ago, DigitalDuck said:

There are still a few additional levels, of course. The levels included in MMR that don't appear in Redux Long are:

• The Meteor Storm - BBC Micro
• The Dragon Users Bonus - Dragon 32
• The End - Dragon 32
• Not Central Cavern - Oric Atmos
• The Bonus Round - SAM Coupe
• Tic-Tac-Toe - Special
• Maze - Special
• Movable Platform - Special

These work all fine on original settings. There is one weird behaviour though: When moving against a wall in The Maze Willy will get stuck at the bottom until you release the direction key. Hard to explain. I hope the screenshot helps.

This could be completely consistent with Speccy physics though. I don't think I've ever encountered an arrangement like this in a Spectrum MM game.

I don't see why these couldn't be levels 81-88 in Redux Long. But that's no complaint. I'm fine with it either way.

8 hours ago, DigitalDuck said:

The fix I'm thinking is this:

Tried it, played it, finished it, works fine. Of the three versions I tried, this actually was the easiest but I guess it's just because I tried it last and had a lot of training with the others before.

3 hours ago, DigitalDuck said:

I'm not overly fond of the other sprite, mainly the way they're filled, but I think it's fixable. I'm not sure what it was ever supposed to be, but that makes it a fairly normal Manic Miner sprite.

If you're asking what sprite in the game it's supposed to be: it's that weird red thing in The Freezer. Four balls at the ends of a cross rotating around each other.

If you're asking what real life item it represents: I have no idea. Could be a molecule or a space ship or some kind of toy...?

Your Jell-o (or whatever the British equivalent is) seems to fit better in a freezer.

Quote

That's why I feel that lowering the spikes into the ground is the better solution - it keeps the movement through the level as intended without creating an option that wasn't there in the original game.

I did not really understand what your fix was supposed to be, but I was pretty sure that my solution made it easier than yours would.

I'll try your fix next.

And your text based level format: easiest level editing I've ever experienced. Big thumbs up!

Edit: I played through all 79 other levels in Redux Long. I could finish them all.

About the level: IMO the point of that level is that it has two items that are really hard to collect. If you now make both items easy to collect, I'm not sure if there is a point in keeping that level. There seem to be several good levels that are not yet used in the level set. Just my thoughts. Feel free to ignore them.

Edit: Forget the idiocy above. I just moved the item up and removed the rightmost spike and still died 29(!) times before getting through the level. That's far from trivial.

On another note. I finally read this thread. You mentioned somewhere something about wanting speccyfied versions of the SAM sprites. I tried my hands at two of them (The Office, The Freezer)

If you're interested I might make a few more. If not, I don't see myself as artist or designer, so you can just say no without hurting my feelings.

On 9/30/2023 at 3:21 PM, DigitalDuck said:

Having checked myself, this appears to be true. I don't have any issue with tiny modifications to levels to make this happen (I've moved an item up a cell in one of the other levels for the same reason, as well as reversing a conveyor direction), so I'll probably just move the item up one cell to make it work.

The bottom right item in the same level with the same settings is also not collectible.

On 9/18/2023 at 4:16 PM, DigitalDuck said:

I guess you're my guinea pig for this... :D

You have another one now.

Great work!

Except for the graphical differences and the extra levels (which both are great) so far I cannot say that this feels at all different from the originals with all settings on Smith/Original.

Despite me starting to nitpick on some minor things that keep this from being my perfect version of Manic Miner a few words from now, even if you never release another version this is going to keep me entertained for the rest of my life.

I love the short delay at the beginning of the levels that give me enough time to get my fingers off the keyboard and prevent the usual MM-multi-death, but it could be a little longer (2x-3x) to give me time to put the right fingers back on the keys.

I also love the option of giving Willy an outline, but I have 2 issues with the implementation:

- The outline shouldn't go below Willy's feet. That just looks odd on the ground and rarely helps. A compromise could be a partial outline when standing/walking and a full outline when jumping/falling.

- I would love a colour option "background." A black outline looks great in levels with black background, but way too heavy against other background colours.

I don't think it's possible to collect the first item in "The Pink People Eaters" with all settings on Smith/Original. I had no problem with the level on defaults. Checking if Item Collect is set to Smith and either skipping the level or moving the item up one character (one pixel might be enough, but that would probably feel wrong) could maybe fix that.

There was one weird issue I had a few times, but I cannot reproduce it intentionally and it only happened randomly when playing. When right ("p") is pressed while dying and I keep it it pressed and press jump ("m") after death the game would sometimes forget that right is pressed and just jump up. This happened most often in "Tokyo Uh Oh." This might just be the one issue with godot on Linux. Everything else feels rock solid.

I feel you could improve on the first impression. The "If in doubt, just press ENTER now" message made me go to presets, where I played the original preset. "This is great. It feels just like the original."

Then I wanted to see some different levels, so I thought redux long is probably a mix of classic and alternative levels and I just played the classics. So I decided to play redux short hoping it would be only the alt levels. "Why did I think this feels authentic? This feels like JSW2."

So I finally played redux long and 30 levels in (70 total) I felt completely exhausted and decided to take a break. And then I looked through all the menu options and found everything I could have hoped for. At that point I would have loved the option to change the settings and continue my game.

I think most people who will try this game are enthusiastic about the original, but after 40 years hope for a little change. So I think if you nudge the first time user towards a certain preset, original physics (I guess the slight speed up to 15fps would be fine) + graphic enhancements (outline) + redux long level set would give the best impression with most users. But don't take my word for it, ask around this forum.

Anyway thank you so much for making my new favorite game.

I just found this on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnCfioSB5RM

I think it's pretty cool.

If you're talking about the key caps I have definitely seen that style before the QL was a thing. In my memory it's associated with Siemens keyboards.

Thank you.

That looks just like a minimally different version of the game ROM. Seems that it's just a ROM pirate site that mentioned the treasure.

To the Willy historians: Was the GBA version a failure? It seems to me that when the original MM came out, it took about an hour until everyone knew that there was a hidden swordfish in the final level. (slight exaggeration)

This one has an official infinite lives setting (so you can easily play through everything without cheating) and no one has ever mentioned anything about this on the web? Seems odd.

Today I noticed that Jester has released the GBA version for free (source and binaries): https://illusion.64history.net/2022/manic-miner-gba-source

So I found myself a suitable emulator and played through the game. At the end it told me to go to www.willyisback.com enter quirkafleeg and get a "treasure." The site doesn't exist anymore. 

Does anyone know what the "treasure" on willyisback.com was?

Thank you.

3 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

Very nice, JianYang! 👍

Does it go on forever? (I watched over 100 screens, it doesn't seem to stop)

Thank you.

Yes it's just one big infinite loop: Generate a level. Move Willy across the level. Repeat.

Someone had to do it.

mm3d.tap

This feels really easy, so it's probably all wrong.

@jetsetdanny Sick minds think alike?

13 hours ago, SymbolShift said:

Any guesses on the AI images?