JianYang

Chris's death was related to Chris — crazy B. He drank and smoked himself to death, nothing to do with COVID. I was one of his best friends, not some casual acquaintance. He thought of my house as his second home. I literally pulled the artwork out of Tommie's home office after he passed. Me, Chris, and Matty used to hang out after office hours in SP, and no, Matty did not turn up for the funeral. He's a hard man to find, and I doubt he was invited.
I think Tom and Matty had issues over money to do with SP, because I know Tom always seemed to have some regrets over it.
I think Matty had some kind of notion that Tommy had ripped him off or not got his full due, so to speak. Either way, I think they had a falling out over it, but I could be wrong on that. Chris always blamed Alan Maton for the downfall of SP -  I have no opinion on that. IMHO I think Matty was burned out by it all.
The last time me, Chris, and Matty talked on the phone was about 8 years ago (roughly). It was like no time had passed at all. Chris was at my house at the time.
As for the shed story, I will backpedal a bit. Maybe it was later on, or before Norman was there — it was over 40 years ago. BUT I definitely remember one being there behind the main offices at the back of the building, because when Matty opened the door, I remember nearly choking to death on the smoke (I don't smoke weed), my next thougt was, how the hell does even see the screens, with that much smoke. Chris told me he slept on top of it and I'm sure I seen a ladder attached to the side of it (I think I remember asking, whats the ladder for & that was Chris's answer). He also said that's where JSW was born (but Chris drank A LOT).
The Chinese restaurant was on the left as you went down the hill from the Bear Brand complex into the village.
I knew Tommy and Chris for over 40 years, but lost touch with Matty. I'm sure he would have turned up for CB's funeral if he had known.
Chris was a tragic character, and I miss him, but he was, as he put it, alcohol dependent, but not an alcoholic. I never saw him without a can of lager, a cigarette, or a joint.
Anyway, Norman can say whatever he likes. IF I was pushing merch, then call BS, but I just wanted it on the NET (that never dies) as kind of an epitaph for the two of them. Also considering the name of the Adnin here, this seemed like the appropriate online forum to share a bit of this history.
Matty, if you're out there, then get in touch mate (Google me) or join here and PM me.
You know, I just checked Wiki, so Matt is still going, and I also just realised he's only a year older than me, so it's probably why the 3 of us got along. 🙂
I also have some original Manic And JSW T shirts sitting in a draw for sale LOL
That's some shot's (I badly stitched together) of Tom & Chris's house, it had a helicopter pad on the side and hanger for it, as Tommy also used to be a helicopter pilot. Really nice place, Tom's front room was on the left. The family no longer owns it I think. Tom's wife and his daughter took over after Tom's passing & I also just realised I have 3 pieces of furniture from his office, his lazy boy chair (with speakers) that I'm currently sitting in while typing this and his main desk from his office and one of his filing cabinets + his world map is hanging on my wall.
Just felt like showing them off in a home that appreciates them 🙂
https://youtube.com/shorts/G3mcIShznRw
Are they the originals, all I know is Tommy owned them and kept them, up until the time he passed.

I have only looked at the videos so far, but that's some amazing work.

I have only looked at the videos so far, but that's some amazing work.

The good news is that JSW128 and JSW64 support was easier than expected, so I've managed to squeeze it into the next release. The room data being held in the extra 128K banks was much easier to scan, and operand values from the code let me know the size of each room. The rest was much the same as for JSW48 support, with generally only a single hook point due to the standardised game engine code. Across the 3 engines that makes 119 runnable JSW snapshots.
Windows, macOS, and Linux desktop versions are now available from: https://simonowen.com/spectrum/tilemap/

I was holding myself from posting that for the entire day as it looks like a mockery of the game, but here it is. Allegedly Matthew Smith approved slop version of the game with broken mechanics on Steam. And all other platforms.
https://miner-willy.com/

I used to be a very good freinds with Matty (that's what we all called him back in the day)
I shot the vid & I put it on YT 🙂
Chris Barton one of my best friends for 40 years he was Tommy Bartons son (co owner of software projects) and one of the major reasons the game was released but could not be finnished - is because Chris was an alcholic, weed smoking maniac & SP's official games tester & he told his dad, he had finnished the game LOL.
How do I know - I was there 🙂
I also have all the artwork from SP's games in my house, and Tommy's copies of Jet Set and Manic hanging on my walls and yes I can prove it.
HAL

Usually @GPC posts his reviews himself. I guess football and/or heat got to him. So allow me to do the honours:
 
 

I've been working on updating my TileMap application, which lets you see the whole game map as you play. I already supported the original JSW and JSW2+ games, but they use hard-coded map layouts. I've long wanted to add more general support for custom JSW games, which requires working out a 2D map layout from the game data. That turned out to be a much harder problem than expected so it never got finished.
I've come to the conclusion that it may not be possible to automatically generate a perfect layout for all games. The only information you have is the room exit data, which must have all 4 exits defined, even if only some are used. The remaining entries usually point back to themselves, or are set to some dummy value, which will usually be an existing room number. In some cases they point to unused rooms from the original JSW, which then become part of the map layout. Examining the room data for navigable exits might help fix some of these, but there are cases where blocks disappear in late game to allow access. That's not even thinking about exotic loops and overlaps that some games have.
I've settled on an approach that seems to give "good enough" results for non-overlapping maps. The rules also keep the original JSW map rooms aligned to the east wall, leaving a gap in the middle. In more complex cases it attempts to place problem rooms near (and aligned to) where they should be, but it will always place them somewhere. It's far from perfect (as you'll see below) but it seems a reasonable compromise solution for now. In some cases I'm not even sure what the correct layout should look like! Are the Pavero maps considered to be correct?
TileMap also requires game code hooks to react to some game events. JSW mods that change only the data should just work. I've found that most game engine changes use the same code in a different location, or minor variations. I was able to get all the JSW48 games working over a couple of evenings, and extra incompatible games should only take about 10 mins each now. JSW Central has been a great source of information to get this done 🙂
To show the current progress I've built a test web version of my development code, with just the JSW48 games available. It should work on modern desktop browsers, though the final release will be regular desktop apps. Double-click to start, Esc to return to the selection screen.  Home centres on current room, End shows full map. Drag/zoom with the mouse. F1-F4 give 1-4x scaling, avoiding scaling artefacts.
If there's community interest/help I could allow custom overrides of the map layouts to fix issues. It would likely allow exporting the generated layout for manual editing, rather than having it created from scratch. Any other thoughts are most welcome.

Usually @GPC posts his reviews himself. I guess football and/or heat got to him. So allow me to do the honours:
 
 

That's a great idea. I'll see about getting that in the next build.
 
EDIT: Done. When you start the game it'll show the info.
EDIT 2: I've also renamed it.

Maus has done a great job with this!
The only thing that bother's me is that I feel that the artist who created the tileset should be listed when selected. Especially since the default tileset (JSW Gorgeous) is from the mobile java version. For example, something like this...
1 . . . JSW Gorgeous   (artwork by Paul Vera-Broadbent)
Credit is given in the Willypedia (credits and acknowledgements, page 2), but I feel it's a little buried. I also got the impression that the reviewer was not familiar with the java tileset, and assumed credit to Maus.
That said, it's a great looking tileset and can't blame you for using it 😁

Hi, my reply to your question would definitely be "Yes", with the understanding that you're not asking others to embark on this task (I couldn't right now or in the foreseeable future due to lack of time) but rather checking if others would be interested if you went ahead with the conversion 🙂 .
Yes, it will be nice and definitely appreciated if you do it 🙂 . I will also be happy to playtest as usual before the final release.
And I will second JianYang's affirmation: "There can never be too many Manic Miner levels." 😁

Maybe we can figure out what the problem is before this thread is closed?
 
@fawtytoo, I understand there were issues about the appropriate amount of credit given to you in the love2d version. I cannot say anything about that, because it seems to have been fixed since then. But what are the issues with @monkeyx's C port? It seems you have released the original under a very permissive license and I fail to see a problem with monkeyx's fork.
I would very much love to see a version of your excellent port with additional levels and a level editor. So what are the issues and what needs to change to make this a reality?
Thank you for your great work and hopefully for a reply that clears things up.

If you're talking about converting the Blagger levels to a Manic Miner engine, then yes, I'm very interested. There can never be too many Manic Miner levels.
If you're talking about converting the game including its awkward physics to the Speccy: no, not really.
 

Hi JianYang,
Thanks for your reply, yes it would be a conversion using the Manic Miner engine.
It's the usual problem in that the screen and sprite sizes are different between the C64 and Spectrum, also the C64 guardians can move through other objects.
This is one of the levels so far.
    
All the best,
B

Here are some screenshots from my attempt to make a Manic Miner Construction Kit.

Most sprites and NPCs are now png spritesheets 32 x 32 so more detail available. These sprite sheets are made with gimp so are easily to editable. If anyone likes doing pixel art. Please do volunteer to help :)

The editor is currently a html web editor. But an in app sdl2 might also be possible. I will try and get a public repo and release up in the next couple of weeks.

I tried to submit PRs that were rejected. The project was archived, so I created a love2d clone. Then the forum shows the original authors erratic responses to the love2d version.
In parallel I am creating a new c version inspired by Matthew Smith's original instead. With many more features and an editor
 
It will use a different methods for video and sound et al. Which allows the construction set to be even more flexible.
 
It will also be under an MIT license as far as I'm concerned the original copyright belongs to Matthew Smith alone.
 

I have gone back to the original project by @fawtytoo as I could not get LOVE2D to work with a web browser using this great implementation of the game

So I have added the record game option (push R) Play back via the (O)ptions Menu that also lets you select lives and level. Also has high score per level (S) on title screen 

Pressing U in game saves progress. L on Title to select on 5 save slots

Also runs on touch screen(Only test Android)

https://monkeyx.net/

I know you weren't asking me, but I would definitely get rid of the background images. Or at least make them optional.

There's no background images in Manic Miner. I was only suggesting things that I would ADD. @Trullybug was referring to things they'd remove.

I was going to make an HD version with full colour graphics, background images, improved sound effects and MIDI music, smooth animation and 60fps but have the gameplay exactly as the original.
What would you remove?

Celeste，I think.😄

Probably VVVVVV for me. It has graphics just like JSW, the controls are almost identical, it's difficult and very fun.

Frank N Stein - Bugfix.tzx
Zero modifications other than the patch applied. Note there's very very little room in the Basic to insert any cheats (there's no space to insert the patch this way as pokes) due to ramtop location. Are ways around it such as sticking them into the screen and calling it but that's a 'mod' I suppose.
NB: May need loading in 48K mode only. I could 'fix' this but that would be a modification lol.

Thanks for the video! It's interesting to know how someone really good is playing "Zuma's Revenge" 🙂 . I've spent a lot of time playing the game, but I'm very far from this level of efficiency 😮.
Whoever played the game in the video shows both speed, accuracy and an extremely fast thinking related to where to place balls that will later cause a "chain reaction". It looks extremely impressive 🙂 .