MtM

Well said Spider! Microsphere had a phenomenal strike rate considering it was just two people, sometimes three. Skooldaze is perhaps the greatest Spectrum game ever in a way, never really been anything like it since, other than Back to Skool. Just my opinion.

Thank you for that Norman. That is the received wisdom, and I agree it is very likely the case that someone called Adrian Sherwin wrote the Birds and the Bees, just very surprised that MS says it was Derrick Rowson in the interview. It may well be a genuine mistake by MS as I say, or even the interviewer. MS also says that Steve Wetherill was involved in the interview, again, this may be wrong, but I suppose given this is what MS says in the interview, it seems reasonable to wonder if it is actually correct or there is anything in it at least. Given that Adrian Sherwin did write Monster Muncher that is of note, and coincidence perhaps.

Hello All, I read this interview recently with Matthew Smith from 1999 https://www.kevssite.com/matthew-smith-interview/ The interview is very short. At the end, MS says something that struck me as unusual - that the Birds and the Bees was written by Derrick Rowson. Now that didn't seem right to me, so I looked it up thus:- https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/536/ZX-Spectrum/The_Birds_and_the_Bees The game is credited to Adrian Sherwin, not Derrick Rowson. We know that Derrick Rowson wrote JSW II among other things:- https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/list?label_id=3737 Furthermore, if you look Adrian Sherwin up ... https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/list?label_id=417 then you see a list of his games. Among them is Monster Muncher, a game credited to MS on his wikipedia page ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Smith_(games_programmer) Monster Muncher was written on the Vic20 apparently by MS. So, I just wonder - are there mistakes in the above? Was MS wrong about saying Birds and the Bees was written by Derrick Rowson, it could easily be a genuine mistake? Was the person who did the interview wrong in some way, typed it up wrong? Could Adrian Sherwin and Derrick Rowson be one and the same person, using a programming pen name? Could Adrian Sherwin somehow be MS, given that he is credited with Monster Muncher on the Spectrum? Not trying to start any kind of conspiracy here folks, just one or two of the above things struck me as being perhaps more than coincidental, but I daresay there is a logical explanation for it all. I thought it was interesting enough to share anyway, apologies if it is old news and has all been covered before.

My goodness, I have just realised what you have said there about JSW - no crumbling platforms. I had never really thought of that before, even though I knew it to be true it just never occurred to me. If it makes your task easier then that is good though. JSW II + would be an even better challenge after JSW 😉 Just out of interest, are there any mods etc. of JSW or even JSWII that feature crumbling platforms? I still can hardly believe I had never realised that before consciously... Anyway if you are already on with it then that should be really good, I guess you will release one film of the whole hit once it's done a la RuffledBricks? I guess you have his time to go at too as a marker. Is it possible your AI will work out about saving time with deathwarp thing RB does? I suppose the parameters do change here AI wise, as we are talking about sacrificing a life in order to make progress. Now, if your AI routine came up with that by itself, I would be impressed. The AI also has to work out an optimum route, in order to do the best time, again it will be interesting to see if this tallies with RB's route. Or perhaps the AI will be hamstrung by not wanting to lose a life, or not that concerned about the time either, as although against the clock, it is not like getting the bonus air as a score in MM, you can finish the game with a minute to go and the score is the same as far as I know? This should be exciting anyway when it happens. Maybe a challenge could take place between RB and your AI Crem, live on the internet, to complete JSW in the fastest time, who will win? 😉

All right Crem, you have done it, congratulations! Now, how about a _real_ challenge - Jet Set Willy? 😉

Crem, this is all very impressive, it really is. I wonder though, is there not a superfluous jump in this level, after the second lever has been thrown?

It might be fun, imagine if say the best scores by the AI are added up, and the best individual legitimate human scores are added up per level, i.e. ones where there is some proof of them being played by hand, and the humans won by say just one point overall. There are a few early screens I am fair at score wise, I agree with Danny, we all try and get the best scores we can and win by one 😉

Thanks for the heads up. In truth, it will be a cold day in hell before I install Chrome, so I guess I will have to live with a slow HTML canvas. I spend less and less time on the internet these days so I will live 🙂 But thanks again anyway.

That route in Wacky Amoebatrons is a shocker! 😉 It looks on like on several occasions WIlly has made proper contact with baddie sprites to me, he changes colour due to proximity. Further, I suppose one huge advantage that the AI has is that it can make perfect jumps every time off the very end of ledges without having to worry about keypresses being correctly read.

This seems like _ages_ ago now, early December. Oh well. Perhaps we will have the Christmas-themed Manic Miner for next Christmas? We can live in hope ...

Not blasphemous at all in my personal opinion Heracleum. However, until it speeds up on FF I won't be able to play it much 😞 I think it is an excellent idea, I have the original C64 version of Impossible Mission sat on my shelves behind me, I never finished it, in truth if you are going to do _any_ sound at all on this, you really need to get the speech from Impossible Mission into the game. Not only the original speech, but a new version of the speech with a female voice that could be Maria berating Willy. Just my opinion anyway 🙂

That was an ugly route in the Menagerie 😉 Good score though 🙂

This is all too complicated for me 😉

I am using Firefox, so you are right. Unfortunately, I do not use any other browsers at all (except Safari if I am using a Mac) so slow it is for me, apologies I should of said under Firefox when I posted originally. Any chance of any sound?

Hugely impressive, and welcome to the forum! It seems to run fairly slowly, is there any way to speed it up?

Welcome to the forum Crem, very good to have another new member! This reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov Human players will always make the most beautiful routes 😉 It is very interesting to watch and read about though, and I suppose proves that this is brute force AI, not intuitive AI. Imagine if the baddies could respond using similar means - we would still all be stuck on the Central Cavern...

If you follow the Kickstarter link above now it says this is subject to an intellectual property dispute, which makes sense. I hope The Equaliser didn't lose any more money on this ...

Norman, is that a crt that The Attic is displayed on? Lovely colours anyway, it looks superb.

C'est incroyable, JSDanny! Well done. What a piece of work, commendable. Nothing escapes the people on this forum when it comes to JSW & MM information.

I like this idea definitely in principle, but IRF has said what I was thinking, it strikes me it would make some rooms impossible with baddie movement. Perhaps walking out and then in again into a room would be a fix. Hmm. Is it possible that you could become trapped in a room and not be able to get out again maybe, thus forcing a loss of life? The temporary immunity is perhaps another solution, hmm. I would like to see it, something that could as you say build on the JSW we all know and love but offer a new challenge perhaps. It seems more consistent to me if every game and every screen entry had the random elements. Could we have the in game tune similarly changed too, I definitely like the idea of that, some of the most creative mods I think are the ones where the music is responsive, I think JSDanny did a good one, Madame B was it? where the music changed a lot. I expect Norman Sword will have an opinion on this randomising idea too.

Welcome to the forum JianYang, you have reached the highest level of MM & JSW expertise in the world here, excluding myself of course. I remember seeing this on the Spectrum Computing forums I think about a year or so ago, very impressive remake, especially considering the resolution issues. I haven't played it though so I do not know what it plays like, have you? Anyway, welcome again. This forum is a very friendly place, not mad busy but very helpful. Tell a lie, I think it was Indie Retro News. I have definitely seen it before though. http://www.indieretronews.com/search?q=manic+miner+apple+ii

All this twitch stuff is too complicated for me, but well done anyway, in any money you raised for a good cause.

Same with Brian Bloodaxe on the Spectrum, even down to the in game music. Strange game though that, never really got anywhere with it. Maybe it is worth starting a rumour about an impossibly rare pre-production version of MM that features the skylambs? 😉

I think the character 'Dave Angel' from The Fast Show would be very good to feature in a MM / JSW mod 😉 Probably my favourite from that show.

Watched a bit of the JSW2+ run. Good fun.