Heracleum

Hi there JSW/MM fans!
I'm developing and about to complete "Manic Mission" a Manic Miner and Impossible Mission mashup, which inevitably contains JSW elements. It's not sequential like MM and you can navigate all rooms on a bigger map like JSW; you move around the map also using Elevator shafts like in Impossible mission and other IM elements are searching furniture pieces for puzzles/passwords useful to complete the game by combining puzzle pieces to form a random drawing to discover the final password. 
It's written in HTML5 so nothing to download/install/emulate, you can directly play the test version here:

https://heracleum.org/games/manic-mission/test/
(do not use Firefox, it's too slow, I suggest Chrome)
The game is basically complete, but I still need to create more rooms. The good thing is there's a built in Level Editor you can use to create and suggest your own rooms! 
The Editor is totally visual, you can create platforms, drag/drop move and copy blocks, set guardians' sprites, paths, visually assign targets to Switches and also  (for the Impossible Mission side) set "furniture areas" where furniture pieces will randomly be assigned or remain just blank.
Instead of getting keys or flashing items to unlock the door to next level, in Manic Mission flashing items are used to unlock/search furniture pieces.
 
I'd be honoured to know what you guys think and would love to know if you're interested in creating a few rooms to add to the game. There will be virtually infinite rooms in each play, one could decide to play the "official game levels" or the "Community created levels" (this option is still ignored since I don't even have enough rooms -32- for the official levels).
Anyway a full game is possible to play and complete, you will just see "Random Room (n)" as filler levels.
It starts with a C64 palette and its sprite rendering but you can set both ZX Spectrum palette and Speccy rendering if you prefer.
A few screenshots in the attachments.
For easier collaboration, maybe draw a few blocks graphics or guardians sprite animation (there's plenty to add)
and especially to send your -locally saved- rooms created with Level Editor here's the Manic Mission creators Discord link:
https://discord.gg/RGHnvhXPbh
 
Please let me know! Thank you!

Thank you so much for all the information, it does indeed make some things much clearer! 🙂 .
It's great that you've managed to actually create a game of your dreams! 👍 That's what it's all about here - doing stuff we like and fulfilling our dreams in a way, and, hopefully, at the same time providing fun and nice experiences for the others 🙂 .
As I said, my MM/JSW priorities call me elsewhere at this moment, but I will keep "Manic Mission" on a list of things to come back to one day. Who knows, perhaps I'll even practice the puzzle part 'secretly' to become good at it and able to produce a nice recording of the game being solved some day 😉 .

Very sorry I should have double-checked you had a clear idea of the gameplay before the weekend and especially all the Impossible Mission elements that could easily be missed if one hasn't played the original.
Most importantly:
Willy has to search for puzzle fragments in furniture pieces, press "UP" key to Search while standing against furniture. They are placed randomly in certain spots of the room.
A box with a "searching..." progress bar appears and when done the result could be:
Nothing here A puzzle fragment A Snooze (freeze all creatures in the room for some time) A Reset platforms (all lifts and crumbles are restored) The last two can be spent in terminals just outside the room (you need to visit at least once the room to use them)
The flashing keys/objects are needed to open/search furniture, you don't need to get every flashing item in the room (especially the risky/hardest one to reach, you could skip them to save time/air) getting all of them and completing the mission would be really a nearly 'impossible' one.
It says flashing items LEFT (on hand) since you spend them to open/search the furniture pieces. So yes the more you get the higher the score but the main mission is getting all puzzle pieces.
A couple links to short videos I recorded at the time, showing:
a complete solution of one puzzle (no spoilers it always changes) and a bit of the gameplay to show the search on furniture pieces. No problem I totally understand it doesn't fit the JSW standards 😉
It's just the game I always dreamt to play (mixing two of the greatest titles from the 80's) so I made it ...but of course it might be a matter of very personal tastes 👍

Very sorry I should have double-checked you had a clear idea of the gameplay before the weekend and especially all the Impossible Mission elements that could easily be missed if one hasn't played the original.
Most importantly:
Willy has to search for puzzle fragments in furniture pieces, press "UP" key to Search while standing against furniture. They are placed randomly in certain spots of the room.
A box with a "searching..." progress bar appears and when done the result could be:
Nothing here A puzzle fragment A Snooze (freeze all creatures in the room for some time) A Reset platforms (all lifts and crumbles are restored) The last two can be spent in terminals just outside the room (you need to visit at least once the room to use them)
The flashing keys/objects are needed to open/search furniture, you don't need to get every flashing item in the room (especially the risky/hardest one to reach, you could skip them to save time/air) getting all of them and completing the mission would be really a nearly 'impossible' one.
It says flashing items LEFT (on hand) since you spend them to open/search the furniture pieces. So yes the more you get the higher the score but the main mission is getting all puzzle pieces.
A couple links to short videos I recorded at the time, showing:
a complete solution of one puzzle (no spoilers it always changes) and a bit of the gameplay to show the search on furniture pieces. No problem I totally understand it doesn't fit the JSW standards 😉
It's just the game I always dreamt to play (mixing two of the greatest titles from the 80's) so I made it ...but of course it might be a matter of very personal tastes 👍

Very sorry I should have double-checked you had a clear idea of the gameplay before the weekend and especially all the Impossible Mission elements that could easily be missed if one hasn't played the original.
Most importantly:
Willy has to search for puzzle fragments in furniture pieces, press "UP" key to Search while standing against furniture. They are placed randomly in certain spots of the room.
A box with a "searching..." progress bar appears and when done the result could be:
Nothing here A puzzle fragment A Snooze (freeze all creatures in the room for some time) A Reset platforms (all lifts and crumbles are restored) The last two can be spent in terminals just outside the room (you need to visit at least once the room to use them)
The flashing keys/objects are needed to open/search furniture, you don't need to get every flashing item in the room (especially the risky/hardest one to reach, you could skip them to save time/air) getting all of them and completing the mission would be really a nearly 'impossible' one.
It says flashing items LEFT (on hand) since you spend them to open/search the furniture pieces. So yes the more you get the higher the score but the main mission is getting all puzzle pieces.
A couple links to short videos I recorded at the time, showing:
a complete solution of one puzzle (no spoilers it always changes) and a bit of the gameplay to show the search on furniture pieces. No problem I totally understand it doesn't fit the JSW standards 😉
It's just the game I always dreamt to play (mixing two of the greatest titles from the 80's) so I made it ...but of course it might be a matter of very personal tastes 👍

All right, I've spent a couple of hours playing the game.
I first toyed with the Puzzle Trainer and then played the game proper. I ran out of time twice. The first time I managed to collect 59 flashing items:

and the second time - 48 flashing items:

My feedback:
I liked the Manic Miner part. The game mechanics are very nice, they seem to reflect the Spectrum ones (which are the ideal for me) quite well, and the (non-Spectrum) somersault jump is very nice too. I did not have any problems arising from inexact collision detection that has been a drawback in some other PC versions I've tried.
I like the room ideas and designs. If there are 32 rooms, I probably haven't seen them all yet, but certainly a good part of them.
IIUC, the map is drawn anew every time you play, but constructed in such a way that you will actually access all rooms, only in a different order. That's a nice touch and something I would perceive as a cool feature, especially if someone wants to play the game many times - it makes it more interesting.
IIUC, the game has infinite lives, but also a time limit, which makes you lose the game if you run out of time (or Air). The infinite lives part is good in that playing the game with a limited number of lives (like several or a dozen) without being able to do a Spectrum-style snaphot saving and reloading or some other form of safeguarding your progress would be frustrating (for me, at least).
On the other hand, especially in view of the time limit, it leads (in my case at least) to the player preferring to get killed many times instead of trying to negotiate their way back safely after collecting an item. This *is* the logical thing to do,  from the player's point of view, given the time limit (unless I am missing something here, like that you need to find the puzzle pieces after collecting some or all items in the room but before losing a life, or something like that). However, it goes against my idea of "elegance" of ZX Spectrum JSW games which for me is: being able to complete the game without losing a single life, even if it is assisted by reloading and saving snapshots. It's just an observation, not criticism. A possible criticism might be that it also goes against the Manic Miner rules, where if you lose a life, you also lose the items you have collected in the room you are currently playing.
If you were to apply the above 'No kamikaze' rule to the game (you lose a life, you also lose the items collected in this room so far, you need to recollect them after respawning), it would make it way harder. I would say this is an option to consider should you want to introduce an "Extreme" or "Hardcore" mode of some kind 😉 .
The time limit seems quite challenging for me. I'm not sure how many items there are in the game, but by my results so far I would say it may be really hard to complete the game on time if you need to go through 32 rooms and then solve the puzzle from the collected pieces. Some questions come to mind here:
On the Game Over screen it says, "Flashing items left", but the number it shows is really of the flashing items the player has collected. So why does it say "left" (not "collected")?
On the Game Over screen it also gives the number of "Passwords saved". I don't know what this is about, where these passwords can be found, how you save them, what the purpose of this is, etc.
Is the time limit reset/extended after the player has collected all items and puzzle pieces and starts solving the puzzle? If it's not, I would say it's really tight.
The Impossible Mission part is mostly lost on me. When I tried the Puzzle Trainer, I found it difficult and confusing. Within the game, I did not find any of the puzzle pieces. I did try pressing the Search key many times, in some rooms also after collecting all of the items in the room and trying it on every furniture item I could see, but to no avail. 
All in all, I think this is a very exciting project for people who are "open-minded" and "time-possesing" MM/JSW fans, willing to try new things beyond the most classic elements of the game. As for myself, I don't belong to either category for the following reasons: my focus is on MM/JSW games (or: games using the MM/JSW game engines) for the ZX Spectrum. Narrow as this focus might seem, there are still tons of things I would like to do in this particular field, such as playing all of the released games to completion and recording nice RZX walkthroughs of them, developing JSW Central and its YouTube channel, resuming the creation of my own games (which I have been putting on the backburner for the sake of the development of JSW Central and because of real-life constraints) and assisting others in creating their Spectrum MM/JSW games (by playtesting, etc.) if necessary. With all this, and the restrictions of the amount of spare time I can devote to my leisure activities (that we probably all know well), my readiness to devote time and energy to projects that are outside of the scope of my immediate interests is limited. That's to explain why I am reluctant to learn the puzzle part of the game, and why I probably won't be struggling to complete "Manic Mission" in the near future. However, I will definitely keep it on my list of things to come back to in the more distant future, if and when my Spectrum projects and activities allow room for other things, or I feel a desire to expand the scope of my interest 🙂 .
And I do hope there will be enough interest in the community to create new levels for "Manic Mission" 🙂 .

Thanks for your support, Heracleum! I appreciate it 🙂 .
I will do my best to play "Manic Mission" 'seriously' this weekend 😎.

Sure, no problem I subscribed the channel and receive the updates/notifications, in fact I've seen a lot of stuff published recently 👌

Thanks for the explanation, Heracleum!
I haven't played your game since that last post of mine, because some very important Spectrum stuff cropped up and I gave it absolute priority. Now that it's done, I should be able to have a proper go at Manic Mission.
I will report back 🙂 .

Hi @jetsetdanny Sorry I missed the posts!
So yes in that spot you have two ways to go:
Use the Lift at the left as @Ligan suggested. That Lift is coupled with the other lift two levels above (which going up one step reached the top) so it won't move further up but you can then jump on the cauldron handle and climb up...
Down the cauldron, that striped platform is actually a huge lift that can go up/down just a block.
   
@Norman Sword Well that's an unconventional jump indeed, the basic need was to allow for longer jumps (because during the somersault frames Willy advances by 3px instead of 2) and also a way to allow him to jump robots/creatures in a 4block height without hitting his head and fall. This happens only if the ceiling is made by Mission Impossible blocks (including bottom of lifts).
So yes the dynamic is weird because Willy starts his normal jump then hits head, does the somersault but then lands in the normal 'less athletic' way (his feet sticking out of the curve is probably what you noticed in your sketch?). I hope I didn't misunderstand!

Hi @jetsetdanny Sorry I missed the posts!
So yes in that spot you have two ways to go:
Use the Lift at the left as @Ligan suggested. That Lift is coupled with the other lift two levels above (which going up one step reached the top) so it won't move further up but you can then jump on the cauldron handle and climb up...
Down the cauldron, that striped platform is actually a huge lift that can go up/down just a block.
   
@Norman Sword Well that's an unconventional jump indeed, the basic need was to allow for longer jumps (because during the somersault frames Willy advances by 3px instead of 2) and also a way to allow him to jump robots/creatures in a 4block height without hitting his head and fall. This happens only if the ceiling is made by Mission Impossible blocks (including bottom of lifts).
So yes the dynamic is weird because Willy starts his normal jump then hits head, does the somersault but then lands in the normal 'less athletic' way (his feet sticking out of the curve is probably what you noticed in your sketch?). I hope I didn't misunderstand!

All right, my first (minimal) feedback:
I seem stuck in "The Cauldron", unable to either get back up or go anywhere else, as can be seen in this picture:

I'm not sure if it's an intentional trap or a bug 😲.

Can't you get out using the lift 🤔 ? If I remember correclty, you should be able to go up with the striped platform on the left.

Jumping arc of travel.

It is noticable that when Willy does his sumersault jump, that one frame after the rotation part of the sumersault. Seems to be out of sync. This gives the visual feedback of pausing animation and moving horizontal mid jump. Crude picture to try and explain better. (moving from left to right) 
 

Hi All! 
I know asking to build new rooms (Community created levels) might be too much.. but what about simply playing it? The main game is complete and fully playable since months.
So would you like to try and beat the game?
(get enough puzzle pieces in the rooms of the random map, solve the puzzle to know the password and go back to the mad professor lab and stop him) 

Thanks for the info and for your permission to record a walkthrough of your game, Heracleum! Also thanks for the tip about the Puzzle Trainer, I'll use it before trying to complete the game.
"Somersault", that's the right word for Willy's forward jump! 👍
As mentioned before, I'll do my best to have a proper go at the game within the next few weeks, all circumstances permitting. It will not be immediate, but I am already looking forward to it and I will surely report back - watch this space! 😎

@jetsetdanny Absolutely, feel free to record/post, I'd love to see how it's played by others!
About the forward jump/somersault, it only happens: on elevator shaft corridors, in a room when the above platforms are those Impossible Mission blocks (including lifts) and they're at a height of 4 characters up Willy's ground, instead of banging his head and falling down (as on regular MM walls) he does that jump à la impossible mission, sort of.
About the Monty saga, there is one room "Bordeaux - France" which is a tribute to "Auf Wiedersehen Monty" 😉 (same name and room layout).
I'm sure the Manic Miner half of the game will be easy for you experts... but since to finish the game -once you've gathered all puzzle pieces- you have to solve the final puzzle it would be convenient to try the "Puzzle Trainer" option in the main game screen (you immediately have all pieces to solve it, for training purposes) unless you're already familiar with the Impossible Mission puzzle of course.
Thank you for trying it!

@jetsetdanny Absolutely, feel free to record/post, I'd love to see how it's played by others!
About the forward jump/somersault, it only happens: on elevator shaft corridors, in a room when the above platforms are those Impossible Mission blocks (including lifts) and they're at a height of 4 characters up Willy's ground, instead of banging his head and falling down (as on regular MM walls) he does that jump à la impossible mission, sort of.
About the Monty saga, there is one room "Bordeaux - France" which is a tribute to "Auf Wiedersehen Monty" 😉 (same name and room layout).
I'm sure the Manic Miner half of the game will be easy for you experts... but since to finish the game -once you've gathered all puzzle pieces- you have to solve the final puzzle it would be convenient to try the "Puzzle Trainer" option in the main game screen (you immediately have all pieces to solve it, for training purposes) unless you're already familiar with the Impossible Mission puzzle of course.
Thank you for trying it!

I promise I will do it in the near future (=the next few weeks).
I've just had a brief go at the game, figured out how to operate the lift and collected 7 items. I love the way Willy jumps forward - Monty-on-the-Run-style! 🙂
If I manage to beat the game and record a video of it, would it be OK for me to add it to the JSW Central YouTube channel? At the moment it's only dedicated to walkthroughs of MM and JSW games for the ZX Spectrum, but this certainly could change and "Manic Mission" could lead the way in this respect... 🙂

Hi All! 
I know asking to build new rooms (Community created levels) might be too much.. but what about simply playing it? The main game is complete and fully playable since months.
So would you like to try and beat the game?
(get enough puzzle pieces in the rooms of the random map, solve the puzzle to know the password and go back to the mad professor lab and stop him) 

Hi All! 
I know asking to build new rooms (Community created levels) might be too much.. but what about simply playing it? The main game is complete and fully playable since months.
So would you like to try and beat the game?
(get enough puzzle pieces in the rooms of the random map, solve the puzzle to know the password and go back to the mad professor lab and stop him) 

Thanks for trying it.  I'm afraid I don't have Windows so I can't check it.  However, I've just created a quick version 1.1 that's available to download, which starts off windowed and you can press F12 to toggle full-screen.  Hopefully that might work?
Regarding Knight Lore, I started recreating that in 3D.  I got the whole basic map down, I just need to create all the graphics for everything that's in the game.  I did the first few rooms which you can see here:-
 

In case you do not frequent the Central Cavern - The Wonderful World of Willy Facebook Group, a new remake of "Manic Miner" has been discussed and announced over there earlier this year. It is called "Manic-4-Noobs". Its final version was released at the end of May 2021. It was created by "Bob The Polar Bear" (the author's real name can be found on the FB group easily enough, but he prefers to be credited by this pseudonym). He is currently working on another remake, called "MANIC-minor", which IIUC is meant for younger players/kids.
The author's link to download the game is here. I have also added it to the list of MM games on JSW Central and created an individual page for it, with a complete screenshot gallery and links to videos of an RZX walkthrough.
However, before watching these spoilers, I would strongly encourage you to play it, as it's got great graphics and various interesting technical features, it's a lot of fun to play and it's not too difficult! 🙂

MtM,
TTBOMK, the two biggest JSW games for the ZX Spectrum out there are:
- Sendy (Alex Cornhill)'s "where's woody?". It was the first JSW game ever to feature 256 edited rooms (although the player does not have to visit all of them to complete the game). It's a great, very diverse game (as all Sendy's games are), not extremely difficult, very nice to explore. I think you would really enjoy roaming around it.
- "Jet Set Willy: The 2010 Megamix" (which I created using 48 rooms designed by Paul Equinox Collins, from his unfinished "JSW '96 Remix", and lots of other material by other authors - some general credits are on JSW Central and the detailed credits are in the text file) also has 256 edited rooms. If you have a go at it, I would suggest that you play the Easy Version, because the Hard Version, in addition to some relatively easy parts, has some forbiddingly-difficult rooms and is probably very frustrating to play (meaning to be a serious challenge to players dedicated to solving such challenges at the expense of their time and mental balance 🙂).
I would hate to state which games are the best, as I aim to treasure them all and treat them all equally and promote them all on JSW Central.
The only "half-diplomatic" way out of this for me would be to state that the ones that I created or co-created are obviously the best 😀 LOL. The ones which feature most rooms that I actually designed, in addition to "The Megamix" I've already mentioned, are:
- Willy's New Mansion (if you have a go at it, please play the Special Edition, as it's way more advanced and interesting than the original one; please do not be discouraged in the second room, where the killer blocks are flying that seem to have put some people off; once you've progressed on to the third room, it'll be much easier to explore - do save snapshots or use Rollback to assist you);
- "Jet Set Willy: Mind Control" - it's relatively big, as it has 117 edited rooms (including many excellent ones by Sendy). It's not that easy, but the official release package includes a text document called "JSW - Mind Control - The Solution", which is actually a step-by-step description of how the game can be solved;
- Willy's Hoard (a remake of "Henry's Hoard"; it does have some very difficult moments, but the special jumps it requires are described in a document called "The Quirky Spoiler", which is part of the official download package).
After this blatant self-promotion 😉, I will be happy to provide suggestions and links for other games as well if you specify further what kind of games or what features in the game you are looking for.

@CPL zooming out reveals the unexplored surrounding area (ok we all more or less already know the whole map but let's imagine a newbie player). So what about hiding rooms you haven't visited -or got nearby- yet? 
Depending how you stored map data the rooms could either more roughly appear as room block or -cooler- by explored 'radius', turning on single cells.