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That's an excellent point Crem, regarding the speed of room switching. If automated, the Speccy might be able to handle 100's of teleports per second, at which point it all becomes an "impressive blur lasting mere milliseconds" to complete. Like you mentioned, you could limit the teleports-per-second, and then the challenge would be for a human to reproduce it the quickest, using the data that AI provided. However, at that point, could it still be considered a human achievement?, or just replication of something non-human? The debate could go on forever... 🤖 vs 🙂

Yes! you are totally correct, I was referring to JSW. I had no idea there are separate topics for the automated MM and JSW, until you pointed it out. Thanks for catching that, and replicating the query!

Thanks to Norman and CPL for sharing this valuable information. I think I have enough to "give it a go", but will probably end up with a list of questions 😁 When you think about it, Matthew Smith was a clever bugger, working out all this stuff in the early 80's, in Z80 assembler, considering his age. Using tables to store the rope pattern makes total sense, rather than some complex maths formula. I always assumed it used a Sine wave algorithm to generate the swing. The GMS2 code snippets provided by CPL will be super helpful also. I am also a "hobbyist coder" and would never call myself a proper programmer, so I will excuse your messy code 😄

Thanks again, that's good info. I might give the rope a go later on. I checked in an emulator, and the JSW rope is a lot more "flowing" than I remember (almost like a wind is blowing it as it swings), so I'm not terribly sure on how to reproduce that. Is there a simple breakdown on how the rope pixels are generated, to create that wind-flowing/swinging pattern?

Thanks Norman, that is good to know! Do you know how the displacement works when being on a rope? that's what creates the headaches for me.

Sounds like you are the person to talk to! I would totally implement ropes in my version, if I could wrap my head around it (which is coincidentally also in GMS2!). I think I could "probably" figure out how to make it swing, but I feel like my "Willy platform detection code" would completely break if I tried to make him attach to the rope. I'm not using any physics, so the walk/jump/landing code is written from scratch. I had the hardest time just getting ramps working, since they break the "stick to the nearest horizontal 8 pixel rule". An explanation of how ropes work, especially from a GMS2 perspective, would be amazing!!

Thanks for your input MtM. It's possible Matt saw them in Hunchback and just thought they would be a good fit, and was wanting to add something extra to JSW. According to Wikipedia, Hunchback came out on the arcade in 1983 (time of JSW writing), but was not ported until 1984. Yes, I'm familiar with Turmoil, great game! It's a good example of a swinging rope, from 1984. Lots of games around that time used vertical ropes, and ladders, rather than swinging ropes.

I maybe completely wrong, but I've always felt that ropes & arrows in JSW were an after-thought. Almost like JSW neared completion, then Matt played arcade Hunchback and thought "oh, I like that!", rolled up his sleeves, and headed straight to his TRS-80. Probably some truth in this, since other Hunchback elements were clearly in JSW. Neither ropes or arrows were present in MM, and to me, it feels like they never belonged in the Willy universe. Both these elements also introduced a new level of unpredictability (which could be considered a good thing!). In MM, you could sit back and study the boundaries of sprites, and almost plan a route in advance. With arrows, their shooting frequency, and location, appears random, and with ropes it's counterintuitive to climb, and to dismount with any degree of accuracy. The reason I bring this up, is my new game I'm developing has neither ropes or arrows. I could easily add arrows, but I'm hesitant since I've never been a huge fan. Ropes on the other hand are a tricky beast to code from scratch, or at least to emulate their quirky JSW behaviour. What are your general thoughts of Ropes, Arrows, and is it blasphemous to exclude them in a new JSW game?

That's troll talk 😂 Think of it more as "setting the benchmark, for humans to aspire to".

Just discovered this thread, and the world of speedrunning! I must say that I'm blown away. You guys have done some seriously impressive times. The concept of using AI (thanks to Crem!) to improve on the human times also intrigues me. I have two questions... 1) I noticed on Impossamole's C64 run, that a score of 1940 was achieved on the Central Cavern, rather than the 1724 Speccy record. This appears to exploit a conveyor bug in the C64 version, which allows him to travel in the opposite direction. This may have been discussed before, but I was curious why this is possible, and are there other versions that allow this? 2) I was super impressed by the WRITETYPER run's from RuffledBricks and DigitalDuck. I wondered if any progress had been made on using AI to find the quickest teleport routes for this? It seems like a task well suited for AI, since there are so many possible combinations for the human brain to calculate. That said, I also understand this would be a complex beast to write, and possibly require a supercomputer to process 😁

That makes sense! With many things in life, one has the draw the line somewhere. I appreciate the explanation.

JetSetDanny - I was wondering if you plan to add the Amiga versions to your JSWcentral website?

I totally get what you are saying. I think most (if not all!) game authors from way back would be flattered that anything to do with their game still exists, and has generated any interest nowadays. It's pretty obvious to them that they do not stand to make any money from something they did 40 years ago (at least from individuals making remakes/ports). It's not like we are claiming the games were our ideas. It's those greedy legal minded people out there, trying to make some quick cash, that ruin it for everyone. I vote that we move to another planet, and leave all those people behind 😁

That's a good point about inverting a logo, and do the same rules apply if something is digital? I think a lot of this boils down to the fact that judges/magistrates have limited technical knowledge, and people (and companies) totally take advantage of this. I've worked in the tech industry for many years, and seen many "very questionable" things that go on. However, the tech companies know very well that by staying one step (or several steps!) ahead of legal industries tech knowledge, they can stretch the law into very grey areas and get away with it. Telemetry within Microsoft Windows is a good example of this. I just wish there was a website out there that would clearly define what we can and cannot do when it comes to digital copyright infringements. But then again, why on earth they want the people to know the boundaries of law? 🤣

Sorry to re-ignite this thread, but I've been thinking recently if anyone knows the answer to this. If someone has an "intellectual property" copyright on something, what exactly does that mean? For example... A - Identical pixels to original, and identical colour (Despite what we remember, Willy was never pure white). That said, the grey I'm using is 192,192,192 (RGB). One could argue that since the ZX Spectrum never used RGB values, that any colour used today is just a visual approximation. Hence, any colour used is technically different from the original. B - Same pixels, pure white. As stated in A, Matt Smith's Willy (pardon the expression) was never pure white, so this Willy is again different from the original. C - Magenta Willy, clearly different from the original used. D - Pixels have been changed from the original, therefore is different. If all these Willy's are "different" in some way to the original, how can anyone claim that they own the Intellectual property? If you notice, anyone that claims to own the IP, never actually lays down the rules of what is and what is not copyright infringement. In conclusion, if someone owns the "intellectual property", does it mean whatever they want it to mean? If so, that seems massively unfair, to twist a law into what they want it to mean. Usually laws have to be written down with a definition. Otherwise, without a definition, how is one expected to abide by the law? Maybe the answer is... they are not.

Hopefully it posts this time... 😄 Before JSW '97, I wrote three other platformers: The Adventures of Wormface Demo (1993) - my first attempt at MM style Wheelchair Wizard (1993) - similair to MM, but main character is in a wheelchair! SkullHunter (1994) - large platformer, similar to JSW and two Shoot-em-up's: Rag II (1993) - an intense and addictive asteroid dodging game Plasma (1993) - a multilevel space invaders type game These were all pre-internet, so never got released on Aminet like JSW '97. I had no access to any other existing platformer code to write them, it was a case of "try and see if it works". Back then, the only example code you could get was in badly written books, the manual, or in magazines. Looking back the code I wrote was very sloppy, but it got the job done. With every game you learn a bit more. AMOS still has a following. Francois Lionet, it's creator, moved on to other projects after AMOS, such as Click & Create, and Multimedia Fusion. These were more visually driven creators, rather than traditional code. In theory, this sounds easy and great, but the reality is they are very limiting. A couple of years ago he even announced AMOS-2 for the PC, which has since been renamed AOZ-Studio (terrible name). I was excited about this, until I tried it. Just seemed like a jumbled bloated java mess. After AMOS, I moved from Amiga to PC and started programming in VB. It was great for making apps, but MS ruined it when they came out with VB.net. My brain is more procedurally wired, but VB.net and almost everything now is OOP. I get why they did this, but they really shafted beginners with this move. BlitzBasic is also worth a mention, and was massively underrated. Andy Noble was using this for a while. However, like most things Blitz died, and the author moved onto other things. I also used Stencyl several years back, and re-wrote Rag II (now called Basteroids). It's one of the better "drag & drop" creators. I soon ran into limitations. They are pitched as being easier than code, but certain tasks can actually be harder than code! In recent years I've settled on using GameMaker Studio2, which is pretty good. It's a steeper learning curve than others I've used, but it's still powerful. Annoyingly, I still feel that in 2022, many engines still miss features that AMOS and Blitz had, especially when it comes to sprite manipulation. Reason for this is because the Amiga used the Blitter chip, which was so good at dedicated sprite tasks. GameMaker does have a drag & drop mode, but I don't recommend it. It all depends on what your target platform is really. If you want to compile to Android and iOS, then you have limited options. If you want to only create for PC, then Blitz, although discontinued, is still a great option for learning the ropes. I've never heard of Laser Basic, but the MPAGD looks very interesting!

Yep, clicked the big blue "Submit Reply" button, and it showed up like it was posted. I refreshed about 20mins later and it vanished, like it was deleted. I thought maybe I clicked on "Preview" instead of "Submit Reply", but that's a small icon and not even next to the submit button. Don't worry about it, it's probably my fault somehow. I'll redo when I get chance.

That's weird, I wrote a long reply to this and it posted, at start of page 2. Now it's totally disappeared, like it never happened. Anyway to get it back, since I don't remember half of what I wrote? 😁

Good guess! Was tricky to learn anything back then without the internet! I got the AMOS manual in 1993 and spent that summer reading every word. Before that, I had only wrote basic stuff on the ZX and BBC Micro. AMOS clicked with me and I wrote five games (never released) in the next several months, while still at college. Despite it being regarded as a "Basic", it had some amazingly powerful features, even inline assembly code. I got more into PC's during university and moved onto VB. JSW '97 was written in late 1996 as my final AMOS project.

Yes, it was AMOS on the Amiga (which was a reworked STOS from the Atari ST). Shame the language fizzled out really, it was pretty amazing.

Answer is... Jet Set Willy '97

It's a dark secret I've carried for many years now. I had already moved on to PC app development, so the game was released in an unfinished state. I was not happy with the final result, and some bad reviews (due to emulation issues) made me remain anonymous. At the time, I believe it had more rooms than any existing JSW game. Looking back, it really was not that bad, considering how young I was, and was the work of one person. It was more a learning experience on how not to do things. Anyone like to take a guess? (Clue... it's not Top Hat Willy)

I vaguely remember this one, but the changes to the Willy sprite always bothered me. Rest of the graphics were pretty decent though. Something always seemed missing, or not quite right with the Amiga versions though, almost like the graphics were too good, or too many colours? Some things should remain simple, and I think the Spectrum versions nailed this. I am also guilty of releasing a version of JSW on the Amiga during the 90's, but we won't talk about that! 🤣

The "Willy with cap" trademarks (UK00003334784 and UK00003336174) are with West Wing Studios, not Elite. Elite trademarks are UK00003100730 and UK00003081930. However, is West Wing Studios connected to Elite Systems? possibly! I know Steve Wilcox has had many ventures with different names, confusingly even one called "Sinclair Computer Limited".

Appreciate the input MtM. I totally hear what you are saying, and huge part of me says "sod it, do it anyway". To release something anonymously is not as easy as it used to be. Certain compilers, GameMaker for example, will bake your license details into the compiled executable. Not sure if Visual Studio is doing this, but it would not surprise me. To backup your argument, any one I've heard of getting copyright threats is always trying to make money from it. If it's free, I would still like to put the game on the Google Play Store for exposure, but would Wilcox contact Google and claim he owns the IP? maybe. That would be a great conversation to hear if Google said to Wilcox "prove it" and he cannot.