jetsetdanny

We have just gone over 15,000 posts on the forum! I believe the one I posted just a couple of minutes ago was #15,000 🙂 . For the purposes of Chronology on JSW Central (which otherwise needs updating), I will consider this new milestone to have been passed on the 12th January 2023. From my personal perspective, that message was actually posted still on the 11th, but currently I am in a different time zone than probably most of the forum users, and if you had read that post of mine "in real time", you would have done so on 12th January 😉 . So the 12th it will be in Chronology. I know it's just statistics (and it's in decimal! 😲) but it does show that people are still interested and active, so I believe there's a reason to celebrate 🙂 . Thanks to everyone who has ever posted on this forum! 👍

The JSW Remakes website has not been updated since 2002. It is a very valuable resource for the state of things on the MM/JSW scene back then (and it's great that it's still online!), but obviously it will be grossly outdated at this point.

Thanks for confirming the room can be finished without any loss of life 👍.

Congratulations on designing a JSW room! 👍 When you say it can be "finished with one life", do you mean it can be finished without any loss of life, or it can be finished but one life has to be sacrificed to finish it? Just asking to be sure. Please keep your room and we will make sure it gets included in the Mass Collaboration Project when it's relaunched! 🙂

From the functional point of view, Rollback is exactly the same thing. It takes you back to a previous point in the game (before the mistake you made) and allows you to start again from there. Just an observation from an intense Rollback user 🙂 .

Yes, that's precisely what happened!

No, "Utility Cubicles" was a JSW48 game by Stuart J. Hill which served as a starting point for the JSW128 Mass Collaboration Project. The project was never finished, but its file and documentation have been preserved and I aim to relaunch it one day so that it can be completed (with the involvement of a new generation of JSW authors, plus some of the old-timers 😉) and released. I'm not quite ready to devote time to it right now, but perhaps after a certain stage of development of JSW Central has been completed (a couple of years from now), I will be happy to do it. Unless there's so much interest in it that several people are ready and willing to design some new rooms for it right now. Please let me know if you (plural - whoever reads this) are among them! 🙂

Thanks for reading the "Technical notes" from the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion", Jet Set Willie! 😊 I suspect you may be the first person in the world (other than myself who wrote them and Ian [IRF] and Andy [Spider] who proof-read them while in development) to have read them 😁 . Writing them was a hugely time-consuming, daunting task, but I am glad it was done, because I even use them myself from time to time when working on new projects. I hope they will actually be useful to you one day 🙂 .

The 3D MM version you are referring to is classified as a "minor mod" of the original game on JSW Central, because the game file (at least the one that's known publicly) has three edited rooms and 17 rooms from the original JSW. Yes, it's playable and completable (but the only novelty are the three edited rooms). Its page on JSW Central is here. For those who will not bother to consult it, "Manic Miner: 3D Demo" is a three-room demo of a new game created and released by the late Jim I. Langmead back in 2004 as an April Fools joke, with a claim that it was a demo of a 3D version of "Manic Miner", when in fact it was a "sneak preview" of his then-upcoming 2D MM game. The actual title of the game was never revealed. The game was never completed (according to information provided by Andrew Broad, as of September 2004, it had five rooms written but hadn't been touched for months). Sadly, Jim Langmead passed away in April 2007. The game features three new rooms: "APRIL FOOL hahahahahahahahahaha", "Tis just a sneak preview of my.." and "..Manic Miner 2D game..sorry..". The remaining rooms are unedited. I referred to the "publicly known" game file in the first paragraph, because since Andrew mentioned five "written" rooms, there may have been a different, more developed game file (with five edited rooms instead of three) Jim was working on. However, that (hypothetical) version has never surfaced publicly TTBOMK. My RZX walkthrough of this version can be downloaded from the RZX Archive. As for the complete list of games, it's a kind of project I would not be willing to lead right now (I have too many other MM/JSW-related things to do, plus any non-Spectrum games are outside of my immediate interest), but if someone started it and a serious discussion and development ensued (especially on this forum), I would be happy, time-permitting, to contribute.

Yes, that could be an option 🙂.

I certainly keep your personalised cheat mode password option in mind 🙂 . However, it is more probable that I will use a modified JSW48 game engine for a future project. We shall see...

Jet Set Willie, I have no idea why you don't see the other rectangle, i.e. why JSWED does not allow you to move the rectangle defining the arrow placement (height) up and down. In the worst-case scenario, an arrow's height can also be defined in the Hex Editor, but it will be less comfortable to do than just dragging it around with your mouse.

The idea is certainly interesting and challenging. Determining whether something is a "clone" of MM or JSW may be tricky (how similar does the game have to be in order to be considered that?). My JSW Central website aims to list every single gamma-released MM and JSW game for the Spectrum, as well as minor versions of the original games. Non-Spectrum games are beyond its scope of interest and will not be part of it in the foreseeable future. As described here, whether a game is defined, or not, as a 'Willy game' for the purposes of JSW Central depends mainly on the game engine it uses. The only exception to the rule are games using game engines other than the several well-defined categories, but which for various reasons are without any doubt 'Willy games'. I would suspect that almost all of the ZX Spectrum games included in the 'Complete list of MM and JSW games' on JSW Central should be incorporated into the hypothetical all-encompassing all-platform list you've described. "Almost all", because there is one exception: my "Willy Games: The First 30 Years Quiz" IS a Willy game by the JSW Central definition - because it uses the JSW64 game engine - but in fact it's not a platformer, but a multiple-choice quiz (in which the ingenious use of the game engine is part of the tribute to the whole phenomenon of Willy games). So it would certainly not fit on any list of JSW clones. JSW Central also lists, as separate lists, "Versions and minor mods of the original Manic Miner" and "Versions and minor mods of the original Jet Set Willy". These are creations I do not classify as "new games", but as "versions" and "minor mods" of the original games (only), and I do feel very strongly about making this distinction, because it's often blurred on general ("non-MM/JSW-specialised") Spectrum websites, to the detriment of common sense and clarity of what we are talking about. It would have to be an arbitrary decision by whoever was making the all-encompassing list if they would want to include any of these entries. Section I. "Games inspired by and/or similar to MM or JSW" on the "Games of MM and JSW interest" page, which Andy (Spider) pointed to (thank you!), is a half-hearted attempt to create a list of Spectrum games that may be particularly enjoyable to people who like MM/JSW because of their similarity. It's grossly underdeveloped, and will unfortunately remain so in the foreseeable future, because developing it is very low on my priority list. However, IF a list of Spectrum games similar to/inspired by/amounting to clones of MM/JSW is developed elsewhere (like on this forum by following Jet Set Willie's idea), I would be happy to take advantage of it in the future and use it to add new entries to the "Games of MM and JSW interest" list on JSW Central. As for the lists on new MM/JSW games and minor versions on JSW Central, to the best of my knowledge they are currently complete, with the exception of two "versions/minor mods of the original Manic Miner" and a sub-version of one of them that have been around for over a year now, but I haven't got down to creating separate pages for them yet (they are Allan Turvery's "Manic Miner: Trick or Treat" and its 'Silver Shamrock' variant plus his "Manic Miner Presto"). I will include them in the list and create separate pages for them one day. If someone knows of anything else that is missing, please let me know!

> But how can I edit arrow´s Y-coordinate? You highlight the arrow guardian in the "Guards" list in the room. Then in the part of the screen which shows the room you have two narrow rectangles (to describe it somehow): one is yellow and unmoving, the other one is flashing (between white and blue, I think) and can be moved up and down with your mouse. The unmoving yellow one is the current position (=height) to which the arrow is set. The movable flashing one is the position (=height) you are setting it to right now. After you've moved it to the desired position (=height), you left-click the mouse and the yellow rectangle is moved to the new position (and stays there). The two pictures below illustrate this: A video would be better, but this should do. In the first two pictures, the flashing rectangle is shown as white (as I guess it happened to be white when I took either screenshot). As you can see, in the second picture the white rectangle is lower than in the first picture - that's because I moved it with my mouse. Now the third picture: This time the yellow rectangle is lower than before - because I left-clicked my mouse when the flashing rectangle was at that height, and that moved the yellow rectangle there, i.e. defined a new height for the arrow. The flashing rectangle is still there (this time it happens to be blue), as the arrow's height can be edited again, and it happens to be higher up, because I moved it with my mouse before taking the screenshot. I hope this helps 🙂 .

Regarding "Safe restart places": I've never used it. I've tried just now and indeed JSWED does not seem to allow this option to be applied in a regular JSW game, even though in the manual it says, "Note that if you turn this effect on, on a game which previously didn’t have it, it is essential to set up a valid restart position in every room, and to set the initial room again. Otherwise the game will crash on startup or when Willy loses a life." The words "if you turn this effect on, on a game which previously didn’t have it" imply that you CAN do such a thing; however, from a cursory glance, it doesn't seem possible. If you want to see how this feature works, you will need to use Ian Collier's version of JSW then. I've attached it to this message. I've checked and indeed, it works in JSWED, in that you can choose the "Safe restart places" option and then you can set the position for Willy to respawn after death in every room. JETSETHK.z80

The problem that people who start to work with JSWED experience most often is with what's come to be known in the trade as guardian classes versus guardian instances. Guardian classes define most of the properties of a guardian. They are visible as hex numbers in JSWED. When you do "Guardians" - "Add" - "Choose a new guardian", you have to select it (in the JSW48 game engine, i.e. the unmodified engine from the original JSW) from 127 guardian classes. The first is called 00 [None in the original JSW], the second 01 [Rope in the original JSW], 02 [Vertical in the original JSW] and so forth, until guardian class 7e (for technical reasons JSWED does not allow the designer to use guardian class 7f, which would be the last one otherwise). You have to select a guardian class and then either use it as is, or redefine this guardian class (in any way you want; if it's currently a vertical one, you can change it to a horizontal one, or a rope, or an arrow). The guardian class defines the type of guardian and most of its parameters (depending on the type) such as the sprite, colour, bounds of movement, animation, etc. A guardian instance is a guardian class used in a particular room, so the thing that we would commonly called "a guardian" in the room. There are some things that are defined in the guardian instance parameters, such as the horizontal position of a vertical guardian, the starting point of a horizontal guardian, the horizontal position of a rope in the room or the height at which an arrow flies. These properties are defined in a guardian instance and are individual for this particular instance, but most of the elements of each guardian's behaviour are defined in its guardian class and are the same for all of the guardian instances of this class. When the author modifies any of the existing guardian classes, if there are any guardian instances using this particular guardian class in other rooms, they will be modified accordingly. This is the problem I mentioned: people would add eg. guardian instances using class 01 in rooms 01, 02 and 03. Then they would modify this guardian class 01 in room 01 (in a way that fits the design of this particular room), and then they would be surprised that "the guardians" (i.e. guardian instances) also got modified in rooms 02 and 03 (in a way not fitting the design of either room). Of course they got modified, because the guardian class got modified, so all guardian instances using this particular guardian class have been modified. If you want to have different guardians in rooms 02 and 03, you will need to use different guardian classes for them. It is good practice IMO to have a table for each JSW game you create where you make a note which guardian classes are used in which room, eg. Room 00 - guardian classes 01 and 1b, Room 01 - guardian classes 12, 3f, 4b and 52 and so on. I always do it in a simple table in MS Word (just an example to say that *even* MS Word is good enough for this). In this way, you always know which guardian class you can modify without affecting other rooms, or see if a change in one room will be acceptable for the guardian instance(s) of the same guardian class used in another room/other rooms. It's probably not the problem you've encountered and sorry if it's very basic, but I know people have had problems with this before, so I thought I'd better mention it 🙂 .

Regarding JSWED crashing/other problems described: This is something I can't really help with, because I haven't experienced the same problems, so I can't say what causes them or how they can be avoided. In recent years (say, the last six or seven years, since I've worked on "Willy's New Mansion" SE and other projects), I don't recall JSWED ever crashing on me, or having any other kind of problematic behaviour. The only problem I do keep encountering - and it's irritating, because it consumes time (I have to restart the editor and reload the game file), but it's not critical (I am able to save the game before closing the editor) occurs when I work in the Hex editor (it stops accepting input from the keyboard; you can still save the game using the mouse), so it's not one of the problems you've encountered. I have a *vague* memory of JSWED crashing when editing guardians (after choosing guardian sprites, I think it was), but it happened many years ago, and I haven't experienced such problem in recent years. I believe I had the habit of saving the game *before* editing a guardian, just to be on the safe side, not to lose progress if the game crashes. Again, it hasn't happened in my recent memory. I've always worked on Windows (currently on Windows 10). What operating system are you using?

JSW64 is a 'family' of 128K game engines developed by John Elliott. I call it 'a family', because there are six variants: V, W, X, Y, Z and [, which differ in the maximum number of rooms, number of guardians per room, number of cell classes per room and whether the cell type of each cell class is set globally or on a room-by-room basis, as shown in the table below: Variant Rooms Guardians per room Cell classes per room Free space per room JSW64 V 128 13 8 64 bytes JSW64 W 128 8 13* 0 bytes JSW64 X 64 13** 8 576 bytes JSW64 Y 64 8** 13* 512 bytes JSW64 Z 64 8** 13*** 256 bytes JSW64 [ 64 4** 16 512 bytes The JSW64 game engine was created by John Elliott as a development of the JSW 128 idea, using the extra memory of the 128K Spectrums in a different way. Whereas JSW128 can have up to 256 simple rooms, JSW64 can have up to 64 or 128 more sophisticated rooms. So JSW64 is not an editor, it's a game engine (with six variants). Games using any of the variants of the JSW64 game engine can be created using JSWED 2.3.7.

The easiest way for me to answer it is the following: Please download the ZIP package of the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion", open the "Willy's New Mansion - Special Edition" text file and have a look at Section IX. "Technical notes". Things which are described there were pretty much all done using JSWED's Hex editor. Similarly, you can download the ZIP package of the 48K Edition of "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre" and have a look at the "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre 48K Edition - Readme" text file, Section X. "Technical notes". Again, this was all done using by modifying the code by using JSWED's Hex editor.

John Elliott might be lurking around. He did in the past. Ligan's reply is absolutely correct in that you can apply the so-called triggers in games using JSW64 game engines, and they could probably do pretty much what you are asking for. Well, within limits - while I've never designed anything using triggers, I believe there is a selection of events you can relate them to (in other words: you can only pick the triggers and the effect they cause from a closed list of events). You can certainly do something like "When this particular item is collected, open a hole in the wall at [coordinates]". However, I'm not sure you can do something like "then SET guardian_life_time = nn_seconds". JSW64 game engines use 128K (not a problem I guess, just to reiterate that fact). In other kinds of games, you could introduce special effects by what has come to be known as 'patch vectors' (PVs). There is a thread about them here. In their case, JSWED will not not allow you to apply them using any special functions in its GUI, you would have to code whatever special effect you want manually. You can introduce the new code using JSWED's Hex Editor, of course. The changes could also be introduced 'manually' by tweaking the game code in a different way than introducing PVs, like in the examples Andy (Spider) mentioned. Again, no editor I know of will do it for you; JSWED can only help by allowing you to use its Hex Editor to modify the code (but you will have to know what and how to modify).

What do you mean, Andy? I would think a machine with 128K of RAM is more Bitcoin-wallet friendly than one with 48K RAM only 😁.

Yes, it is lovely! Thanks, Mtm! 🙂 P.S. A pity she's not in Solar Power Generator or somewhere else that would show she's really far into the game 😉 .

The same feeling here - it will be a great shame if Norman Sword leaves the scene. I hope he will reconsider/circumstances will change favourably. In any case, thank you for the release of V2 and I look forward to V3!

My personal opinion: JSWED is currently (and has been for a long time) an absolutely unbeatable tool for creating MM and JSW games. It's easy to use, reliable and versatile. You can edit most aspects of each game using its Graphical User Interface (GUI). You can copy and paste stuff in various ways (whole rooms, sprites, etc.). You don't have to know *anything* about coding to create a complete, interesting MM or JSW game. JSWED allows you to edit games using several types of game engines, including the original 48K game engine and some of its variants (like the Softricks one), MM games, Henry's Hoard games, Jet Set Willy 128 games (using an extended 128K JSW game engine developed by John Elliott, who is also the author of JSWED), Jet Set Willy 64 games (using any of the family of several extended 128K game engines developed by John Elliott) and also games using the original "Jet Set Willy II" game engine. This list is impressive in itself and I may have missed some other variant it can edit. I would go as far in my praise of JSWED as to disagree with Andy (Spider)'s last statement ("Professionals tend to write and use their own editors/builders per game as far as I'm aware") in the sense that you can be a professional in designing MM or JSW games *without* building your own editor - just by using JSWED. This is for the following reason: when you look at the list of gamma-released MM and JSW games on JSW Central, a significant number of them (and certainly most of the game created in the last 20 years) were created using JSWED, as the basic tool or as the only tool. There are some *fantastic* games that were created by authors not using anything else than JSWED. They may not have a custom BASIC loader or a loading screen, they may not have some elements modified that other games have modified (those where you have to "go outside" of JSWED's GUI to do it), but they are brand-new, beautiful games which combine the elegance and excellence of the JSW game engine (original or extended) with the amazing creativity of their authors. I will not point to any specific examples (as I try to be objective and I love all JSW games, although I do have my personal favorites), but they are easy to find. And please note I'm *not* referring to my own projects, I have other authors' games in mind. In other words, I believe that JSWED is entirely sufficient for creating great JSW games. Yes, the final product can be tweaked by applying changes to the code you cannot apply in JSWED's GUI, but it may still be great even if no such changes are applied and no technical novelties are introduced (and they can also be introduced within JSWED, using its Hex Editor). And creating a single room may be a very good start to creating a great game... On top of all this, JSWED is entirely free. And, as Andy mentioned, it works just fine on Windows. And the last point: please see this thread for my thoughts regarding v. 2.2.9 and 2.3.7. A hint and a warning: I believe it's good practice to save every single file you edit in JSWED under a different file name, so that you keep all the versions you create. This is particularly important when changing the code arbitrarily in the Hex Editor (to be able to check against a previous version or many previous versions in case something goes wrong, but you only discover the problem later on), perhaps not so much if you only work using the GUI. I've been saving (and still keep) all of the files I've ever created. I don't need them now, they are just a historical curiosity, but this practice helped me a number of times to solve problems I came up against. And I've never accidentally overwritten any of my work. I look forward to whatever you will create in JSWED, Jet Set Willie! 🙂

To be precise, I haven't yet released a new MM and then a JSW mod (I am missing the MM part 😉). Some people have done so, in addition to Matthew Smith, of course: R. D. Foord (the person who is behind the R. D. Foord Software, I assume that's his/her name), Andrew Broad and Vidar Eriksen (Erix1). Also, more recently, Ian Rushforth (IRF) and Andy Ford (Spider). I definitely want to create more games in the future. However, I would like to complete a certain phase of development of JSW Central first (working on it bit by bit [no pun intended] is more compatible with my other current actitivies in life than delving into a new game-creation project, which tends to absorb me 100% and sap the time I should be dedicating to other aspects of life). Hopefully, one day circumstances will be more propitious for brave new game-creation projects :). I wish you the same and already look forward to your future MM and JSW mods 🙂 .