jetsetdanny

Cool! Thanks for sharing 🙂 .

Thank you, Geoff! I'll get back to you on this soon 🙂 .

Well, a significant majority of new JSW games use ropes, I would say. The ones that don't use them are few and far between, I believe. Ropes in JSW games have undergone a serious development over the years. A lot of new elements have been introduced, including: - ropes with new parameters (position, length and swing) than the one in the original JSW; - still ropes; - multiples ropes in one room; - invalid ropes (winding into the adjacent room, so to speak); - killer ropes (that kill Willy when he touches them); - the effect that Willy gets picked up by the rope no matter where he is in the room when the rope touches something else - interesting challenges have been built around it because of the time constraints it introduces; - ropes that allow you to cross solid walls; - ropes that are used during the toilet run as additional challenges that the player has to overcome before completing the game; - ropes used as starting points for other quirky challenges (such as a jump through an Innocent-Looking Block that has to be effectuated from the rope, possible from only one position). I have probably missed a couple of things, writing this off the top of my head. A whole dissertation could probably be written about the use of ropes in JSW! Incidentally, a similar creative evolution has also happened with arrows (perhaps a little more restricted because of their character), with the introduction of arrows of different shapes and colours, invalid arrows producing special effects (such as moving platforms), etc.

For me, ropes are a great part of the charm of JSW. They are cool in the way they are designed, pleasing aesthetically, and they allow for nice gameplay features - like Willy falling down through several rooms, seemingly to a certain death, and then landing safely on a rope. I love ropes in JSW 🙂. Arrows are also a feature of the game I like a lot, especially the warning sound before they appear. It's always been a little part of the magic for me. It's just a personal opinion since you've asked, not meant to influence your choice of whether or not to have them in your game, SymbolShift 🙂 .

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! 😎

Thanks for the idea, Geoff! 👍 It's good to see you around. I should soon (=in the next few weeks) be able to get down to recording an RZX walkthrough of my unofficial bugfix of "Willy the Hacker", which I prepared reflecting what Robin Clive had done to fix the game, and, if its completability is confirmed empirically, to ask you for your blessing to make it "the official bugfix" 🙂 .

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... 🙂

I am absolutely thrilled to report that Adam Britton has expressed his approval of the bug-free tape versions of his games that I prepared! I let him know about this project and sent him the files, and he got back to me with a very nice e-mail on 20th March, 2022, and he said (among other things), "I very much approve of these bug-free tape versions of these games. I’m extremely grateful that you’d spend all this time doing this and preserving these little slices of my childhood for everyone to continue to enjoy." I am extremely grateful to Adam for his kind words and approval! His acceptance of these versions is very important to me 🙂. I have updated the Readmes in the three ZIPs in the Downloads section with information about Adam's kind approval. Do have a go at these games if you haven't played them yet, and enjoy these very, very early JSW remakes Adam so brilliantly created 37 years ago 🙂.

Good to see you've joined this forum, Bob - welcome! 🙂 And thank you for the information about "M-m" 👍

Thank you, MtM! I am looking forward to it, but in the meantime I hope to still be able to do some MM- and JSW-related things here on Matthew Smith's Earth 😁.

I am not aware of such a site. I would suspect you may find some sites where the official releases for various platforms will be listed, but not necessarily mods and unofficial versions. It's an interesting idea, though! I would say such site *should* exist, "should" indicating obligation or duty rather than probability 😉 .

No. As per the Scope and principles, "the main interest of this website are games based on MM and JSW game engines for the ZX Spectrum". Hence, "games for other computer platforms which feature Willy or are inspired by JSW or MM are beyond the scope of interest of this website for the time being." When I wrote this, I did put "for the time being" to leave a small 'window' open for a possible expansion of the website's scope in the future. That window is still open, but I don't envisage using it in the foreseeable future. To be honest, my main interest are not really the original "Jet Set Willy" and "Manic Miner" (much as I appreciate and like them). It's the new games created using their excellent game engines (and modified/extended game engines). I created and develop (when new ones appear) the Versions of the original Manic Miner and Versions of the original Jet Set Willy sections mainly because I felt frustrated by the confusion between what I would classify as new games (sometimes the result of hundreds of hours of work or more) and minor mods (sometimes amounting to just a change of a few bytes - producing some interesting effects, but not making it a new game).

Updates on the JSW Central YouTube channel since the last video I mentioned in this thread: Manic Jet Set Willy Jet Set Emily: Baby on the Go Original Edition Jet Set Emily: Baby on the Go Special Edition Jet Set Emily: Baby on the Go Final Edition Jet Set Willy 16K Willy and the Dodecahedron Jet-Set Willy Ivy where's woody? Willy Takes a Trip MANIC-minor The recordings of "Manic Jet Set Willy" and "MANIC-minor" are very recent (because the games are relatively new), as is the recording of "Jet Set Willy 16K" (because I only completed it for the first time recently). The remaining videos were made from my RZX walkthroughs which I recorded a long time ago. They seemed good enough to be used for the YouTube channel. If I re-recorded these games now, I would do some things differently (like turning while jumping vertically up if a turn is required, instead of jumping up and then turning to face in the other direction), but I decided that these details, which may affect the aesthetic side of the recordings a little bit, were not "serious enough" to warrant a re-recording of these games, which would require a significant investment of time and energy (which I can use better for other MM/JSW-related activities).

And so it has been done. "Manic-4-Noobs" and "MANIC-minor" now share the same page on JSW Central. There is a complete screenshot gallery of each game and a link to a YouTube video, among other things. I have also changed the name of this thread to reflect that it includes both variations of the game. I have been able to complete "MANIC-minor" with a score of over 39,000 points, which proves it is a relatively easy game. The RZX recording (which served as the basis for the YouTube video) can also be downloaded from the game's page on JSW Central. Do give it a try if you haven't played it - it's very nicely done and easy to play! 🙂

And so it has been done. "Manic-4-Noobs" and "MANIC-minor" now share the same page on JSW Central. There is a complete screenshot gallery of each game and a link to a YouTube video, among other things. I have been able to complete "MANIC-minor" with a score of over 39,000 points, which proves it is a relatively easy game. The RZX recording (which served as the basis for the YouTube video) can also be downloaded from the game's page on JSW Central. Do give it a try if you haven't played it - it's very nicely done and easy to play! 🙂

Interesting comparison, Ian! Norman Sword seems to be absent from these parts at present. I do hope he will be back soon 🙂 .

Thanks, Andy, I appreciate your spending time on this and the additional info! 🙂

Thanks, Andy, that's very helpful! 👍

Could someone please load the attached TAP files of Sendy (Alex Cornhill)'s JSW128 games "where's woody?" and "STRANGEL" into an emulator of your choice (or two) and see if they have any in-game music? When you don't hear any music, please try pressing the keys that would normally turn it on if it's turned off. Please let me know what the results are. It won't be a big spoiler if I say these games apparently have no in-game music. I just want to make sure this is indeed the case, that I'm not missing something obvious here. There is no in-game music in my RZX recordings of these games (made years ago), which I am planning to convert to YouTube videos, there are only in-game sounds of jumping, falling, getting killed and item collection. Before I make the videos, I want to be absolutely sure I didn't happen to record the games with the in-game music off, while it could be turned on. Sendy's notes in the Readme files seem to corroborate that there is no in-game music. They read (same language in both files), "if you hear a quiet ticking sound while playing the game, press 'enter' to stop it." I'm not sure what this is referring to exactly, but seems to suggest that there is no in-game music as such, since the player might be able to hear a quiet ticking sound. I'm 99.5% sure there is no in-game music in either game. If someone confirms this, I will consider my certainty to be 100%. Please note I am absolutely not suggesting the games should be 'fixed' to have in-game music or anything like that. I just want to make sure my recordings did not miss something that was present in the 'officially' released files. STRANGEL.tap where's woody.tap

I think a TipShop POKE could be a good solution, not to let your successful 'correction' effort go to waste while at the same time avoiding a suggestion that the game is buggy and so needs to be fixed 🙂 .

Thanks for your detailed analysis, Ian! It will be interesting to see if Norman Sword comments on your observations 🙂 .

Yes, I believe this is indeed the case.

Yes, I did mean The Cold Store, sorry I missed the name.

Better kick those people off to another planet. This one is too nice to leave behind and, what's more, to leave it to greed and foul play!

Personally, I think the game doesn't need fixing, as it's perfectly completable and the necessity to collect the item in "Front Door" as the last one is an additional challenge, which is quite cool. Just my personal opinion 🙂 . Enforcing a particular item to be the last one to collect is not common in JSW games, which is why I think it has some added value here. Off the top of my head, I can think of only one game that does it. In Andrew Broad's "We Pretty" the item in the room ""TH E CAR ROT OF REF LEC T I O N" (63) has to be collected as the last one. If you don't leave it until the very end, all your hard toil in this otherwise very difficult game will have been in vain... Interestingly, I thought that this was conscious design on Andrew's part and that the room's name, which I always read as "The Carrot of Reflection", is somehow related (you come to reflect upon your failure when you didn't leave this item as the last one and try to complete the game, and realise it's impossible, or something to this effect). However, Andrew said (on the Yahoo! Group, which is offline these days so I cannot link to it): "Strangely enough, I had played We Pretty to completion just a few weeks before you, and I too fell for the trap of not leaving the item in "TH E CAR ROT OF REF LEC T I O N" as the last to be collected! And I had been unaware of this pitfall until playing We Pretty again last year. It's not something I intended when I wrote We Pretty - I guess I must have been too set in my ways whilst playtesting." When I let him know my thoughts about the room name, he replied: "An interesting interpretation, but the room-name actually came about in December 1997, when I was reading the following paper: Tyugu E. and Addibpour M. (1996). Declarative reflection tools for agent shells. Pages 203-215 in: Future Generation Computer Systems 12 (2,3). On the Internet at ftp://it.kth. se/labs/se/ Reports/refl- jfgcs.ps. Z (modified 12th April 1996). My father asked me what I was reading about; I said 'declarative reflection', but he thought I said 'the carrot of reflection'!" 🙂