jetsetdanny

On the first page of this topic instructions are giving on how to modify the code to have a 64-byte-long in-game tune play twice as fast or half as fast. Instructions are also given how to have a 32-byte-long in-game tune and a 128-byte long in-game tune (playing at regular speed). They all involve modifing the value of #8B48 (i.e. the operand of an AND command) and a modification of the following RRCA instruction in one way or another. Would there be a way to: 1. make a 32-byte-long tune play half as fast; 2. make a 128-byte-long tune play half as fast?

I couldn't get out of this particular spot. I tried jumping onto the platform on the left and the platform on the right, but couldn't get onto either of them - they seemed to be too high. I cannot try it again right now since I didn't save the game (you can't save the game, can you?), but I will keep it in mind and try it again when I play another time.

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 😲.

It's taken me more than a few weeks (a few months really), but I am now almost ready to have a proper go at the game and will do it soon (I'm looking forward to it, too 🙂). I will report back with my feedback. For the time being, I just want to mention, Heracleum, that McAfee's NetGuard still considers your website unsafe and blocks access to it. So if you got in touch with them asking them to change it, it hasn't produced any results as far as I can tell. I have also just figured out a way to make an exception in my NetGuard to allow access to the site, so it shouldn't be a problem for me any more. However, it could be a problem for other people who happen to use McAfee, visit your site for the first time and see it blocked, without realising the reason for it (which is what happened to me originally).

Updates on the JSW Central YouTube channel since the last video I mentioned in this thread: JSW Stupid Holy Shit!!! The Perils of Willy – Bog Roll Edition Willy on a Transatlantic Cruise Henry's Hoard (1985 version) Henry's Hoard (1986 version) Henry's Hoard (1989 version) Bizarre! Pip The Pipistrelle Manic Miner: The Buddha of Suburbia SE The videos of "JSW Stupid", "Holy Shit!!!", "Willy on a Transatlantic Cruise", the three versions of "Henry's Hoard", "Bizarre!" and "Pip The Pipistrelle" have been made from my old RZX recordings, which have been available for download from JSW Central for years now. The video of the Bog Roll Edition of "The Perils of Willy" was made (back in April) from a (then) brand-new RZX recording (a bugfixed, completable version of this edition was only released by Allan Turvey in December 2021). The video of the Special Edition of "Manic Miner: The Buddha of Suburbia" was made from a newly-made RZX recording, which can now (since half an hour ago!) be downloaded from JSW Central. I managed to improve my score by 163 points (from 25,373 pts. to 25,536 pts.). This probably means I did quite a good job recording it back in 2015, as the improvement has been minimal. Incidentally, the scores quoted above are scores upon reaching the equivalent of the swordfish sign in the final room. In this game (as well as in Andrew Broad's "Manic Miner 4"), the air counter keeps resetting itself after the player has completed the final cavern, causing a constant increase in the score and making it impossible to re-enter the first cavern. Therefore, the score upon reaching the equivalent of the swordfish sign is the only final score that can be reasonably quoted. These two games are the reason why on JSW Central there are two best scores given for each MM game. Most of the games can be compared using the score upon the first re-entry into the first cavern. These two games do not have that score, therefore the only value they can be compared against (the score upon reaching the equivalent of the swordfish sign) is also given for all of the other MM games (which otherwise would not need to have two ending scores mentioned).

Thank you so much, Geoff, I truly appreciate it! 👍

The "soon" turned out to be four and a half months, but now I've done it. I have played my unofficial bugfix of "Willy the Hacker" to completion and can confirm that it is perfectly completable. So hereby I officially ask Geoff for his kind endorsement of it 🙂 . Some background: The original release of "Willy the Hacker" is incompletable due to a critical bug in the room "The Right-Hand Edge of the Map" (27). In 2007, Andrew Broad suggested a fix for it (in a post on the JSW/MM Yahoo! Group, which used to be here, but is not online any more). In May 2008, Robin Clive submitted a recording of the game to the RZX Archive. This recording is still hosted over there. Robin applied a different fix than that suggested by Andrew in order to be able to complete the game. Strangely enough, he also modified the game to show only 7 remaining lives, while in the original game there are 16, occupying the whole bottom part of the status bar (as a matter of fact, the game has the infinite-lives POKE turned on by default, so it doesn't really matter to the player how many spare lives there are left, and their number does not decrease if a life is lost, but it does make a significant visual difference on the status bar). While creating the game's page on JSW Central, I prepared a bugfixed version of the game, which applied the same fix that Robin Clive applied, but it was done in ZX-Blockeditor so that the rest of the game was unchanged, while the game was made completable by eliminating the critical bug. As mentioned above, my bugfixed version can be downloaded from here, and I will upload it also to this forum once Geoff endorses it. As I found out when playing the game to completion and RZX-recording it, the player must lose one life in the room "Purple <hic>" (29), as the only way to collect the two items on the mid-air platform is to jump for them from below, which kills Willy upon falling from an excessive height. This doesn't matter for the gameplay, since the infinite-lives POKE is turned on anyway. Robin Clive fixed this issue before recording his walkthrough (by modifying the platforms), so he didn't lose a life there. In my bugfix, this is not modified, as the idea was to only fix the (sole) critical bug which made the game incompletable. The necessity to lose a life in order to complete the game, while not my personal preference, is also present in some of Geoff's other games, so it's nothing extraordinary (in fact, it is also present in the Software Projects-fixed original "Jet Set Willy"!). I really enjoyed playing "Willy the Hacker" and recording it 🙂. Finding an optimal route was the biggest challenge, but I think I did quite well in the end. I had to complete the game twice, because in my initial recording I missed three items that should have been collected in the early stages of the walkthrough. I re-recorded the game, collecting these items at the right time and also improving the fluidity of some of my movements in the other rooms. The resulting RZX recording is fully up to my standards, and it will be uploaded to the game's page on JSW Central very soon, on the same day I publish a JSW Central YouTube video of it. According to a plan I have, it will be video No. 68, and I have just uploaded No. 65 today ("Pip The Pipistrelle"), so "Willy the Hacker"'s upload will happen within the next two weeks, probably closer to ten days. Among the many things I like about the game, I would like to highlight the sailing ships' sprites in "Throat-Wobbler Mangrove" (59). I really like them, I appreciate their fluid movement and I think they are the best ship sprites I've seen in a Spectrum JSW game (please correct me if there are other competitors! 😉 ). So Geoff, thank you for creating this game close to a quarter of a century ago and I will be very grateful for your endorsement of the bugfixed version 🙂 .

Thank you, SymbolShift and crem for creating the puzzles, and to my "fellow guessers" for participating! It has been a lot of fun, and also great food for thought regarding AI and human thinking processes 🙂 .

JSW Central has just been updated after a pause in its development which lasted for exactly 4 months. The update concerns the page of "Henry's Hoard", where embedded walkthroughs of three versions of this game from the JSW Central YouTube channel have been added. Hopefully, this update marks my return to a more active involvement in the development of 'MM & JSW affairs', including some matters discussed elsewhere on this forum...

And I can see JianYang has chosen exactly the same answers. We CAN'T be wrong this time! 😆

Yes, these do seem easy, even though I (believe I) can identify 'Megaron' only thanks to its corrupted name itself visible in the picture, plus I identify 'Banned' not by its own merits, but as the last remaining picture. My guesses:

Yes! 😁

Having looked at Ligan's guesses now, I can see we agree on the first four and, unsurprisingly, differ on No. 5 🙂 .

Thank you for Batch 12. Here are my guesses (without looking at Ligan's guesses that he just posted): No. 1-4 seem easy. No. 5 is just a wild guess.

I chose "Wow" as my emoji above, but I also want to say "Thank you!". It's a pity you cannot choose two emojis at the same time!

These are very difficult, indeed. I'll give it a (wild) try, but have little hope of getting anything right:

I can see that Ligan's and my guesses for Batch 9 are identical. Surely we can't both be wrong! 😉

I've never watched Star Trek. I may have seen the name or shape you've mentioned somewhere at some point, though. I don't remember it consciously. It is very interesting! 🙂

I am fascinated by having guessed NCC 1501 correctly. There was no conscious reason to point to this answer, I couldn't really justify it, it just seemed right 😎. My guesses of Batch 9:

Having looked at JianYang's guesses now, I can see we agree on No. 11, 12, 14, 18 and 19. 🙂 . I would be surprised if we were wrong there. As for the others, I am curious what the correct answers are!

My guesses:

Interestingly, I wanted to put forward "Nasties" as the answer to No. 4 and even started typing a reply starting with a statement that No. 4 seems utterly disgusting to me, so I think it must be "Nasties". Then I reconsidered, thinking that my own emotional response to the picture should be irrelevant, and opted for a different answer. This shows that my initial, emotion-related guess, was actually the correct one. It's really fascinating how this works, with the AI creating something according to its own algorithms, and then us humans trying to guess what it may have associated with the concepts with which we have some associations of our own...

Having looked at JianYang's answers now, I can see we have the same idea for No. 4 and 5 🙂 . I think he can be right about No. 1, too.

My guesses (without looking at JianYang's answers): I think No. 4 and 5 must be right. I also think No. 2 is correct. My guess about No. 3 is a purely intuitive one (no real justification for thinking this is the right answer, it just came to my mind) and No. 1 is a result of some consideration. This is a lot of fun! 😁

These are quite charming, thank you, crem! 👍