jetsetdanny

I have worked on improving my scores to bring them up to the standards set by crem's algorithm. I have succeeded in most cases. I am the first human (at least recorded on this forum 😉) who has completed "The Menagerie" with a score of 1904, "Wacky Amoebatrons" with a score of 1376, "The Endorian Forest" with a score of 1840 and "Attack of the Mutant Telephones" with a score of 1749 😁. I have improved my score in "The Warehouse" to 1946, but it still falls short of crem's algorithm by 5 points. I did not try to improve my "Solar Power Generator" score (1125), which is 12 points short of crem's algorithm's best achievement (assisted by Ian's insight). The updated ZIP with my RZX recordings of all caverns is here.

Manic Miner - Light Modification now has its own page on JSW Central. After a careful consideration of what really is the title of this variant, I opted for "Manic Miner - Light Modification", for the following reasons: - It is the name Pgyuri used on WoS (although not this exact spelling); - It is what Andy put on the loading screen (although not this exact spelling); - It is what makes most sense (to me) as a play on words - it's a "light" modification in the sense of not being very heavy (not too much has been modified in the game's code), and at the same time it has to do with light (inside the cavern). I've got the RZX recordings I made showing the highest documented scores I mention on JSW Central. They're not public yet, but hopefully will be made public in the next few days. As always, I tried to do my best describing this version of the game concisely and giving credit to its creators. However, if anyone has any comments or suggestions for improvement, please let me know and I will be happy to consider them and most likely update the info on JSW Central accordingly 🙂 .

Ian, Thank you so much for your suggestions of changes to the text on JSW Central. I implemented them fully, but I do think you should receive some credit there for your contribution to the discussion and solutions applied. Initially, I gave you credit for the enhancement of the overall score (this being a very specific and "measurable" contribution), but I was half-hoping that you would suggest some wording that would describe your contribution more fully. Would you suggest some wording to that effect? I will be happy to insert it on JSW Central if you do 🙂 .

I couldn't tell you. I got accustomed to using the # prefix, because I saw it used by some people on the JSW scene (probably by Dr. Andrew Broad who would have been back then and continues to be an authority for me on this kind of subjects) and just followed suit 🙂.

I have now created an individual page on JSW Central devoted to "Manic Miner: creme de la creme". Norman Sword, crem, Ian and everyone else who has been involved or is following this topic: please let me know if you have any suggestions for modifications of that page's contents. I have tried to describe this variant as best I could and give due credit to everyone involved, but I am sure there is room for improvement in the info published there 🙂 . The page features a full screenshot gallery, but if Norman Sword follows Ian's suggestion expressed above, I will be happy to update the screenshots accordingly.

That's strange. I *think* if something like this happens, there must be a reason for it. It can't be that one post gets archived/restored properly, and another one - doesn't, without some underlying conditions. Could it be that you don't have enough information, e.g. because the underlying condition is not related to the posts themselves (like their structure, etc.) but to the way the backup was made? I am just thinking aloud, trying to understand something that's rather puzzling... And yes, I also dread to think how many more posts might have been affected across the whole website. I almost prefer not to look to avoid despair 😒

Ian, With your brilliant mind, do you see any pattern to the posts there are missing? Can you see any shared characteristics of the posts that are truncated (versus those that are OK)?

Thanks for the fixes, Andy! 👍

Thanks for this new version, Norman Sword! 👍 I am almost ready to launch an individual page of "creme de la creme" on JSW Central. In fact, I'm glad I've waited with it until this release of yours, but it means I do have to update some info I've got ready to put online.

I don't think the Wayback Machine has everything archived. I remember searching for something I needed while the site was offline and I couldn't find it. I don't remember the details though.

I hope Fabian will resume work on "Jet Set Jason..." and bring this fantastic project to completion at some point in the near future 🙂 . He revealed the answer to this puzzle to me in a private e-mail, I think. I'm not sure if I'm authorised to reveal it here... Hopefully, Fabian is still following these pages and will let us know 🙂 .

Thanks, Andy! 🙂

I am getting ready to create an individual page for Norman Sword's "Manic Miner: creme de la creme" on JSW Central. A couple of questions: 1. Am I right that the latest version of "MM: creme de la creme" was released in this message? The highest achievable score in the BB version being 39,530 points? 2. It has been established elsewhere (or perhaps here in this thread, I can't tell right now) that the highest achievable score in the SP version is 1 point higher than in the BB version (because the Warehouse can be done more efficiently by taking a different route, due to the difference in guardian sprites which allows a jump that is impossible in the BB version). In view of this, are you by any chance going to release an SP-based version of "Manic Miner: creme de la creme" to show the maximum scores that can be achieved there, Norman Sword?

I'm not sure I understand 100% what you mean, Andy - I hope I do. I've added the original author's name (Matthew Smith) to the download description and I've added Pgyuri's name and your name as Third Party Authors. Thus you are both credited and I believe justice is done. However, please correct it if you don't think it's right 🙂 .

When one looks at the Download page of this variant, or at the beginning of the Download discussion, one sees no mention of Pgyuri whatsoever. My understanding is that first Pgyuri provided the code right here and then Andy made ready-to-use files, inputting Pgyuri's code modifications and creating loaders for the new files (please correct me if I'm wrong). So I believe they should both be credited for this variant, starting with Pgyuri. I will modify the Download page credits accordingly, unless someone suggests (please speak up in the next few days or forever hold your peace!) that it should be done differently.

My replies are in green below.

If such metric could be created and then applied easily to each game, it could certainly be used to show how much each game engine is modified.

If I counted correctly, post # 12,000 happened on 6 July 2020. I believe it was Ian's post on Technician Ted. In any case, the two adjacent posts have the same date, so that was definitely the day when that milestone was crossed 👍.

We missed post # 12,000. I think it's still possible to determine when it happened, though (more to come soon). I went to the Activity tab and went back, counting 64 posts from now (now that we are up to 13,064) and it looks like post # 13,000 was posted on Monday this week, so it was 5 April 2021. That's what I'll put in Chronology on JSW Central 🙂 . I will now endeavour to go back and count down to 12,000. The fact that the Activity tab displays 25 new posts before you need to press the "Load more activity" button, should be helpful.

I did notice a number of broken posts beyond those I reported to Andy initially. I did not report the following ones, because a) I didn't have time to do it the time and, more importantly, b) I think this problem would have to somehow be solved "systemically" or "automatically" so to speak - while individual posts that we notice are broken could be corrected one by one, I guess, but then we'll never know how many others remain broken that we haven't come across. What's more, I can't imagine anyone - neither Andy, nor myself, nor anyone else - going through everything that was posted on the forum post by post (all +13000 of them!) and correcting the problems manually. It's certainly a pity that this issue has occurred, but I think it should be solved by determining why it happened (what makes some posts broken, but not others) and - if possible - correcting it with one click throughout the site, as it were. I'm not sure that's possible at all, though, and it's certainly beyond my abilities. Do you have any other ideas? Would you like me to point out every broken post I come across, Andy?

I have dropped the type descriptors of JSW48 games from the Complete list of games. The reasons are presented here.

The update I mentioned above was the introduction of pages devoted to JODI's artistic modifications of JSW. They are described in a separate thread, right here.

Regarding Geoff Mode(s): After some consideration, I decided to drop the type descriptors of Geoff Mode I, Geoff Mode II and Erix Mode from the Complete list of MM and JSW games on JSW Central. I do mention these modes in the description of the games on their individual pages, but they have been deleted from the main list. The reason for this is that Geoff Mode I was the only type descriptor that made sense there, but if it were the only one, this wouldn't do justice to the whole list, and it would be difficult to define other modes accurately. Let me explain: JSWED recognizes some JSW48 games as certain modes, based on some particular pieces of code/data they contain. It recognises some games as Geoff Mode I, one game as Geoff Mode II, some games as Softricks; it also recognises "Henry's Hoard" as a separate type of games. What JSWED does could be the reason for defining some categories of "modes", but then it would be a pretty lame reason, as JSWED only takes some individual pieces of information into consideration and cannot recognise some games properly (eg. it recognises "Maria vs. Some Bastards" as a Softricks game), and it does not have names for other games whose game engines may have been modified as heavily as, or even more heavily than JSWED-recognised modes. Geoff Mode I is the only type descriptor that would still make sense, because there are five games altogether that use it, so it would make sense to have some category there. However, there is only one gamma-released game that uses Geoff Mode II ("ZX Willy the Bug Slayer"). So it's hard to speak of a category as such - it's just one individual game. "Willy does the Great Pyramid!" could perhaps be considered Geoff Mode III, but again - it's just a single game at the moment, not a category as such. The Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion" has a significantly modified game engine. I believe it is "modified enough" to be considered another "mode", but then it's also just a single game, so trying to create a new category of it wouldn't make any sense. The same goes for "Maria vs. Some Bastards" which would be the sole representative of "Erix Mode" (unless "Manic Mining Robot's Day Out" has a similar structure, I can't tell right now). This is also the situation of "Jet Set Mini" or "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre 48K Edition" - their game-engines are much-modified in relation to the original one, but it wouldn't make sense to make a category of each of them. In fact, "Henry's Hoard" would fall into the same category, too - of a significantly-modified game engine with only one game as the example of it. Taking the above into consideration, while leaving "Geoff Mode I" as a type descriptor would make sense IMO, it would be misleading to only have this one descriptor and leave the other games mentioned above (and some others) without a proper notice that their game engines are modified in relation with the original one. Using other descriptors might also be problematic, as there may be some games which use e.g. some features of the Softricks mode, but not all of them. So having a "Softricks Mode" category would also be problematic, as it might be hard to decide whether or not a game uses this particular mode or not. So, in the end I've decided that it will be better to delete these type descriptors altogether. I've only left the type descriptors of hacklevels for JSW128 games and hacklevels and versions for JSW64 games - because these can be defined beyond doubt for each of them, so it makes sense. The mentions of Geoff Mode are still there in the descriptions of Geoff's games on their individual pages on JSW Central, alongside with links to Geoff's old website describing his Mode(s), so the info is still there for anyone who may be interested, it's just not within the main list of games.

New developments: There is now a nice map of the game on Speccy Screenshot Maps. The game also has its individual page on JSW Central. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improving the description I created there. The recording of the game on the RZX Archive YouTube channel has had 634 views so far. It has received 43 likes and 3 dislikes, and there is a fifth comment there, but I don't understand its meaning.

Andy, As determined previously, it is because McAfee is blocking the site. I've just tried it again, with the same result. I will keep trying.