jetsetdanny

Andy, My feedback related to this project comprises a general reflection about new games vs. "minor mods" (which I will refrain from publishing now - I started writing it, but I don't have time to finish it right now; I'll publish it in a separate thread when time permits and if I don't change my mind), and comments related directly to the game. I will now proceed to the latter. It's an interesting idea to give the player a chance to play JSW in a monochromatic version with the colours of their choice. I appreciate what you have done so far, especially the fact that the player has the ability to input their own colours. Having said that, for me this project would have more value if it was done at the level of the machine code, not the BASIC loader, so that the player could go back and change the colours without reloading the game. I am saying this because I think the main merit of this project is to allow the player to see what different colour combinations would look like in JSW. Not really to play the game from start to finish with one colour scheme - *I* wouldn't want to do it, it would be boring - but to check out several combinations quickly just to see what they look like. For this, making it possible to change them without reloading the game would be crucial. I would imagine it more or less like this: on the title screen, there would be "ENTER to Start" or "C for Colour Options" (or something to that effect). Pressing ENTER would start the game with the colour scheme currently in place. Pressing "C" would lead to a new screen, where all the options would be (more or less like you have now in the BASIC loader, only I would change them). The player would be asked to input their desired colour scheme (with the numbers for colours being written out so that they know what to press) and to choose whether they want to play (in terms of the items' appearance) with 'Wobble', 'Jiggle' or neither. Personally, I would not offer any ready colour combinations (why offer green and not cyan or red?) but always ask the player to input the colours (plus turn the brightness on or off). The values would be modified only if the player input something, e.g. if they only input the INK colour, but not the PAPER colour, the latter would logically remain as it was before the player entered the Colour Options screen. So the player actually wouldn't *have to* enter anything (they could leave the Colour Options screen without making any changes, by pressing the key that would mean "go back to the title screen"), but they would *have to* input the colour number IF they wanted to change it - they couldn't just choose "black on white", or "white on black" or any other "pre-prepared" options. In a more ambitious scenario, there could also be a choice between the status bar (lower third of the screen) being colourful or monocromatic. After the selections have been made on this special screen, the game would return to the title screen where the player could either press ENTER to start the game with the selected colours, or could go back to the Colour Options screen if they reconsidered and wanted to choose different colours. After losing all lives or resetting the game, the program would return to the title screen. There the player could either start another game (by pressing ENTER) if they were satisfied with their choice of colours, or they could go to the Colour Options screen to change them. I would also suggest that in such an expanded version of "Mono" the imperfections that arise because of the lack of colours are addressed. For example, in the Swimming Pool the water disappears (because the Water cells are blank, i.e. INKless), which looks bad - Willy walks in the air. I would suggest making the Water cells full and adjusting the attributes accordingly - if the Water cells are "INKful" in a monocromatic version, e.g. if their INK colour is green, they will be all green (without any pattern), which would be more logical than having an empty swimming pool and Willy walking in the air. "The Swimming Pool" is just a prime example of the problem, but there are probably other places where the INK/PAPER arrangements should be adjusted. In fact, the bathtub in the bathroom is the first example of this - the conveyor, which is the bathtub, is mainly blank, it has INK only in the uppermost and lowermost pixel row of the cell. It would make more sense to make it mostly filled so that the player can at least see this bathtub well, not a ghost of it. In this particular case, I am not advocating modifying the game in relation to the original (as you are creating a slightly modified version of the original, not a new game), but the adjustments I mentioned would be valuable, IMO - not to modify the game, but to fix things which get corrupted/messed up because of the change of the colour scheme. These are my suggestions, for whatever they are worth 😉 . P.S. I kept writing about "monochromatic", but shouldn't it really be "duochromatic" - as we always have two colours there (INK and PAPER)?

The answer is "yes", but the number of such games depends on what you define as a JSW mode, I guess. Each of the six existing variants of the JSW64 game engine (called V, W, X, Y, Z and [), created by John Elliott as a 128K extension of the original JSW game engine, allows the use of crumbling floors, which behave just like in "Manic Miner". So any game created using this engine can have crumbling floors. I don't recall off the top of my head if JSW64, which was the first game to use this new engine, has them. Since it was meant to demonstrate the various new abilities offered by the JSW64 game engine, I am pretty sure it has crumbling floors somewhere, as a proof of concept if nothing else, so to speak. JSW64: Manic Miner obviously has a lot of crumbling floors, as it is "Manic Miner" rendered using the JSW64 game engine. Whether it's a mod of JSW is debatable - that's why I said the answer to your question probably depends on what you define as a JSW mode. There are numerous instances of use of crumbling floors among the other games made using the JSW64 game engine that have been released so far. Their (hopefully) complete list is here. Furthermore, there are also crumbling floors in Vidar Eriksen (Erix1)'s game "Maria vs. Some Bastards" and in his game "Manic Mining Robot's Day Out", the latter being a "secret bonus crap game" attached to the former title. Vidar modified the original JSW48 game engine in his own way to allow these, and many other, additional features.

Well done, crem! 👍 So no surprise there, my score has been improved. The route that the algorithm took is exactly the same as mine. So if the improvement means that it managed to avoid the Solar Beam for one time frame longer than I did, I've nothing to be ashamed of, I would say 🙂. I'm not sure if I will ever be able to force myself to repeat that result. I should, but recording the Solar Power cavern is a real pain, as you can't know whether the beam touched you or not (when talking about split-second contact). I tried to "control" it by looking at the amount of Air left on the status bar (as compared to my previous best recording). But it's really hard to tell if you just look at the remaining Air on the status bar.

Thanks for checking my highest scores in "Solar Power Generator" on the three occasions mentioned before, Ian! 👍 I am glad and a little relieved to know I was actually consistent 🙂 . If you saw the hundreds of times (literally!) I use Rollback, guys, you would have no doubt whatsoever that I'm human 😀. I wonder about RuffledBricks, though. He looks and sounds human enough in his videos, but I couldn't get even close to what he is doing... So you never know 🤪.

Hello again, Re: crem/creme Sorry, when I updated the HighScore table, I initially spelled it "creme" (probably because of Norman Sword's earlier mention of "creme de la creme" 😉). I spotted this mistake almost straight away, but it must have taken a while for the download discussion topic to refresh, or perhaps Andy (Spider) forced a refresh. Sorry about the initial mistake! I can see everything is good now 🙂 . I would suggest that "crem's algorithm" is kept - if you don't mind - at all caverns, for a very important reason: it shows at a glance that you have "processed" the cavern in question. Then it's a confirmation that one can't go any higher, and it sets a "crossbar" for humans to reach (if they haven't already). Since there is no limit as to the entries in the HighScore table at the moment, I believe that in the near future the situation will look like this: there will be both "crem's algorithm" and the nicknames of some human players in the first places everywhere. If "crem's algorithm" comes first, it will mean you were the first to achieve that score. If a human nickname comes first, it will mean that your algorithm has only confirmed the highest score previously achieved by humans. Solar Power is the only cavern now where there is no "crem's algorithm", as your current score is below the three best human scores, so I don't think it's worth adding at the moment. I am looking forward to what your amended algorithm will do, though! 🙂

Norman Sword allowed the player to switch the "Central Cavern" robot off in "Manic Panic". This could help too 😁.

Congratulations on these achievements once again, crem! Just a minor comment: I wouldn't call what you did in the three caverns where you achieved major improvements "route improvements". With the definition of route (Cambridge Dictionary) being "a way or course taken in getting from a starting point to a destination", to me a route in a MM cavern is which way you go, so to speak. In some caverns you could do different parts of the cavern in a different order (e.g. first the right-hand side, then the left-hand side, or vice versa), so then the route taken would really differ. In case of the three caverns in question, you and the humans covered pretty much the same route - we went the same way - but you were more efficient in some of your moves 🙂. P.S. I won't be back to respond immediately if new comments are posted now or in the coming hours. I will be back later tonight.

To be honest, I would be slightly surprised if it cannot be improved. I will be pleased if it cannot 😉. In fact, I recorded a nice score there three times: for the HighScore challenge and also for each version (BB and SP) of my walkthrough of MM which I then converted to video and which can be seen here and here. IIRC, in the end I never checked how my HighScore challenge result compared with the other two (because I was afraid that if I had done better previously, I would have had to pursue the same score until successful, and was too fed up with multiple attempts to achieve the best score in that cavern to do that 😀). It's quite possible that my results are the same in all three cases, or that the HighScore challenge one is actually higher than the other two. I should have a look at that one day.

Thanks for all the new stuff, crem! 👍 And congratulations on improving some more human scores 🙂. In order to honour your achievements, I have updated the High Score table to reflect your scores. I credited you as "crem's algorithm". Please let me know if you would like me to change it. I used the lower case for "c" in your nickname, because this is the spelling you registered with on this forum, but it can be changed in the high score table should you wish so. I am looking forward to seeing what your optimised algorithm will do with the Solar Power Generator.

Congratulations on your high score in Telephones, crem! 👍 I have tried that last manoeuvre various times, but did not think it was possible. It's good to know it is and can be repeated with human fingers 🙂.

Many thanks to Norman Sword for a detailed reply to my question and to crem for the next levels! And to Ian and Geoff for their comments 🙂. Congratulation on beating the humans in "Endorian Forest", crem! 👍 The route taken by the algorithm looks the same as the best route we've been taking, I guess it's just that the execution along it must have been more efficient by these five frames. So that's another point for human improvement...

And so it has been done 🙂 .

Thanks, Norman Sword! 🙂 Are these your scripts or did you use crem's algorithm? > Not carrying on- interesting one night exercise. Wouldn't "Solar Power Generator" be an interesting technical challenge? Balancing between the most efficient movements and the necessity to avoid the solar beam...

I really like the screens I see in the screenshots 🙂 . One task I might envisage to try some day (in a rather distant future) would be to transfer some of them to the ZX Spectrum format (probably using the JSW64 game engine to allow for more game engine features that the original MM engine), if you or the authors of the respective levels agreed, of course. Can you actually play the game right now? I don't seem to find any such option there.

Previously I tried the first link you posted: https://heracleum.org/games/manic-mission/test/ Right now I've tried https://heracleum.org/en/, but the result is the same, also when I go to https://heracleum.org/. Right now I've also tried it in Brave, but the result is the same. So I don't think it's a question of the browser. [after a while] OK, I've solved it. I am using McAfee as antivirus firewall and its NetGuard was blocking your address. I have turned the NetGuard off and just registered at Discord, but it won't be very convenient if I have to turn it off (and then remember to turn it back on, as I prefer to have this protection!) every time I want to have a look at your website. The question is why McAfee's NetGuard considers it unsafe...

Heracleum, Heracleum, thank you for creating Manic Mission and posting about it here. It is greatly appreciated! 🙂 My primary personal interest are new ZX Spectrum games using MM and JSW games engines. Due to the lack of time, if I have to make choices on what to spend my limited spare time, I will typically prioritise spending it on a Spectrum-based game than on a non-Spectrum one. Nevertheless, I tried to have a look at your game, as I like your description and screenshots and I very much appreciate the fact that you have provided an editor. Being able to create new rooms is the greatest thing about MM and JSW, IMPO. Regretfully, each time I try to open your website, I get the message "Your Internet access is blocked. Firewall or antivirus software may have blocked the connection." Please see the attached screenshot. This is happening while various other pages I go to are working just fine. The screenshot was taken a couple of minutes ago, while I'm here on this forum and I've also visited some other pages, so there is no problem with my connection as such. Any idea what might be wrong? EDIT: I'm using Chrome, but I've just tried it in Edge and got a similar message.

ALERT!!! Humans are behind the algorithm by one point! All hands aboard to equal the score! 😀

Thanks, crem, it's very interesting, and a great discovery about Amoebatrons! 👍 The route is pretty much what I've been doing for a while now, with the exception of the "home stretch", where I failed to see that you could jump over the cyan guardian and then the horizontal one like this. So that's a second level on which I'll have to improve my recorded performance...

Interesting 👍

Thanks, Andy! 👍

I have now created a web page on JSW Central for this variant. It is here 🙂. The game's name does not appear anywhere in the game (unless hidden in the loader or something) and Andy hasn't been entirely consistent with the spelling - on the main download page it is called "MM2020 Special Edition" and then "Manic Miner 2020 - Special Edition". I opted to list it as "Manic Miner 2020 Special Edition", as the spelling with the hyphen (copied by Spectrum Computing, RZX Archive and Speccy Screenshot Maps) creates a wrong impression IMHO - it looks like it's a Special Edition of a game called "Manic Miner 2020", which is not the case. If there had to be a hyphen, it would be more appropriate before the year: "Manic Miner - 2020 Special Edition". However, since I didn't feel authorised to move the hyphen, taking into consideration that Andy also presented one abbreviated spelling without it, I opted for a full name spelling without a hyphen, which I hope is also correct. This sentence: "Pressing Break during play will save the highscore" is misleading, IMO. Pressing 'Break' does result in the highscore being saved, but the first thing it does is it resets the game. So the highscore is saved (if the current score exceed the previous highscore), but the player cannot continue their play, they've just lost the current game so to speak. There seems to be no reason to do this - if you press Break, your game will be over and you won't be able to improve your current score. If you continue playing, you still have a chance to improve your current score and then, once you've lost all your lives, the highscore will be saved anyway after the Game Over screen. So using 'Break' doesn't seem to make much sense. My personal highscore upon re-entering the first cavern is 41,842 points (the RZX recording is here). It qualifies for the highscore table 🙂.

Thanks for these, Andy! 🙂 It's interesting to see what happens in versions for other platforms.

It's nice to be talking to a pro 🙂.

On second thoughts: But then you would have to cross the room again from the top to go to the Yacht, so it's probably no good...

RB, thanks for your replies and for these awesome comparison videos 🙂. You mention a "back-and-forth into the Tool Shed" and one can see it done in your video, but it's not necessary - you don't have to exit the room, you can jump through the stairs without exiting the room, which will save some time. Please see the attached RZX recording. tool shed jump.rzx