jetsetdanny

I am pleased to report that the release of the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion" will happen soon, certainly not later than the twelfth anniversary of the release of the original edition (10th November), quite possibly earlier than that :) . The game file itself is finished, most of the playtesting is over and some finishing touches are now being given to the Readme. Meanwhile, you can have a look at screenshots of all the rooms of the game here. I would like to mention the fact that the game has been enriched significantly since the version that existed when message #2 above was posted. Ian Rushforth (IRF) has provided tremendous input in the form of pointing to unused space, suggesting possibilities for optimising the code in order to squeeze in more things, spotting some issues and suggesting improvements and offering one PV that he created. He also playtested the whole game and RZX-recorded the playtest for me. Andy Ford (Spider), in turn, has made a valuable contribution regarding building the final file, and has taken care of testing the game on real hardware (it works!) and on the Vega (results to be confirmed). Specific credits are given to them and to others in the Readme, but I don't want to miss any opportunity to acknowledge the valuable involvement of these two Gentlemen :) .

I thought I would start a new thread for various links of interest to MM/JSW fans, which do not fit into other topics. The ones I am going to paste below do not warrant a separate topic each IMO, and they do not fit into the "Useful links" category. That one is more for technical information, for links to sites which may be useful for people working on the code, designing new games or new game features, etc. The ones below are interesting, but not useful in that sense. I've come across them recently So here we go: Rufus Standish's interesting review of MM, JSW and JSW2 Nitta Mituaki's ranking of difficulty of JSW and similar games I need to contact Nitta Mituaki to suggest that "JSW: The 2010 Megamix" (Hard Version) should be included in such an analysis as one of the most difficult games ever created. Some other titles (such as "strangel" or "Party Willy 128") should certainly be included, too. EDIT: I've just had another look at Nittamuaki's ranking of difficulty of games and I was pleasantly surprised to see that he *did* include information about the most difficult ZX Spectrum games, including "JSW: The 2010 Megamix" and "JSW: The Nightmare Edition" (as work in progress) :D . It's just the "Party Willy 128" that he might want to add (because of the number of rooms and the individual difficulty of most rooms).

No, I asked the question when the issue of the Killer Blocks had already been solved (as far as I and the needs of "WNM SE" are concerned) by their being placed in rooms where the collision with white items apparently didn't happen. I asked the question because I thought perhaps it might be even better not to have any items becoming black at any time, so that they are not invisible on black backgrounds. Incidentally, Geoff Eddy says in his disassembly of Geoff Mode that the code used there "animates [the items] by 8 colours as in JSWII". I now believe this is not true, because AFAICT the items in JSWII are animated by 7 colours - they are never black. That's what I can see by looking at the game (JSWII), at least. From this I infer that Geoff's code in this respect is different from the code in "JSWII".

Thanks! The pace on this forum is truly amazing. It's great :D .

Sorry, I didn't answer your question. It happens in "Entomological Research Station" (17).

Thanks for all your replies, Ian! :)

1. You play a game "on an emulator" or "in an emulator"? Or something else (e.g. using an emulator)? 2. "The lowermost guardian walks into the conveyor. However, this causes no problems as the conveyor's shape has been designed so that none of its pixels collide with any of the guardian's pixels." none of its pixels "collide" or "collides"? EDIT: These are two separate questions, but for some reason every time I post the second one, which is meant to be a separate post, it gets merged with the first one. I even tried logging out of the forum and logging back in, but the problem persists, so I'll leave it like that.

"The Original Edition was released in TAP and SNA formats." In this particular sentence, "formats" or format"? Also, "in the TAP and SNA format(s)" or without the article? Or is it better to express it in a different way?

I'll second that vigorously. In fact, in the "WNM SE" Readme file, I have just put: 88FC

Richard, first of all thanks again for your wonderful disassembly of "JSW" which has been extremely useful in my work on the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion" (to be released soon)! :) The routine starting at #96DE, described here, is called in your disassembly "Play an intro message sound effect". While this description is certainly true, it is not the whole truth, because the routine also produces border effects. If it is NOPped out, there is indeed no sound during the scrolling message, but also the visual effects on the borders, which are an important part of the overall effect accompanying the scrolling, are markedly different. So I was just wondering if it wouldn't be more accurate to call the routine in the disassembly "Play an intro message sound effect and produce border effects" or something to that effect (no pun intended).

And so it shall be written. Thanks again, Ian! :)

Thanks, Ian! Here's another one: An excerpt from a disassembly of a PV (the last bit of it): CCD2 C3 E3 97 JP #97E3 jump to the start of the PV which changes the direction of the conveyor every 32 ticks (and ends with the RET instruction) Should this be: "ends with the RET instruction" (because the instruction has been named, so it's specific) or "ends with a RET instruction" (as one of the millions of RET instructions which exist in ZX Spectrum programs)?

"When it ends, the game does not go back to the title screen yet, but to one of the Final Screens, depending on the cause for the end of the game." cause "for" or "of" the end of the game?

That sounds good, Ian, thanks!

Thanks for your reply, Ian. I do have this bit in "WNM SE" Readme (as a quote from J. G. Harston's explanations): --- This gives 8-bit room numbers, mapped to the following areas of memory: Room numbers Memory 0 - 63 &C000 - &FFFF 64 - 127 &8000 - &BFFF 128 - 192 &4000 - &7FFF 192 - 255 &0000 - &3FFF --- and this is probably why I felt uncomfortable mentioning 7-bit numbers earlier on, because it seems not quite logical to say "This allows the game engine to use 7-bit numbers" and then go on about "8-bit numbers". Perhaps a reasonable compromise between logic and simplicity would be to say, in the sentence I quoted above: The value of the address #8916 (corresponding to #8915 in the original "JSW") has been changed to #EE, which allowed the game engine to use 7- or even 8-bit room numbers instead of 6-bit ones. Do you think this would be factually correct?

Thanks, guys. My question really arose because I have the following sentence in "WNM SE" Readme: The value of the address #8916 (corresponding to #8915 in the original "JSW") has been changed to #EE, which allowed the game engine to use 7-bit room numbers instead of 6-bit ones. and I'm not sure whether it should say "7-bit" or "8-bit" here - in this particular context. My feeling is that it should read "8-bit", but I'm not 100% sure.

Thanks, Ian.

Thanks, Ian. That's reassuring :) . I've checked the first two in-game minutes in "The Anteroom" and there is no collision. I'll double check "Jump'n'Jive" later on, but I'm pretty sure there is no collision there in the first minute either.

My replies in blue.

On his website, Jonathan Graham Harston discusses his extension, which allows the JSW48 game engine to handle more than 64 rooms. He says, --- JSW48 uses 6-bit room numbers, giving rooms 0 to 63, with room 0 in memory at &C000. However, the only place where this is fixed is the code that fetches a room into the room buffer and the object location table. The current room variable and the room exits in the room data are all 8-bit values. This patches the code to allow 7-bit room numbers to increase the number of rooms that can be used. Rooms.hex is an Intel Hex patchfile that can be applied to the original JSW48 game engine. The room fetching code uses OR &C0 to map a room number from 0 to 63 to an address from &C0xx to &FFxx. This could be changed to ADD &C0 to use the whole 8-bit value, mapping rooms 192 to 255 to the spare memory within the code. I chose to change it to XOR &C0, as this maps the spare memory to rooms 64 to 127, running on from the existing 0 to 63. Also, a 7-bit room number is easier to fit into an extended object table. Patching with POKE 35093,238 gives the following change: Original code: Changed to: 8912 3A 20 84 LD A,(&8420) 8912 3A 20 84 LD A,(&8420) 8915 F6 C0 OR &C0 8915 EE C0 XOR &C0 This gives 8-bit room numbers, mapped to the following areas of memory: Room numbers Memory 0 - 63 &C000 - &FFFF 64 - 127 &8000 - &BFFF 128 - 192 &4000 - &7FFF 192 - 255 &0000 - &3FFF --- I have to admit this description is a little confusing to me and so my question is: Does POKE 35093,238 make the game engine use 7-bit room numbers or 8-bit room numbers? I need this clarification for the Readme file accompanying the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion" (to be released soon). Jonathan's extension is used in this game, which features two rooms more than the Original Edition (66 in total). It has been used in the past in "Willy's Hoard" (75 rooms, an all-time high for a JSW48 game so far), the Final Edition of Steve Worek's "Jet Set Emily: Baby on the Go" (71 rooms) and "Jet Set Willy: The Nightmare Edition" (65 rooms). Thanks for your invention, Jonathan! :)

I think you're right. They kill Willy if they collide with a white ramp (I've just checked it modifying the ramp's colour in "The Anteroom" in "WNM SE"). However, they kill Willy if they collide with items when these happen to be flashing in white (I *think*) - that's different from arrows, which would collect them?

Thanks, Ian!

From "WNM SE" Readme file, a description of changes between the Original Edition and the Special Edition: Possible IDSes when exiting down to "The Changing Room" have been eliminated thanks to the changes at the upper left of that room. "at" the upper left or "on" the upper left? or either? or something else still? EDIT: Similarly (concerning the room "Altar to a Well-Known God"): Two Fire cells have been added following a suggestion by Ian Rushforth, who spotted the fact that Willy could get stuck on the lower right of the dollar sign. "on" or "at" the lower right?

Congratulations on bringing the loading time down to under one minute, Andy :) . That's quite an achievement!

I believe that this is post #5000 now :) . Sorry about it, Ian; I'm feeling like like the American women's relay team at the Olympics, kind of... :lol: .