jetsetdanny

Thanks, Ian!

From "WNM SE" Readme: "... a pointless but harmless instruction, purely to bypass the conveyor direction byte for "The River of No Return" at #C3D6 (which must have the value of #01)" "the value of #01" or "a value of #01"?

The same in both, I reckon, but I'll think about it when preparing the press release.

Thanks, Ian, I'll probably use the latter then.

Which sounds better: "WNM SE" was released on 10th November 2016, the twelfth anniversary of the release of the OE. or "WNM SE" was released on 10th November 2016, twelve years to the day since the release of the OE. ?

Thank you for your replies, Ian, which I have officially marked as "BEST ANSWERS" :) .

Another question: "the Air INK" or "the Air's INK"?

Should one say >original "JSW"< or >the original "JSW"<? For example in a sentence like: >A classic example of this in the original "JSW" is the red guardian on the left side of "Orangery"< [or whatever]. I'm asking, Ian, because in "WNM SE" Readme you didn't correct <the original "JSW"< (which actually appears a lot of times), but in a comment you added yourself, you just said, "original JSW" (no article). Any guidance on this will be appreciated :) .

Ian, do you feel strongly about the word "re-enter" being spelt with a hyphen, not as one (unhyphenated) word? I actually wondered about it when working on "WNM SE" Readme, and I went with the spelling in the Cambridge Dictionary, while now I can see that Oxford prefers the hyphen.

Andy, in "JSW 2015 Bug Fixed Edition", in the version where the in-game tune does not deteriorate, the original code which picks up the number of lives remaining (to be used by the in-game tune routine): 8B51 3A CC 85 LD A,(#85CC) was substituted with the fixed number #08, corresponding to Willy's having eight lives remaining: 8B51 3E 08 LD A,#08 8B53 00 NOP. However, in the original "JSW" that number would be #07 at the start of the game. This difference causes the pitch of the tune in the Bug Fixed Edition to be slightly higher than in the original (at the start). So the question arises whether - if you want the Bug Fix to be faithful to the original - it would not be advisable to change the value at #8B52 to #07? Just a thought :) , with thanks to Ian for drawing my attention to the discrepancy during his proofreading of the "WNM SE" Readme file :) .

Looking forward to your retirement, Andrew! A humble suggestion for your life: make a lot of money in the next 9 years, retire at 50 and spend the following 50 years designing ZX Spectrum games ;) .

A platform game, though?

Back in 2009, topping the list of projects which Andrew declared he would prioritise, was 1. the JSW64 game currently identified only as H***** . Is it the same word, by any chance? B)

It was a pleasure :) . And this time I could only confirm that what you declared to be impossible was indeed impossible!

Why should I try again? It's possible in other rooms, but not in this one, isn't it?

(without having read the spoiler) I've tried it repeatedly and I don't think it's possible. The mechanism which allows Willy to perform a double jump is not there any more. Willy doesn't get hold of the rope unless he's below certain height, and it's too far away from the top to jump effectively.

Very interesting, Ian! Thanks for the analysis and the recording :) .

"Obscure, esoteric and brain-frazzling..." That's exactly what it is. It's good you realise it ;) . And it's admirable in all of its previously-mentioned qualities :) .

Speaking of the millenial fetish: Ian, I believe your next post will be your post # 2000. Congratulations! :D You are the most active member of this forum as far as the number of posts is concerned, apparently. Andy is in the strong second place :) .

Impressive! Is every single thing there unique, or do you have more than one copy of some of the collector's items?

Yes, they do. If that's what you do off the top of your head, what will happen when you sit down to tackle the task properly??? A little more time and you will start writing your own Spectrum games! ;)

An idea for developing a code when you've run out of ideas what else to do: Write a code which will provide for items to cycle through 7 colours, in every room skipping the colour which is this room's background, so that no item ever disappears :) .

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).