IRF

Oh well, thanks for trying. As General Melchett said to Captain Blackadder, "We need a futile gesture at this point in the war." 😜 Looking at the video, it seems that most of the 'close shaves' with the vertical guardians occur when Willy is jumping over the guardians, not sneaking under them. So in retrospect, perhaps the dangling tentacles aren't so much of a decisive factor after all. Perhaps you'll have more joy in The Warehouse, where the SP guardians aren't as bulky as the BB ones?

You could even, as soon as Willy reaches the bed, turn off the Main Loop's CALL to the Draw the Guardians routine permanently, meaning that if the player restarted a new game after toilet-time, they could explore the mansion without any guardians (or ropes/arrows).

Or you could just make the guardians disappear (along with Maria!) at that stage of the game?

That's the one I hold out most hope for, as the 'Bug-Byte bugs' [is that what they are?] don't have those long, dangly tentacles that you get with the equivalent vertical guardians in the other version of the game. However, The Warehouse's vertical guardians (spinning Software Projects logos) don't take up as much of their space as the Lawnmower/Thresher(?) things which they replaced, so there might be a higher score to be acquired there too? (Then again, it's possible that you don't find an improvement in either cavern, and I've just sent you off on a wild goose chase! 😆)

Yes, if you skip to 3 minutes into that video, that sounds like it might be it.

A couple of further thought on this: - Arrows aren't affected by Norman's patch, in terms of their starting position being randomised (because arrows are moved as part of the routine which draws guardians, rather than the 'Move the guardians' routine); - I imagine the Toilet Run will be riskier, because when Willy leaves the Master Bedroom, the Razor Blade and/or Swiss Army Knife in Top Landing won't always be at the right position to allow Willy to reach the brief drop down into First Landing, and then after Willy pops back up again from First Landing, the Swiss Army Knife might then stand in the way of him reaching The Bathroom. (Pressing 'P' to make Willy freeze on the spot during the Toilet Run may help with the former problem, but not the latter.)

I don't think it is still about!

Isn't it the theme tune to The South Bank Show? EDIT: Actually, I don't think it is. Richard Hallas will probably know, if he chances across this (off-topic) query...

See the post below - this might be the easiest way of facilitating the algorithm's latest mission. i.e. instead of adjusting your break points, etc, just copy the Software Projects data over to the Bug-Byte gamefile: (And you wouldn't have to copy the whole dataset from #B000 onwards; just the vertical guardian sprite data for the two caverns of relevance. i.e. addresses #F300-#F37F and #F700-#F77F.)

Those items are bunches of grapes, I believe, to fit in with the Pac-Man theme.

Wrong analogy. The green thing is clearly a vaccine needle, jabbing Willy to give him immunity from the cyan-blue Covid virus located behind him.

Another little-known fact about JSW - Willy can be detected as having reached the toilet during the toilet-run if he is eight character-rows above the toilet, in the upper half of the room. (If you extend the ramp in The Bathroom down to meet the floor, and put a hole in the upper platform above the toilet, then start the toilet-run, watch as he runs up the ramp, drops down the hole, and then disappears mid-descent rather than falling all the way into the toilet!) But I've gone way off topic now! 😁

That's only the case with guardians (including Eugene, Skylabs and Kong*). Room cell interactions (including Fire cells), item-collection, flashing portal entry and the air-supply sapping effect of the solar beam are all based on Willy's attribute coordinates. (*In the case of Kong, a pixel-collision with Willy is only fatal whilst he's on his perch, not when Kong is falling.) *** Incidentally, in Jet Set Willy, collision with arrows is based on both pixels AND attributes (hence Willy can hide behind Water cells, where his INK isn't white, and arrows will apparently pass straight through him without killing him!) And another JSW oddity - ropes pick up Willy based on a pixel collision with ANY infilled pixel (not just part of Willy's sprite), which can cause him to suddenly jump up onto the rope from the other side of the room, if the rope passes through a room block with infilled pixels!

Yes, I think that is the right file. John Elliott wrote this handy guide to the code changes between BB and SP versions of Manic Miner (note that it omits to mention the graphical changes to the Fire cells/item shapes in 'Processing Plant', not that that's relevant to the task in hand): http://www.seasip.info/Jsw/mmengine.html

Not a problem, as I said it's early on so not relevant to the studying of pixel-proximity. But I was looking at the individual frames of the Skylab's disintegration, and I could only count seven [including the descending version before it starts to collapse], whereas there should be eight. But then I noticed that Willy advances through his jump by two frames at one point (as I said, before he reaches the Skylab), so I realised that one frame must have been skipped (for whatever reason, which you have now explained).

I don't think it says anywhere in the first post of this topic, or in the download section, that the Highscore Challenge is based on the Bug-Byte version of Manic Miner (unless I've missed a reference to which version it is?) It would probably be worth pointing out that fact, because the different guardian sprites in a couple of the caverns in the Software Projects version of MM might mean that the highest possible score is different?

Interesting animation, Norman! Willy's legs seem to be surrounded by several pixels of debris/dust just before he lands, but without ever actually being touched by any of the dust pixels - a close escape indeed! (Incidentally, Norman's animation misses out a frame of the Skylab crumbling - but it's early on in the process when Willy hasn't quite reached it yet, so it isn't germane to studying whether or not he pixel-collides with it.) *** This has actually reminded me of something that I meant to ask Crem - when you get a moment please, would you be able to get your algorithm to replay the two caverns in the Software Projects version of Manic Miner which have different guardian sprites (namely The Warehouse and Amoebatrons' Revenge)? Because it's possible that the difference in sprite forms might mean that Willy can achieve a higher score in those caverns - especially in Amoebatrons' Revenge, where the vertical guardians don't have all those dangly tentacles, so it might be possible to eliminate some of the 'waiting around' that Willy has to do in the Bug-Byte version of that cavern! (Incidentally, the SP version of Processing Plant also has different graphics for some of the Fire cells [and item shapes], but those shouldn't have any impact on the maximum possible score since the collisions with Fire cells are attribute-based rather than pixel-based.)

The high score tables in the first post of this topic suggest that it is theoretically possible to accrue a total score across the twenty caverns of at least 39,526 points. 😮

In that scenario the underwater guardian would collide with the pixels of the water cells, causing instant death to Willy!

I don't think that the order of collection of the upper two items* makes a difference in terms of distance travelled. The slower completion time in the latest video must arise from having to wait around for longer this time for the guardians to be in the right place. And that 'hanging around' for longer more than outweighs the reduction in solar exposure, it seems. (*In contrast, collecting the bottom-right item first evidently makes a big difference - because Willy's starting position is quite close to that item, so if you don't take the opportunity early on to collect it first, then later on Willy will have to walk all the way across the bottom of the cavern and back again, in order to do grab it.)

You might find the odd crumbling platform in 'Jet Set Mini'.

Thanks crem. It's amazing how far Willy manages to get in that video before he gets hit by the solar beam at all ! In fact, Willy only passes through the beam on three occasions - and two of those are unavoidable in order to reach the top-right item and get back again. I doubt that it is possible to do much better than you did, to be honest. Also noticeable at one point is that Willy touches the solar beam but only four units of air get sapped in that moment, rather than eight units. He is in such close proximity to the top-right guardian at the time (without pixel-colliding with it) that part of his sprite is overshadowed by the guardian's yellow INK - so only one cell occupied by Willy's sprite contains the white INK which is detected by the solar beam routine as triggering 4xAir decrements. The video also confirms my theory that when Willy is jumping through the beam and is non cell-aligned (so that his sprite spans across three character-rows), the beam saps 12 units of air for a period.

[Duplicate post]

Is there any way of seeing how that breaks down in terms of: - Frames of the game when the solar beam passes horizontally through Willy, or Willy is passing through the vertical solar beam whilst he is cell-row aligned [in which case the beam will sap 8 units of air]; versus: - Frames when Willy is jumping or falling through the vertical solar beam and Willy's sprite is spanning across three cell-rows [in which case the beam will sap 8 units of air during that frame]. The difference between Danny's and the algorithm's performances might be explained by the above difference in the way that the beam saps air (and therefore potential points)?

I've edited the highscore table for Solar Power Generator to give crem's algorithm (current) first place for that cavern. Sadly, crunchy_frog has fallen off the bottom of the league. (When it comes to the crunch, they need to exhibit more nifty frog-like leaps if they want to be restored to the table! 😄)