IRF

Are you sure you included the right file? Rev3b looks exactly the same as Rev3a..

I think that both cases of 'FE 01' in the above can be replaced with a '3D' (DEC A) command, with the same effect on the Zero Flag but saving one byte in each case (i.e. two bytes saved in total). Come to think of it, Matt Smith could have pulled off that trick at the start of 'Move Willy (1)', saving another byte at #8DDF. There may well be other cases in the original code where a CP 01 could be replaced with a DEC A, or conversely a CP FF with a INC A. (There's even a CP 00 in the 'Move Willy (3)' routine, at #8FE2, where an OR A would do the trick in one byte! That's a check if Willy is jumping when he's moving leftwards; the equivalent command when he's moving rightwards does use an OR A!) P.S. The INC A or DEC A optimisations are only possible if you're only checking whether a variable matches with values of FF or 01; not if the same part of the code subsequently goes on to use the value of the variable for some other purpose. (Otherwise you'd have to decrement or increment the A register back to its original value, thus negating the byte-saving!)

I think that might be quite similar to Richard (SkoolKid)'s fix: http://skoolkid.github.io/jetsetwilly/reference/bugs.html#corruptedConveyors

The IDS occurs because the A register is retaining its previous value, which happens to be Willy's y-coordinate (loaded up in the previous instructions at 38085-89). So the program thinks that Willy has just fallen a height of 104 room-cells! Try also NOPping out the next three bytes as well (i.e. 38090-93 inclusive), and it should work fine, with the jump carrying on where it left off?

I've playtested the new rooms now, all's good - I particularly like the nice new Rope challenge!

Will do. :) I think IDS's are acceptable if the player is aware that there is a risk if they make a mistake. e.g. when crossing a room from one side to the other, above a precipitous drop but with jumpable gaps between the platforms. :excl: However, if the player is lured into a drop/leap 'into the unknown', then they can be unfair. :o It is quite possible that someone trying to drop down from 'Conservatory Roof' might not have visited 'The Orangery' before, so it feels right to eliminate IDS's from that manoeuvre. Another example which I previously encountered was the sideways leap from your previous layout of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', which got me into an infinite death :blush: but which you've now fixed. There is now a similar risk if you make the jump in the opposite direction i.e. from the very edge of the leftmost platform in 'One Flew...' - you could fix it by extending the rightmost platform in 'Tree Top'. However, it seems a bit more fair on the return journey, because the player will know what to expect when jumping leftwards out of 'One Flew...', having arrived there earlier in the game from 'Tree Top' [unless they cheated and got there via WRITETYPER! ;) ] Anyway, we're being far more cautious that Matt Smith ever was - I recall reading an interview where he said that he was aware of the potential for infinite deaths, but he couldn't be bothered fixing them (or words to that effect)!! :P

I've attached another .rzx here, to demonstrate the spectacular IDS fall into the Swimming Pool! Note that I recorded this before I added the extra Water platform that you saw in the other recording (which catches Willy and prevents the IDS). Taking a Dive!.rzx

In the latest build, you have indeed prevented the IDS if you walk left off the leftmost Water block in Conservatory Roof. However, if you stand on the far left edge of the Water cell at the bottom of Conservatory Roof and jump left, you somehow miss both the left-hand block in that room and all the blocks in The Orangery - Willy ends up falling all the way to an infinite death in the Swimming Pool!! SPLASH!! How about both your new block and the one which I suggested near the top? I think that would ensure a safe passage down to The Orangery in virtually all circumstances. EDIT: Alternatively, you could put an additional Orangery Water block directly under the position that I highlighted with the cursor? That would mean the player could get frustratingly close to achieving a short-cut to the items in Conservatory Roof, but still not be able to quite reach them! (See the attached .rzx recording - the new block is the one that Willy ends up standing on at the very end of the recording - So near and yet so far; back to the Banyan Tree you go, Willy!! :lol: ) Orangery Frustration.rzx

I've had a look at the latest build, but I find that I can now once again take the shortcut of jumping into the underside of Conservatory Roof, from the outside of that room's Ramp! (Thus avoiding the climb up A Bit of Tree etc.) However, I've had another idea for a final tweak - please see the attached screenshot of The Orangery. Basically, if you shift the Water block that is diagonally adjacent to the cursor square, into the cell highlighted by the square, then you could in turn safely remove the bottom-left Water block in Conservatory Roof. That will remove the possibility of a shortcut to the Conservatory Roof items, yet the relocated Orangery platform will catch Willy (without an IDS) if he overshoots when jumping to access the left-most item in Conservatory Roof. The extended CR Conveyor looks good, and adds an extra bit of spice! Still on my to-do list: playtest the amended layouts of the four new rooms. P.S. If you adopt the suggested final tweak, could you label the next build No. 3, to avoid confusion please?

Oh, one other possible tweak to Conservatory Roof that I've just thought of - perhaps you could extend the length of the Conveyor by one cell to the left? Still with a rightwards conveying action though. (With an additional Water block under the exended part of the Conveyor, for 'support'/aesthetic purposes.) That would preserve the original challenge of having to make a vertical-jump-on-a-conveyor in order to collect the second-from-left item without losing a life. And being forced to walk without stopping to sneak under the red guardian (and then jump back up) in order to reach the leftmost item. (As things stand, the player can jump over the guardian and collect the second item, by standing on the two Water blocks to the left of the conveyor.) P.S. The extra (aesthetic) Water block in Banyan Tree looks good - was that in your first release, and I missed it, or have you just added it?

I think you're almost there with Conservatory Roof. All items are collectable without loss of life, the tight timing for sneaking under the red guardian is maintained, there's no shortcut through the ramp (i.e. from outside to inside the roof structure). However, I've noticed that there is an unfair Infinite Death Scenario in the Orangery, if Willy walks leftwards off the bottom-most Water block (the one above the first 'o' of 'Roof'). I suggest you move that block rightwards by one cell, so that it sits above the second 'o' of 'Roof'. That, in turn, then opens up the possibility that the player might miss the left-most Water block when trying to access the left-most item, and fall into a different Infinite Death Scenario. So you could add an extra Water block at the top of The Orangery to catch Willy in that circumstance - at the same height as the existing highest Water block in that room, but a few cells to the left. (Above the letter 'r' should do it?) I suggest you playtest jumping left off the lowest platform in Conservatory Roof from each of Willy's frames of animation, to make sure that you've eliminated the IDS's. I'll playtest the rest of the new rooms later, although I did notice an interesting use of a new Rope in the MegaTree... One other observation - have you removed the Code Entry screen altogether? It would seem a bit of a shame, what with you having fixed the bug in it (especially since it let you through on the second attempt anyway!)

A more detailed explanation for this fix is now available here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/manicminerandjetsetwilly/conversations/messages/7050

So you would favour Q-W for Left-Right over O-P, as I deduced? Elementary! I'll explain at a later date how I came to that conclusion. For now, I'll just point out that I think I have opened up a whole new field of study: Forensic Willy-ology!

One other thing Mickey, for a bit of fun... If I may be so bold, I am going to try and predict something personal, based upon my reading of your game code. It seems to me that you tend to play JSW using your left hand to press 'Q' and 'W' for Left and Right respectively, rather than 'O' and 'P' using your right hand (as I do). Am I correct? ;) (If not, then I would hazard a guess that it is true of whoever created the snapshot, upon which I presume you based your gamefile?)

Actually, I've just noticed that the default status of the music is OFF when you first load up the game. It should be ON by default. This caused me great puzzlement for a while, but I've finally managed to figure out what's going on. The value stored at #85E2 in the game code is '02', rather than '00'. So Bit 1 is set at load-up by default, causing the music to be off when you first press ENTER to play. (In subsequent games, it retains the ON or OFF status which it was left with when the previous game came to an end.) I'm guessing that you must have built your game upon a snapshot, which was taken at a point when the music was set to off? In fact, for elegance, all of the game variables from #85CB to #85E4 inclusive, should really be given values of '00' in the release candidate's game code. Although in practice, most of those variables are correctly initialised by the routine at #87CA as soon as the game is loaded up. (Otherwise the game would commence, after loading, with Willy located in whichever room/coordinates/etc, he was at when you took the original snapshot!!)

... I strongly recommend that you play the room 'Eugene Lair' directly upon starting up the game. i.e. by setting Room 61 as the starting room - Willy should be positioned, via the Portal page in JSWED, at the bottom of the room above the 'EN' of the word 'EUGENE'. (Make sure he starts off buried up to his neck in the two Cyan cells, rather than standing on those cells, or else the room may be uncompletable.) This is how the author intended the room to be played, I believe - over on the Yahoo! group, Igor reported a bug: "I've found a bug, that I can't solve - but it doesn't harm the game. You will meet it in the EUGENE LAIR. > Skylabs turn into Droplets. When you will get to it you'll see it." It doesn't harm the game in the sense of rendering it uncompletable, but I do believe it takes a certain element away from that room. What is happening is that there are Droplet guardians (i.e. Skylabs that don't move sideways between 'incarnations') that are normally encountered in an earlier room of the game. The effect of the Droplets patch, which John Elliott describes as 'experimental'*, is to permanently overwrite the horizontal offset that is applied to Skylabs (at #FF61 in the Skylab movement code). Incidentally, I believe I have come up with a fix for that, which I shall report on later. [*'Experimental' probably for this very reason, as well as the fact that they can sometimes be drawn with an erroneous initial sprite-frame.] Anyway, if you load up the game with Willy placed directly into Eugene Lair, then you will bypass the corruption caused by the Droplets in the earlier room, and so you'll be able to play 'Eugene Lair' with the Skylabs (which look like explosions of lava) in full effect. It's an awesome challenge - nowhere is safe!! :o :excl: ;)

Suggested POKES to implement the above in the next build: At #87CF, insert 'DF'. At #87DD, insert 'CD 18 97'. At #9718, insert '3D 32 E1 85 C9'. It only makes a subtle difference but you can tell that the tune no longer starts 'abruptly' with the above patch in place. (Incidentally, I've PM'd SkoolKid about this and he intends to add an entry about this, the next time he updates his disassembly.) ****** Also, if you want to ensure that the default status of the in-game music is On at the start of each game (even if the player switched the music Off during the course of the previous game), then you can do this by simply inserting the following at #880E-#8812: '3E 01 32 E2 85'.

Not fair - poor Willy!! :lol:

By the way, I like the new rooms - there are some nice puzzles amongst them. :) However, I did notice an unfair Infinite Death Scenario which can occur if you jump rightwards from 'Tree Top', from a position as far right as Willy can walk on the rightmost Water cell on that screen. (Which is quite a reasonable manoeuvre for the player to attempt, since it's a 'leap into the unknown'.) But that could be solved easily, by raising up the leftmost Water cell in 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest' by one cell-row.

One easy way to resolve it would be to place an item in the right-hand half of 'A Bit of Tree'. That would force the player to climb up that way. It might also provide an opportunity to utilise one of the unused-but-defined-by-Matt Smith item patterns (if you haven't already used them all - I noticed some of them have been placed in the new rooms).

It's a nice 'Forbidden Holy Ground' effect, Mickey!

It might have been usable, with some optimisation, if I'd spotted it early enough in the development of WNM-SE. No matter!

Interestingly, if you try the same jump as I demonstrated before, with the Water cell in place instead of the Earth block, Willy is killed at the end of his fall - even though he has fallen the same distance in both cases!

There's a two-byte CP #00 at #8FE2, where a one-byte OR A command would achieve the same thing. (I can't believe we haven't spotted that one before, or have we?)

It looks like all of the items in Conservatory Roof can be collected without dying, but you need to do a standing jump on the conveyor (you have to walk left (i.e. upstream), stop pressing the Left key for exactly one time-frame, and then press it again, and keep it pressed whilst you jump!) I've downloaded the file (thanks Mickey!) but I haven't had chance for more than a cursory glance yet. I will do as soon as I get a chance! EDIT: I've now double-checked those Conservatory Roof items - they can all be collected safely. On the other hand, it might now be too easy to acquire them - Willy can now jump through from the outside of the ramp to the inside and land on one of the green water cells - this means that there is now no need to climb up the Banyan Tree/A Bit of Tree in order to get there. P.S. The conveyor in there looks good - much better than the solid white affair that Matt Smith left in place!