IRF

The mystery of why Eugene: Lord of the Bathroom skips the title screen may be close to being solved - in fact, it may already have been solved at some point!

I just went to see if I had a copy of the game on my laptop, doing a search in Windows Explorer using the search term 'Eugene'.  I got some interesting results... as well as a Zip folder with the original game file (and its readme), I found two files in the same folder as the Zip (outside the Zip) called 'EUGENE Fixed' and 'EUGENE Unfixed'!
I've just tried opening them up (in the QAOP online emulator), and lo & behold, the 'unfixed' one skips the title screen (after displaying it for the briefest of moments), whereas the 'fixed' one does not!  (I haven't looked into whether any other bugs have been fixed between the two files, if indeed there are any other known bugs in the game - I'm not aware of any?)
I can only surmise that at some point (the files date back to 2019), I investigated this very point, and came up with a fix - then forgot about it when the subject came up the other day!
Anyway, I've attached the two files to this post - I haven't yet had chance to scrutinise the code to see the difference, though I would guess (if Erix1 Mode retains the same addresses for the title screen routine as an original Manic Miner game file), that the edit might be somewhere in the region of #861F to #8683.
EUGENE Fixed.TAP EUGENE Unfixed.TAP

Actually, the above isn't quite true. Having looked again at SkoolKid's disassembly, the second test for whether to start the game (during the scrolling message) only tests the ENTER key, not the joystick Fire button. So with a joystick plugged in, the Fire button won't work to start the game, you would have to press ENTER on the keyboard.
EDIT: I should clarify that this is the case for any MM or JSW game based on the original game engines - pressing Fire on a Kempston joystick will not start the game whilst the scrolly message is activated, it will only work whilst the title tune is playing. I should also clarify that I'm making this observation based on my reading of tge code, I haven't tried it out (as I don't have a Kempston or a real Speccy!)

WOW! Impressive debugging IRF! (And to think you already had it figured out years ago…)
Well, I guess we can label the support-issue “closed” then. 😊
The "Hackulator" is only used for manipulating jsw-games, and do not include the option to turn off the title-tune. Eugene lotb don't really modify the original game engine all that much. It's created using Andy Nobles Manic Miner-editor, and I think the only hacks applied is a few hard-coded extras for three special levels (Jet Set Pac, The Kold Room and The Lab.)  
 

Just a random thought: another variable that might have been different when Philip Bee made his recording (versus Danny's recent investigations) - he could have had a joystick plugged in? (I recall there's a check in the title screen routine for whether a joystick is connected.) Bugs can manifest themselves in unexpected ways - perhaps it doesn't occur if the check for a joystick returns a different result? (This is pure speculation on my part! But it might be an explanation that doesn't rely on Philip having had a different version of the game file?)
Incidentally, I don't suppose anyone is in contact with Philip these days? (In case he can shed some light on the mystery?)

Please send me the file in question. I'll see if I can turn it into a 48 sna.
Likely cause is Kempston emulation, in that its reading from port 31 and detects a 'fire' , causing the game to start. Similar things can occasionally be seen when reloading a snapshot in a different emulator and if it is a game in progress it either resets the machine (not common) or Willy constantly jumps until you press Break and restart the game,.
 
You're on the right track I think.

Just a random thought: another variable that might have been different when Philip Bee made his recording (versus Danny's recent investigations) - he could have had a joystick plugged in? (I recall there's a check in the title screen routine for whether a joystick is connected.) Bugs can manifest themselves in unexpected ways - perhaps it doesn't occur if the check for a joystick returns a different result? (This is pure speculation on my part! But it might be an explanation that doesn't rely on Philip having had a different version of the game file?)
Incidentally, I don't suppose anyone is in contact with Philip these days? (In case he can shed some light on the mystery?)

Hi Vidar, (or do you prefer to be addressed as Erix1?)
Thank you SO MUCH for your kind words and official approval of the fixed version of "MVSB"! This is really fantastic and extremely gratifying 🙂 . I am speaking for myself now, but I am sure Ian (IRF) and Andy (Spider) who were involved in creating it share my sentiment.
Also, congratulations on "MVSB" winning the Manchester PLAY Expo competition! I was there, in person, it was a very memorable weekend for me, meeting Matthew Smith, Richard Hallas, Daren Pearcy (who has since passed away...) and other guys for the first time. Good old (pre-pandemic) times 🙂 .
So thank you once again, your approval and endorsement are greatly appreciated! I will post this now and then reply regarding "Eugene" in a separate message.

"1=day, 2=night" It sounds like the idea at one point was that you would press a button during the loading process, and depending on what you chose, the BASIC loader stepped in to change the program data. (I haven't looked into what changes would have been made - dark versus light background, perhaps?)

Hi Danny,
Glad you like my Miner Willy-games. It took a few days to develop them, but I loved every second of it (I wish my everyday  job would give me that much pleasure...). 
1. Huh? It's always been like that? I just tested it with the Mac-version of Fuse, and it indeed skips the intro. (Seems like in this recording it does not, though:

Anyways, no doubt a bi-product of some reckless hacking done by me, many many years ago. Testing was never my strong suit. I'll have a look at it. 

2. Yes, I'm aware of the bug-fixed, completable version of MVSB (I saw the award ceremony from Manchester play expo 2019 with Matthew Smith and all… Made me giggle like a Japanese schoolgirl). I think you did a wonderful job – treating it with more respect than it probably deserves. I'm flattered and honoured you put in the hours to fix my mistakes, and what I'm concerned, this is now the official version. In other words: It's very officially approved!

3. I still have the Hackulator, and will release it as soon as I have written a necessary manual that explains how to use it. Loading it for the first time after many years made me realize not every function is all that self-explanatory (and that's an understatement).  
 

Yes, it was going to change the background colour of the "outside" areas of the map, either to black, or various purples and dark reds (for a sunset effect). I don't remember which.
Daniel was very helpful in making the credits in the Readme file, but I believe your work was essential to his work on my game, to make it finishable!
It's common for authors to underestimate the difficulty of their games, so while I class the game as difficult, it may in fact be "almost impossible", so feel free to use tools/cheats if it helps ; )
I've been playing it a lot, and am hoping to one day complete the whole game in a video on Youtube (with live commentary), certain parts take a lot of practice but get easier when you have a reliable method.
Erix1's alternate title screen for Strangel is also awesome - it fits the mood of the game so well, and I'd completely forgotten about it. I'd also forgotten that I was planning an "easy mode" of Strangel, lol. I'll probably use this screen for Strangel 2, which is an idea I've been mulling over in my head for a while now!
 

I've had a quick go at Role Reversal.  Made it as far as The Newsagents before losing my last life.
I recognised some of the features from Erix1 mode (such as the message that gets printed in the top four character rows of the opening room, at the start of the game).
Thanks for the credit in the readme, Sendy! 🙂
Danny's loading screen looks cool.  (I tried to look at Erix's alternative loading screen out of curiosity, but couldn't get it to open - maybe someone could post a screenshot of it on here?)
When free time allows, I'll have a proper go at RR, and see if I can earn Maria a night's rest!

Ian,
I'm glad you like the loading screen I created for "JSW: RR" 🙂 .
Erix1's loading screen looks like that:

I've had a quick go at Role Reversal.  Made it as far as The Newsagents before losing my last life.
I recognised some of the features from Erix1 mode (such as the message that gets printed in the top four character rows of the opening room, at the start of the game).
Thanks for the credit in the readme, Sendy! 🙂
Danny's loading screen looks cool.  (I tried to look at Erix's alternative loading screen out of curiosity, but couldn't get it to open - maybe someone could post a screenshot of it on here?)
When free time allows, I'll have a proper go at RR, and see if I can earn Maria a night's rest!

Erix1, welcome to the forum! 🙂 It's really great that you have joined it! 😁
Thank you for your outstanding contributions to the MM/JSW scene! "Manic Miner Mythologies: Eugene - Lord of the Bathroom" and "Maria vs. Some Bastards" are truly amazing games!
1.
Regarding the former, while re-recording it to make a JSW Central YouTube video very recently, I realised it has a problem in that the title screen is displayed only for a split second and then the game starts immediately, as if ENTER has been pressed. I believe your intention was to display the title screen 'normally', as it says on the title screen "PRESS ENTER TO START", so the program is supposed to wait for the player to press ENTER before proceeding to start the gameplay.
In my video linked above I actually stopped the start of the game "artificially" to allow the viewers to appreciate your title screen.
The question arises though: would you consider releasing a fixed version where the game would not launch 'automatically', but allow the player to savour the title screen?
2.
Regarding the latter, I trust you are aware that back in 2019 this forum's team (with the leading role of Ian Rushforth - IRF), frustrated at the prolonged impossibility to complete "MVSB", released a bug-fixed, completable version of your beautiful game. We did try to contact you back then to ask for your 'blessing' for the project, but were not successful. So I would like to kindly ask you now to confirm you are fine with this release. It was a labour of love, a lot of effort went into analysing the game and coming up with solutions that would not distort the original Rev. E in any way or take away from it, only add to it. It was also a delight to record it for the JSW Central YouTube channel.
If you could "officially" approve of this effort, it would be greatly appreciated!
Finally, I will second Sendy's request for releasing Hackulator if you still have it. This would give people a chance to create more Erix1-mode JSW games! 🙂 

Well, I've asked the question, and I'll let you know if I hear anything back. However, Vidar's last comment on Twitter dates from last September, so I don't know if they'll pick it up any time soon... 

Is this him on Twitter?:
@VidarEriksen1

Thanks IRF, I appreciate that. Imagine if he could be coaxed into releasing the tool he gave me to use all the features of Erix-1 mode? That would open the door wide for a new breed of 48k JSW mods. When he gave me a copy of the vaunted "MvsSB hackulator tool" he said he wanted it to be a Sendy-exclusive, but it's been a long, long time since then.

Well, I've asked the question, and I'll let you know if I hear anything back. However, Vidar's last comment on Twitter dates from last September, so I don't know if they'll pick it up any time soon... 

Is this him on Twitter?:
@VidarEriksen1

Has anyone mentioned yet that there was a Jet Set Willy 3 released way back in 1985:
https://jswcentral.org/jsw48-a-03_jsw_iii.html

Has anyone mentioned yet that there was a Jet Set Willy 3 released way back in 1985:
https://jswcentral.org/jsw48-a-03_jsw_iii.html

Thanks for this new file Norman, including the disassembly of the new code on the 'title screen'.  Some observations:
I like the way that you can dynamically switch* between the different conveyor logics using the s/d keys, as well as the detailed descriptor of the current mode (and associated values) in the status bar. 🙂
(*This feature reminds me of some of the rooms in 'Jet Set Mini', in which pressing the X, O and R keys together simultaneously causes the conveyor direction to toggle between left & right, or switches the sticky behaviour of a two-way conveyor on and off again, both of which are achieved by applying an XOR 01 gate to the conveyor direction byte.)
**
 I can see from the animating (but apparently unreachable) conveyor at the top left that, as I predicted 😎, all the different conveyor types animate in the same, 'clockwise' direction (except for type 11, the standard left conveyor, which animates 'anticlockwise').
**
Conveyor types 0 and 2 seem to be identical in behaviour to each other, as is the case for conveyor types 1 and 3. (N.B. Behind the scenes, types 0 and 1 might instantaneously be setting the movement flag, unlike types 2/3, but this doesn't have any effect on Willy's movement.)
**
The choice of values to activate all the various conveyor types in this latest file is a pleasingly consistent set. 😃  This is not immediately apparent by looking at the values as stated - even after converting the decimal to binary - but once you subtract 3 from each value, and express in binary, you can see that in all cases bits 2-5 are set, and then every possible permutation of bits 0-1 and 6-7 are provided.

To go all 'meta' for a moment, there may even be people who find discussions like these (about what different people's perspectives are of the most interesting aspects of JSW gaming) to be more interesting than playing, designing or hacking JSW games! 🤪

I think Andrew's policy is spot on. To take an extreme example of how a no-Pokes-are-off-limits approach amounts to cheating, if you load up Jet Set Willy and Poke the game mode indicator with a value of 2, Willy will immediately run from the bath to the toilet - game technically 'completed' in a matter of seconds! But with no sense of accomplishment or explanation.

Yes I don't think it's realistic for this game to be ported to the Spectrum. Even if the number of rooms wasn't an issue, I think the sheer amount of other additional content would be.
@Sendy The Endless Wow, thank you so much! I don't know what you've found so far but I'm really glad you're enjoying it. 😊
@IRF Yes, I am aware of that game and the many other unofficial Jet Set Willy sequels and remakes that have been made, a few of which were also called Jet Set Willy 3 in one way or another. The most recent 'official' game in the Manic Miner series was Jet Set Willy 2: The Final Frontier (a play on the Star Trek elements added to the game), and as it was the original intention for this to be the first licensed, commercially released sequel in the series since that game, Jet Set Willy 3: The Subsequent Generation (a similar play on the Star Trek series and the fact that it stars Miner Willy's heir rather than the man himself) seemed to make sense.
It has just been a shame that after being so very close to acquiring the licensing rights for the game, everything fell through. Nevertheless, the game is still here and I hope you can all enjoy it for what it is.