fawtytoo

That's Spellbound (Magic Knight series). Is that what your looking for?

Spellbound has a "red herring" item but I don't think it does anything. Knight Tyme has a "tower fish" item but again, it does nothing.

Using that, along with "spectrum game codemasters", AI suggested Spellbound Dizzy.

I thought Dizzy too. What about the Magic Knight series? Edit: Although Magic Knight is not Codemasters.

Reverse engineering ain't my thing. Besides, I was only interested in MM & JSW for nostalgic reasons. Other than my Spectrum emulator, I'm working on Pacman. These projects can take me years to complete you know.

Any particular reason you chose floating point?

Like I said before, MS clearly understood game design principles. In "Abandoned Uranium Workings" there are 2 seals that you don't go any where near, so why are they there? And yeah, which shaft do you use in the "Cold Room"? In "The Sixteenth Cavern", do you drop down through the exit to get that item and then get stuck because you didn't notice the item in the top left, or get the item in the top left and drop right down below the conveyor and go up to the last item? Maybe MS knew the concept of speed runs. After all, the faster you complete a level, the higher your score. Concerning MS interviews; there is one in his bedroom (I think) where he was asked where the boot came from in the Game Over screen in MM. MS answered with "the top of the screen". Obviously the interviewer meant where did the "idea" come from. Very funny answer. Incidentally, I've reverted level 16 in my port to the OG layout. This discussion has helped me rethink that level. Thanks for your thoughts.

I just had a thought but I'm not sharing it. It will be an easter egg.

Did MS intend that item to be there? Is it a design bug/flaw? An oversight. Once the game is released it's too late. His contract would have mean meeting a deadline. You can only do so much testing. Supposed to be troll? MS understood game design principles but doesn't strike me as the sort that troll's.

I know you weren't scolding me (it's my port after all and I'll do what I want with it), but it made me think if I'd done too much to it on that level. Level design, for any kind of game, usually avoids being designed that allows game engine bugs to creep in, which is what my post is about. That particular level illustrates that. I guess that the change I made was a kind of "that's how I would have done it" but now feel I've deviated from the OG which isn't the design goal. "Game play is 100% identical" I think is my claim. That level breaks that rule. I'm just thinking out loud. Suggestion welcome.

When you die or exit a level in MM, nothing is drawn in it's final positions. That is, it's all one frame behind the game logic. This is most noticeable in the "Sixteenth Cavern" when you drop into the portal, collect the final item and exit the level. If everything was drawn up-to-date, the final item would be erased and you would see Willy's feet below the portal. But that doesn't happen. In order to address this and have the drawing up-to-date, I use an "Action" in my port that allows the game logic (ticker) and the drawer to complete before changing the state of the game. This works very well. Except for level 16. If I use the exact same level layout as the OG, as Willy falls through the portal to the final item, the item is collected. But as Willy is still falling, on the next frame he is no longer "inside" the portal and so falls onto the conveyor below. If I correct this, then I end up with the same visual anomaly as in the OG. Further fixes could be made but not without making the code unnecessarily complex for such a simple game. My solution was the move the final item one tile lower. But that looks odd and begs the question as to why. To further the solution and add a "reason" for the change was the add a gap in the conveyor below the portal to make it more obvious as to why the item is lower. The "reason" given was to provide more of a challenge to get the final item. On reflection, the final item should be placed immediately below the conveyor for the "challenge" and the conveyor gap was not necessary. But then why didn't Matt Smith do that? The whole point of this is that I considered that final item to be pointless and didn't need to be there. I think this is analogous to the uncollectable item in JSW "Conservatory Roof" where the solution was to remove the offending nasty whereas another solution would be to remove/reposition the item. @JianYang referred to my change as "very naughty". So I thought it needed a dedicated thread for the explanation/discussion.

Maybe. I wanted to remain faithful to the original but I just thought that level needed "correcting". I considered it a bug. If I'd been involved in the original development, the level handling would have been more like in my port. That is, no attribute dependency. That is the main flaw in both games that prevented having a "split" conveyor (amongst other things). Although, there are other ways he could have made that gap.

Compiling on Linux is a lot easier than on Windows. You need to install the packages ... libsdl2-dev build-essential ... then download the source code and type "make" from a command line from the same directory as the Makefile. Probably should add that to the README.md.

Hi guys and gals, Just thought I'd upload the latest releases of MM & JSW for Windows. They are 64bit only but should work on 7 onwards. Any feedback on compatibility would be welcome. Regards, Steve ManicMiner.zip JetSetWilly.zip

Thanks to @AukonDK for the Windows builds. Would anyone here be interested in maintaining a Windows build on my GitHub repository? It's just that I've just fixed a crucial bug and now those builds will be out of date. Or, at the very least, maintain those Windows builds on here or somewhere else I can link to?