[File] Jet Set Willy: The Nightmare Edition

[jetsetdanny]

Interesting, thank's for finding it, Ian!

 

It's nice that it's been published :) .

 

An interesting thought about the "death loops" (IDSes) removed from "TNE" - questioning their removal in that they would actually be appropriate for The Nightmare Edition, because they are a real nightmare.

 

Also, he exaggerates about the difficulty level and at the end he discourages people from playing it.

[IRF]

Yes, I thought that was a bit off.

[Metalmickey]

He didn't seem too impressed did he? the video was a bit short and, dodgy mic aside he didn't really explain the pluses like the extra lives and additional rooms, also the fact that, tough as it is, it is still completable without life loss

[Spider]

I never actually saw the youtube video :blush: I was referring (my post the other day) to the text and things present. Just watched the video now I see what you mean. :)

[Spider]

@RuffledBrickshas posted an excellent review/feedback video on YouTube, I'll link it rather than embed it directly:

https://youtu.be/jdZcYaEkdK8

🙂

[RuffledBricks]

Hello all,

Yes, that's my video above. Full context: I'm a Twitch streamer and I've been learning how to speedrun the Miner Willy games on stream for significant portions of the last year. With The Nightmare Edition, although my aim was mainly to compIete the game, I also tried to make it as much of a speedrun as possible (and by the looks of it 11:08am is a pretty decent time). Though you'll see given the difficulty of the game there were some parts where I focussed more on getting them right than getting them quick.

I sent an email with my thoughts about the mod, and @Spider suggested I copy/paste the feedback into the forum, so here it is:

Firstly, I have to say I've played several Miner Willy mods on stream and TNE was by far my favourite. I've played other mods that seemed determined to make JSW as difficult as possible and often they've felt either joylessly gruelling or just rather clumsy (I won't name any specific mods in case any of the creators happen to be on this board!). Also, few of them seemed to tap into the design flair that Matthew Smith brought to the table with his original games. 

TNE is the only one I've played that felt like it properly kept the spirit of the original game, whilst adding unique challenges that were almost all genuinely satisfying to overcome. I love the way neglected sections of the original mansion have now been given purpose, to the point where I actually now find Willy's mansion way too quiet now whenever I play the vanilla version of the game. Well done on what was so clearly a labour of love.

Here's a bunch of observations about the mod, some from a speedrunning perspective, others from a more casual playthrough perspective. I hope they're useful:

1) There were a couple of 'glitches' in the game that I deliberately exploited in my run to speed things up a bit, both of which I'm sure you're aware of but felt were worth flagging up. 

One of them was the rope warp in On The Roof where you jump into the ceiling and reappear at the bottom of the room. I use this in speedruns of the vanilla version, and was surprised (though also pleased) that it hadn't been patched out in this mod.

The other is arrow immunity. In Tree Root, I time the conveyor belt run so that the arrow is moving across the room at the same time as Willy's head is behind the yellow platform, which stops him from being killed by it.

I'm glad both of these exist, for the record - glitches are often the most fun things about speedrunning, so it was great to be able to use them beneficially. But I'd be interested to know how you felt about these being potentially used in runs.

2) The addition of the teleports was fun, although I must admit it completely threw me off figuring out some of the rooms when I first started playing the games. There were several rooms where I found certain things unreachable (the item in And Now For Something...; getting back in The Belfry; actually entering the main part of Nightmare Luni) where I just thought "There MUST be a teleport that gets you there" and that actually stopped me from investigating those rooms the way I should have done for a while.

Also, I really like the Deserted Isle/Hades duplicity. A lovely analogy for the fine line between heaven and hell.

3) I used several 'deathwarps' in my run to speed up some sections (despite some members of my chat berating me for deliberately losing lives in such a difficult game). I got the sense that you folks clearly knew some people would be tempted to cheese certain rooms by deathwarping them and so redesigned them accordingly - the bottom right hammer in Tool Shed was a very clever addition, as was the top left sword in On The Roof (to stop players deathwarping the phenomenal Nightmare Luni). 

That said, some of the new designs left rooms open to big time saves by deathwarping. The Kitchen is the main example, in which I opted to lose two lives on the two new items, rather than going around The Kitchen three times (you save about a minute and a half that way, and only have to do the heinous conveyor belt jump once). The Forgotten Abbey also has a lot of waiting for the middle two monks to get out of the way once you've got the items, so a good 20 seconds can be saved by deathwarping that (although I didn't in my completed run).

Additionally, I must admit a couple of the newer rooms just didn't seem worth completing without losing lives. The hornet jump in Hornet's Nest is so unpleasant that in most instances I just took a death rather than trying that jump twice (so you can imagine how much I looked forward to Bottle Bank!). Also, I never bothered figuring out how to get back from The Belfry without losing a life, and I doubt I ever will. Call me impatient for not wanting to wait for the cycles to align, but going all that way and back for one item just didn't seem worth it, so I've only ever deathwarped that room.

4) One other mild criticism I had of the mod is that I do think the first few rooms relied a bit too heavily on either invisible or barely visible traps. The barrel gap in Top Landing, for example, stumped me for ages, whilst the invisible cross under the stairs in First Landing almost gave me a heart attack the first time I walked into it.

Beyond these rooms, the rest of the game doesn't seem to rely that much on these sorts of traps (sneaky untelegraphed conveyor belts aside), so it felt a little mean to put a whole bunch of them right at the beginning to scare off less obsessive players than I!

5) I mostly play the game with the music off (mainly because it's faster), but I have to say the Nightmare Room music is genius. Lovely work.

Also, on the subject of the Nightmare Room, thank you for keeping the conveyor belt going to the left. Seriously, I really appreciate it.

6) Occasionally I have been known to deliberately fall left off the M in Entrance To Hades and softlock the game, just for fun. Is that weird?

Anyways, thank you so much for the mod. It's been one of my favourite game experiences in the last year, and I was ecstatic to have managed to complete it. I welcome any and all thoughts on my feedback.

Edited January 16, 2021 by RuffledBricks

[IRF]

Welcome to the jswmm forum, RuffledBricks!

Wow, that's some great feedback!  Thank you very much!  "Labour of love" sums up our approach to the game very nicely!  I enjoyed watching your Youtube walkthrough/commentary as well. 🙂

I think the point about the invisible stuff in the first few rooms is fair comment, particularly your thought that it might have put some 'casual' players off. I think we came to the conclusion ourselves, in hindsight, shortly after releasing the game.  I recall that a friend of mine commented on Facebook that "I can't even complete The Bathroom!" - (presumably because he was trying to collect the second tap (top-right corner) directly - by crossing the succession of virtually invisible Fire cells - whereas accessing the item that way is blocked by a solid wall and you have to go into the alcove from the East Wall in order to access it).  That direct route was intended as a 'red herring' to sharpen the mind at the start of the game, but perhaps some people quickly formed the conclusion that the game was virtually impossible, and consequently abandoned any attempts to complete the game without exploring much further (which would have been a shame).  On the other hand, I must admit to a feeling of guilty pleasure after hearing of your first deadly experience with the invisible inverted cross. 😂

I like your novel phrase "Deathwarp", which seems to be an alternative name for the approach that we have tended to describe as "kamikaze-ing" an item.

Your feedback has given me a nudge to make more of an effort to find some time to continue working on my longstanding project 'Willy's Recurring Nightmare'...  the intention behind which is to ramp up the difficulty/nightmare level even more! 😁

By the way, if you haven't done so already. you could try out some of our other 'labours of love' that are available from the Downloads section here at jswmm!

P.S.  One thing I noticed whilst watching your Youtube video/commentary - I thought your pronunciation of 'Nightmare Luni' was a bit strange: "Nightmare Lunny", to rhyme with 'dunny'.  As with the original JSW room, "Nomen Luni", the second word should surely be pronounced "Loony"?  As evidenced by the presence of a 'lunar' guardian in the room, as well as the fact that the layout (the crashed plane) is a bit, er, 'loony'.  Well, that's my interpretation anyway!

Edited January 17, 2021 by IRF

[RuffledBricks]

Cheers for the compliments IRF!

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I think the point about the invisible stuff in the first few rooms is fair comment, particularly your thought that it might have put some 'casual' players off. I think we came to the conclusion ourselves, in hindsight, shortly after releasing the game.  I recall that a friend of mine commented on Facebook that "I can't even complete The Bathroom!" - (presumably because he was trying to collect the second tap (top-right corner) directly - by crossing the succession of virtually invisible Fire cells - whereas accessing the item that way is blocked by a solid wall and you have to go into the alcove from the East Wall in order to access it).  I'm not sure whether that friend ended up abandoning any attempts to complete the game without exploring much further (which would have been a shame).  On the other hand, I'm quite amused to hear of your reaction upon discovering the invisible inverted cross. 😂

I probably had the reaction I did because years ago I was part of a Lemmings forum, and I remember getting feedback for a levels pack I'd made where several members complained there were too many concealed traps throughout. In hindsight, I kinda thought "Well, I guess that does make it seem more of a slog." 
 

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I like your novel phrase "Deathwarp", which seems to be an alternative name for the approach that we have tended to describe as "kamikaze-ing" an item.

"Deathwarp" is actually a pretty widely used term in speedrunning - most speedrun glossaries I can find on Google feature the term. For example: https://www.speedrunslive.com/faq/glossary/
 

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By the way, if you haven't done so already. you could try out some of our other 'labours of love' that are available from the Downloads section here at jswmm!

I may dip into them at some point, thank you. At the moment I'm focusing more on practicing the vanilla Manic Miner, as I'm doing that on a speedrunning marathon later this month. Also, I'm trying to broaden the palette on my streams a bit by playing other games, as I've had a bit of Miner Willy overload in recent months! But I'm sure I'll look into Willy mods again sometime in the future.
 

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P.S.  One thing I noticed whilst watching your Youtube video/commentary - I thought your pronunciation of 'Nightmare Luni' was a bit strange: "Nightmare Lunny", to rhyme with 'dunny'.  As with the original JSW room, "Nomen Luni", the second word should surely be pronounced "Loony"?  As evidenced by the presence of a 'lunar' guardian in the room, as well as the fact that the layout (the crashed plane) is a bit, er, 'loony'.  Well, that's my interpretation anyway!

I blame my Twitch chat for that. Originally I did pronounce it "loony", then someone from my chat suggested that maybe it was pronounced "lunny", and I assumed they were more educated in faux-Latin etymology than I was so I went along with it. Also, I never played Zzoom, so I had no real idea what "Nomen Luni" was referencing when I first saw it, and just said it how I thought it looked.

 

[MtM]

 

>Firstly, I have to say I've played several Miner Willy mods on stream and TNE was by far my favourite. I've >played other mods that seemed determined to make JSW as difficult as possible and often they've felt >either joylessly gruelling or just rather clumsy (I won't name any specific mods in case any of the creators >happen to be on this board!). Also, few of them seemed to tap into the design flair that Matthew Smith >brought to the table with his original games. 

Hello RB,

 

Good to have another new member here, so welcome! The degree of knowledge and ability on this forum (myself excluded) is second to none in the entire world. You certainly bring good evidence of your own ability in the great fun video of JSW TNE you made, so thank you for that, you are a very worthy addition.

 

I agree entirely with the quote from you above too, could not of put it better myself. The line between being an enjoyable game and just too hard is a fine one. I think as we age as older gamers, personally anyway, my patience for trying to overcome rock hard first or second screens is not what it once was, and that is probably a good thing, because it reflects a more critical way of thinking. Check out Manic Panic if you can, a brilliant piece of work by Norman Sword on these forums, well worth it, a state of the art MM modification with some genuine flair about it in the same mold as MS himself I think. I hope Norman doesn't object to that description. But in truth, all the people or here who have done mods have done brilliant work for free.

 

Please keep up the good work and keep us updated with your latest videos of MM & JSW 🙂

 

 

MtM

[Spider]

Welcome @RuffledBricks

As per our original email, thank you for such a comprehensive review/feedback on this project as well as your speedrun. 🙂

The game was mainly built with three 'primary' (if you will) main participants with other input indirectly from a couple of others at least***

*** My memory is a little hazy on this although I do recall a few names and it was quite a while ago now.

Although its been partially suggested and I'd not want to "blow my own trumptet" the mini 'lockdown' edition of MM I built up at the end of March may be worth a glance from yourself. It seems relevant again these days!

 

Once again, welcome to our community! I'm quite sure you'll fit in here very well. 🙂