JSW As Manufacturer (probably) intended .. kind of...

[IRF]

In the 'Watch Tower', I think the Water cells should perhaps be drawn with blue PAPER colour, to match the PAPER colour of the air cells (as well as the Fire cells, and the ramp and conveyor in that room).

 

As things stand, there is an unseemly black stripe underneath each Water cell, which jars against the background.

 

POKE #F2A9, #0E would fix it.  :)

[Spider]

That is an excellent suggestion. :) I was aware of what it would do but before I saw it "in action" I was not really aware of how much it does improve it.

 

For those who prefer it in decimal it is 62121 , 14

 

Here is an expanded 'combi' pic of before / after so you can see the Water cells clearly to compare:

 

 

Out of curiosity I took a quick look at the C64, Amstrad and BBC versions of this screen in JSW1 and all of those also have the same Water cell 'paper' colour as the background which matches this 'new change' :)

 

I was not able to confirm the MSX/Einstein variant however given its cell design I suspect that will have black paper due to the way it was 'built' from the Spectrum version at least as I understand it.

[Metalmickey]

That is an excellent suggestion. :) I was aware of what it would do but before I saw it "in action" I was not really aware of how much it does improve it.

 

For those who prefer it in decimal it is 62121 , 14

 

Here is an expanded 'combi' pic of before / after so you can see the Water cells clearly to compare:

 

http://jswmm.co.uk/public/style_images/master/attachicon.gifwt_comparison.png

 

Out of curiosity I took a quick look at the C64, Amstrad and BBC versions of this screen in JSW1 and all of those also have the same Water cell 'paper' colour as the background which matches this 'new change' :)

 

I was not able to confirm the MSX/Einstein variant however given its cell design I suspect that will have black paper due to the way it was 'built' from the Spectrum version at least as I understand it.

I had thought of this a while back but did wonder if it was intended so as to make the blocks stand out as though the sun was shining on them ... on reflection (no pun intended) it would seem that this is another little 'bug' where the background colour was incorrectly set as black, I think it's worth putting in so i'll include it in my next version .. oh by the way, yes Ian i think i did make the correction to the flashing conveyor in 'To The Kitchen / Main Stairway' i think you provided a fix for it as, if my memory serves me rightly, it also had other effects elsewhere as the cells stopped flashing in 'Nomen Luni' when the game was paused

[Metalmickey]

on the subject of cells, i feel we need to talk about the elephant in the room... or more accurately, ask people's opinion on it; the darker red water cells in Dr Jones Will Never Believe This look (to me at least) a little malformed, for those who have not noticed i have already made the 'corrections' in my most recent release. The attached shows the difference, the one on the left being the original...

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2017 by Metalmickey

[IRF]

I think that's a big improvement - there were a missing couple of pixels it seems, which you've now restored.  :)

Edited October 21, 2017 by IRF

[Spider]

It does (to me) look better with the changes. :)

 

As an aside I'm still unsure on a 'best fix' for preventing a top exit, apart from either changing a cell to fire to prevent an accidental jump or setting the up exit to be the same screen :unsure:

[Spider]

It does (to me) look better with the changes. :)

 

As an aside I'm still unsure on a 'best fix' for preventing a top exit, apart from either changing a cell to fire to prevent an accidental jump or setting the up exit to be the same screen :unsure:

 

I think a slightly alternative take on this might assist ? I don't want to derail your topic though :unsure: , a look at the cell patterns 'elsewhere' as such ;)

 

The following is a quickly 'stitched together pic' left to right Amstrad CPC / Acorn BBC Micro / Commodore C64

 

 

The other variants (Dragon/MSX/CBM+4/Electron etc etc) are quite similar really.

 

Things to note:

 

1. These pics are all from JSW1 not 2. I did quickly test JSW2 on the CPC and BBC however saw that as not needed so stopped there.

 

2. All these variants permit a 'top exit' and they all go to Quirkafleeg, with varying results:

 

3. The BBC and CBM versions behave as the Spectrum version does, aka an IDS as Willy 'appears' on the spiked fire cells at the bottom of the screen

 

4. The CPC version is slightly different and he loses a life but returns safely to Dr Jones, the reason being the CPC JSW1 version has the 'safe restart from last' feature, this is the same as JSW2 on the Spectrum, it is different in operation to JSWED's 'safe start' however. If you think of JSW2 on the Spectrum, you'll know exactly how it works on the CPC machine for JSW1 as well.

[Metalmickey]

i think the solution is as you mentioned earlier to prevent Willy being able to make his way out of the top of the screen, much in the same way as Watch Tower and Rescue Esmerelda it was clearly not intended for Willy to make his way upwards, i think the only solution is to either place blocks at the very top of the screen or make some discreet (as far as possible) modifications to the elephant, i have already toyed with the idea of replacing earth cells with firecells, but i also made some minor modifications to the cell itself - see attached, the left is just a simple replacement of the earth cell with a fire cell, the right is the same only with slight modification so now the elephant doesn't look like a unicorn, i think the fire cell could be further improved without deviating too far from the original graphic

Edited October 22, 2017 by Metalmickey

[IRF]

I think it would still be possible to jump off the top in that arrangement though.

[Metalmickey]

probably, but this was really just to demonstrate how a minimal discreet modification could be made, perhaps another firecell might be needed to 'bookend' the existing one at the top left...