[File] Manic Miner - Highscore Challenge

[IRF]

51 minutes ago, DigitalDuck said:

With the life sprite in its first position, you can also get through the corner of the new platform and land on the small platform underneath it. This jump stops being possible at 37 lives.

Ah yes, because the right-hand half of that pair of sprite graphic bytes is pixel-less, so the attribute value #00 is written there (which happens to mean it remains an air cell).

[IRF]

By comparing Willy's sprite data with the attribute byte values assigned to the various block types in the cavern data, I've discovered a few effects that I think will arise within the Manic Miner game engine.

 

If you have more than 34 remaining lives and if the spare lives on the status bar are set to their rightmost frame of animation.  Willy's back foot in that frame has a byte value of #03, which matches a couple of magenta INK on black PAPER blocks in the game:

- In 'Abandoned Uranium Workings', some of the errant blocks (in 'even' columns) across the middle of the cavern will act as conveyor cells (no animation, but they will drag Willy rightwards).  This effect could be quite erratic if the in-game music is left on, meaning that the spare lives pass through that animation frame and the conveyor effect periodically stops and starts.  This should affect the new platform directly underneath the cavern's sole crumbly platform - that is in fact the very same new platform which led @DigitalDuck to improve his score here, which gave rise to this discussion!  N.B. No POKE is needed to observe this effect - just set the remaining lives to the appropriate frame;

- In 'Return of the Alien Kong Beast', the mid-height Water cell platform patrolled by the right-most 'rolling rock' guardian will, in theory, become crumbly.  Unfortunately, Willy can't access that part of the cavern to stand on that platform and cause its pixels to crumble away, because of the aforementioned blockage on the left-hand side of the cavern (as pointed out by DigitalDuck).  There is a single-cell platform occupying the same character row towards the left of the cavern (just below/to the right of the leftmost banana item), which is reachable during game play, but unfortunately that block sits in an 'odd' column, so the overwritten attribute (corresponding to a different part of Willy's sprite) doesn't match the crumbly cell attribute, and so no crumbling of pixels will occur if Willy stands on it even if it has been corrupted by a rogue attribute.  However, if that platform were extended by one more block (either left or right will do the trick), then the new extension to that platform would crumble when stood upon: POKE #DD02,#43 or POKE #DD04,#43 (in decimal: POKE 56578,67 or POKE 56580,67) - apply before entering the cavern.

 

Meanwhile, if you have 36 or more remaining lives and if the spare lives on the status bar are set to either their second or third frame of animation, then I believe the attribute value #06 (corresponding to the next pixel-row up in Willy's sprite) will be written across alternate cells of the top character row of the caverns.  This could also have gameplay consequences:

- The value #06 is assigned in 'The Menagerie' to an (unused) Fire cell type (the yellow bush that is encountered in other caverns), so as the number of extra lives continue to tally up, the top three items will be either embedded in or sandwiched between Fire cells, making them uncollectable without being killed (unless you move the animation of the remaining lives on to the first or last frame);

- Similarly, 'Processing Plant' would be incompletable once the errant Fire blocks reach across to the portal (and probably before that - I don't think it's safe to drop down from the starting point in the cavern without first making a jump that means Willy's head passes through the top character row);

- And the route options in 'The Warehouse' would be more restricted (for instance, you couldn't jump over the first Fire cell to Willy's right upon entering the cavern, without hitting one of the newly-created overhead Fire cells).

 

P.S. Whilst researching this post, I discovered for the first time that Matthew's original design for 'The Sixteenth Cavern' may have incorporated a switch!? (The switch graphic from the Kong caverns is present, unused, in the 16th cavern data.)

Edited February 29 by IRF

[DigitalDuck]

Just for fun: if you collect the bottom item in Skylab Landing Bay while you're on 33 lives and *99xx points, you're killed by the extra life you're awarded for collecting the item.

[IRF]

1 hour ago, DigitalDuck said:

Just for fun: if you collect the bottom item in Skylab Landing Bay while you're on 33 lives and *99xx points, you're killed by the extra life you're awarded for collecting the item.

But only if the spare lives are on the first frame of animation.

I like how the colour cycling of the screen is still taking place (part of the 'extra life awarded' effect) after the bonus life has already expired!

Edited February 29 by IRF

[DigitalDuck]

I'm still writing the notes for the TASVideos submission but I thought it'd be fun to post this version in the meantime.

Without dying, the maximum score you can reach is 356359. It takes more than two and a quarter hours, and nine and a half loops. The main score barrier pretends to be Skylab Landing Bay, but even if you lose points to be able to clear that one on the ninth loop then Return of the Alien Kong Beast blocks you. So this doesn't get the maximum score on every loop (only the first), and deliberately loses score in the Kong Beast and Solar Power Generator levels in order to start Return of the Alien Kong Beast with the maximum 349899 points that it's completable with; not doing this means the game ends earlier and with less score.

[Spider]

I wonder if I should of altered the code, its only changed iirc for cavern choice on startup*** so it didn't gain more lives, however as you've found ( well done 🙂 ) eventually the lives will spill over into the playing area preventing further progress.

*** I could of I suppose with some work done the level select in the code, ideal world being it asked upon game start which cavern you'd like rather than at the moment a bit of Basic to alter it then fire the code up.

EDIT... Good choice of Sam version music , 99% sure its that. 🙂 

[DigitalDuck]

12 minutes ago, Spider said:

I wonder if I should of altered the code, its only changed iirc for cavern choice on startup*** so it didn't gain more lives, however as you've found ( well done 🙂 ) eventually the lives will spill over into the playing area preventing further progress.

*** I could of I suppose with some work done the level select in the code, ideal world being it asked upon game start which cavern you'd like rather than at the moment a bit of Basic to alter it then fire the code up.

EDIT... Good choice of Sam version music , 99% sure its that. 🙂 

If it helps, this is using the original game, not the highscore challenge version; I just put it here since it's highscore-related. Finding the maximum total score (without dying) was an interesting challenge in itself. On top of the "improvements" I shared before (all of which are also in this run) I managed to score 1863 points in The Vat; unfortunately it wasn't feasible to do this and also reach the maximum total score in the same run due to the life count.

 

[Spider]

Yes I realised after I'd posted*** that it was locked to one level only.

It does show how far you can go though. Although it is without a speed up terribly slow once you have a full row or more of lives! 🙂 

 

(and temporarily lost internet) aka restart because someone aka me "forgot" to enable a couple of Bios features oops.