Playing around.

[IRF]

It was possible (in the most recent build you uploaded, in Trainer mode) to 'disappear' off the top of the Central Cavern by jumping up off the top of one of the spiky bush nasties on the top platform.

 

When you go past the top of a cavern in the original Manic Miner game engine [in a modified game because none of the original cavern layouts allow it], Willy's head temporarily appears at the bottom of the screen, and furthermore the attempt to draw Willy 'out of bounds' also causes corruption of the game file itself.  I presume that your rewrite of the game engine has eliminated such issues though?

[Norman Sword]

The jump on bush part has been removed. (post #50) In older versions the ability to jump on nasty1 or nasty2 was permitted. and the ability to seemingly jump of the top of the screen resulted. The sprite disappears for a brief moment.

The address is calculated and placed on the ROM , so  consequent drawing of the sprite is done on the rom. The restore of the sprite is also done on the rom.

 

The attributes calculated to colour willy in are drawn incorrectly I assume on the Master Attribute screen. It was something I would have eventually changed. It had been noted and did not crash the system. I am taking a slow approach to doing the code. I am in no hurry to do this.  If the opportunity arises for other activities, then this will be dropped and those other activities pursued.

 

 

Addendum

 

I checked the actual code. The attributes check where the screen is. So I already stop draws off the screen. Both  the attribute for colouring and the pixels for drawing. 

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

Final game version accessible via  This Link

Edited July 20, 2020 by Norman Sword

[MtM]

Then it has fulfilled its design brief.

 

From the start the screens have increased in size. The screen after the old central cavern screen, is designed to be a visual shock.

It is certainly different feeling, especially if you have familiarity with the original. I am glad that this is what

you were trying to achieve though. It has a different feel to it now, and is certainly harder.

 

 

Standing on Nasties:-

 

 

 

The original file allowed nasties to sap air. This was not the original plan. In the original game file all contact killed Willy as is the normal action. Since this was a BETA file I included the action of air sapping purely because it allowed the screens to be traversed easily without instant death. The one person feedback I received prompted me to expand the air allowance and still permit contact with nasties/sprites and falls to continue as if nothing much had happened and the super generous air supply made movement around easy.( far too easy) 

 

The allowance of standing on a nasty was not a problem originally, when the game did not allow such generous air supplies or death on contact with them. However with the massive amounts of air that is available now, The ability to climb on nasties or stand on nasties needed to be curtailed. I have spent half an hour changing the logic surrounding all the nasties. The change makes nasties un available to stand on. 

I thought that this was a good feature and gave the game an improved feel and increased its playability. If you are an experienced

player of MM then to have things be similar but different when playing is a positive experience and means you learn something

new too. I liked it.

 

Now, how about a short swing being implemented in MP? Is it even possible? I like being able to play in trainer mode with a good

chance of success to complete a level reasonably easy, but still with consideration given to what now feels like 'health' over 'air'.

 

I know it is not the right place, but briefly, I have played your JSW128vm recently Norman - my goodness, what a piece of work!

Awesome! Will never complete it it's far too hard, but even so ;-)

[Norman Sword]

Now, how about a short swing being implemented in MP? Is it even possible? I like being able to play in trainer mode with a good

chance of success to complete a level reasonably easy, but still with consideration given to what now feels like 'health' over 'air'.

 

I know it is not the right place, but briefly, I have played your JSW128vm recently Norman - my goodness, what a piece of work!

Awesome! Will never complete it it's far too hard, but even so ;-)

 

Now, how about a short swing being implemented in MP?

 

Terminology that I am not familiar with. Best guess being a rope.  - A rope is unlikely to appear due to the nature of collision detection. In JSW the sprites check for collision, (as it does in Manic Miner). In Manic Panic the whole logic of collision detection is inverted. The sprites no longer set and check collision, that job is solely done by Willy himself. A rope would need a very special case setting and ....  I see no immediate way of doing it. 

 

Awesome! Will never complete it it's far too hard, but even so

 

JSW128VM has a portal mode. In the portal mode, you do not have lives. You only have a time limit. You can play a screen/multiple screens as many times as you want. Each Death is treated s a reincarnation back to the last portal. The portals act as a save game state. (e.g. the game has an inbuilt save state facility)

Edited June 5, 2020 by Norman Sword

[MtM]

Now, how about a short swing being implemented in MP?

 

Terminology that I am not familiar with. Best guess being a rope.  - A rope is unlikely to appear due to the nature of collision detection. In JSW the sprites check for collision, (as it does in Manic Miner). In Manic Panic the whole logic of collision detection is inverted. The sprites no longer set and check collision, that job is solely done by Willy himself. A rope would need a very special case setting and ....  I see no immediate way of doing it. 

 

Awesome! Will never complete it it's far too hard, but even so

 

JSW128VM has a portal mode. In the portal mode, you do not have lives. You only have a time limit. You can play a screen/multiple screens as many times as you want. Each Death is treated s a reincarnation back to the last portal. The portals act as a save game state. (e.g. the game has an inbuilt save state facility)

Yes, it is a very good feature. The game is _still_ too hard though ;-)

 

Just on screen 23 on Manic Panic, hoping to maybe complete it tonight. A few times on the Next making snapshots

corrupted the screen at the top, only a couple of times, it was unusual.

 

Sorry, the short swing is as you assume, i.e. a rope as in JSW, but not as big, more along the lines of the swings

in Turmoil if you have ever seen them. It would be a unique feature to any MM mod.

[MtM]

Just a bit of feedback about Manic Panic for you Norman.

 

1) there is a spelling mistake in the scrolling message - 'cessation'.

 

2) Completed it last night on trainer mode which is reasonably easy as you would expect. The penultimate

screen I think based on tennis is a tricky one until you work out which way you need to approach collecting

the objects!

 

3) I love the fact there is no flicker on any of the sprites, and as you have said before that they a)

pass through objects and b) are masked - it looks fantastic I think. Likewise the odd diagonal.

 

4) An in game tune would be nice, but I have enjoyed the greater speed too, though occasionally it did not feel

like my keypresses had been read, but that might be a Next thing.

 

Overall, it is excellent, but I still think the scrolling messages in the early screens feel a bit odd. I would

say they break immersion, but I won't ;-)

[andrewbroad]

H* game engine

 

Don't wait until then, start it now! It could be a real boost - you have all this expertise available on this forum, these must be amongst the most specialised programmers in the world here, think of what could be achieved in such a short space a time? Particularly if everyone put away their own projects to a degree and contributed to this one if you needed the help.

 

Out of interest, do you have criteria that your putative H* engine has to meet, such as run in 48k, etc, and if so could you share them? Apologies for my ignorance, I am sure it is obvious, why 'H*' as a name?

 

If I could freeze time for everyone except myself, then I would. As it is, I have less than ten hours a year for Spectrum computing while I still have my job. That might be enough to finish a JSW mini-game this year or next, but writing H* would take me thousands of hours.

H* will not be a collaboration. I want the satisfaction of writing it on my own, from the first principles of Z80 machine code, at least until the first game, H* Original, is released.

I expect that I will want to use 128K for H*, so that I can write a feature-length game with a room format as rich as John Elliott's JSW64 room formats.

H* is an abbreviation of H*****: a secret six-letter word. I think that the name H* has an intriguing air of mystique about it.

[Norman Sword]

Just a bit of feedback about Manic Panic for you Norman.

 

1) there is a spelling mistake in the scrolling message - 'cessation'.

 

2) Completed it last night on trainer mode which is reasonably easy as you would expect. The penultimate

screen I think based on tennis is a tricky one until you work out which way you need to approach collecting

the objects!

 

3) I love the fact there is no flicker on any of the sprites, and as you have said before that they a)

pass through objects and B) are masked - it looks fantastic I think. Likewise the odd diagonal.

 

4) An in game tune would be nice, but I have enjoyed the greater speed too, though occasionally it did not feel

like my keypresses had been read, but that might be a Next thing.

 

Overall, it is excellent, but I still think the scrolling messages in the early screens feel a bit odd. I would

say they break immersion, but I won't ;-)

 

1) "cessation". No spell checks in an assembler. So once it is written it stays as spelt.  ---  Duly changed from "ceasation" to "cessation".

 

2) The penultimate screen was I thought a fairly easy screen. Compared to some of the earlier ones. 

 

3) The problems with adding diagonals is they traverse so much of the screen. That avoiding them is far more difficult. In JSW2 and JSW128Vk/vl/vm the diagonals mainly follow stairs.  It is possible to follow them up or down a stair and jump over them. When the game has no stairs and the diagonal traverses horizontal platforms. The sphere of influence from a diagonal is far greater. Which is why they are used so sparingly.  

 

4) No plans on adding an in game click routine.

    Keyscan routines.  From a brief read of the "NEXT"  specifications.  I would not imagine the Next changes the key scan in any way. 

 

 

If you finished the game in "TRAINER" mode, then all that happened was. The title screen came up, stopping continuation. This is not what happens in "NORMAL" or "EXPERT"..

 

 

I note your dislike of those scrolling messages. - I will write a routine to display the text in fixed normal size and see what that looks like. (for curiosity reasons)  No decisions will be made until I see what it looks like.

 

Addendum

Yuck. is my description of normal sized text on the screen.

 

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

Final game version accessible via  This Link

Edited July 20, 2020 by Norman Sword

[Spider]

I've never really overly worried about any spelling/typo issues in assembly comments :) , ultimately they are only there as notes.

[IRF]

I've never really overly worried about any spelling/typo issues in assembly comments :) , ultimately they are only there as notes.

 

The typo MtM referred to appeared in the scrolling message on the title screen.  (Now corrected though.)