48k [File] Manic Panic

[Norman Sword]

View File

Manic Panic

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Manic Panic.

Plays on ZX Spectrum and similar hardware.  Runs and plays in48K

This game could have been written when the originals of Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy and Jet set Willy 2 was written. It does not need the memory or hardware of the expanded versions of the ZX spectrum.

 

very very brief note:-
  

   
The original plan was to create a full sized playing screen game. An upgrade on the 2/3 screen playing area of MM and JSW. 

I decided to continue the story of Miner Willy.

Willy Started out exploring in Manic Miner, and hit the jackpot. He then splashed out his monies on a new mansion which was explored in Jet set Willy 1/2 and 2+. 

In the present day his memory of the past is playing tricks on his mind. Did he switch any of the robots off in Manic Miner?

In Manic Panic I leave you to find out. What he does next

 

 

Whilst the basic code was easy enough to write, I did encounter problems with breakup on one part of the screen. This problem nearly caused me to to cease writing and scrap the idea. I persevered and after two weeks I had most of the basic code.

The game has multiple playing modes 0) Trainer, 1) Normal, 2) Expert, 3) Ace , 4) Lantern, 5) Torch. Each mode differs from the others modes in a specific way.

Outline, based on how I remember the code.

Modes
0) Trainer -- Full oxygen ---- Slow oxygen depletion ------ Oxygen depletes on contact - (-2) sprites - No final Bonus - No end game
1) Normal --- Metered oxygen - Normal oxygen depletion ---- Oxygen depletes on contact - (-1) sprite -- Final Bonus ---- End game ----- enables ace mode
2) Expert --- Metered oxygen - Faster oxygen depletion ---- No contact allowed (death) - all sprites -- Final Bonus ---- End game ----- enables ace mode
3) Ace ------ Metered oxygen - Very fast oxygen depletion - No contact allowed (death) - all sprites -- Final Bonus ---- End game ----- playable only if another mode was completed.

Extended modes - added as a novelty

4) Lantern -- Metered oxygen - Normal oxygen depletion ---- Oxygen depletes on contact - (-1) sprite -- Final Bonus ---- End game ----- enables ace mode
5) Torch ---- Metered oxygen - Faster oxygen depletion ---- No contact allowed (death) - all sprites -- Final Bonus ---- End game ----- enables ace mode -- oxygen depletion stops if static.

The extended modes adds a lot of code. And are based on the idea that the caverns are dark and are illuminated by Willy in two ways.
In lantern mode the cavern is completely Blued out. Willy can use the light that is attached to his helmet and illuminate the cavern. The light will point in the direction of Willies travels. If Willy is walking Right the the beam of light from Willies helmet will also shine to the right. Conversely for the left. When Willy is static and is not moving horizontally Willy can rotate the beam of light in either direction. The keys for rotating the beam of light are the keys "H","J","K","L" - with "H" and "K" rotating in one direction and "J","L" rotating in the other direction. The rotation keys have inbuilt delays (similar to keyboard delays). The items are set to still colour cycle or animate in the blued out room , so their positions are always visible. The portal is also still visible.

The above (lantern) was extended into another version. The Torch version. Here the room is blacked out, which makes the surrounding platforms disappear. In order to facilitate playing in such a room, and not make it pure guesswork or committed to memory in order to play. A small area around willy is Blued out, this area shows the platform willy is standing on. The steady depletion of oxygen is stopped, whenever Willy is static (stopped) and the rotation of the torch beam can be undertaken to illuminate other parts of the screen. To further facilitate travelling around the screen, all items/objects/keys collected will briefly flash and illuminate the room when they are collected.  

I have played every cavern in Lantern and in torch mode, whilst it can add a layer of difficulty to each cavern. The fact I have completed them shows me they can be completed. The screens have not been memorised by me and since they are all relatively new, I play them with only a limited memory of how to play them each time I see them.

Changes from MM/JSW 

This list just touches on some aspects of code change.
I rewrote everything- some with better design than others.

• Full screen playing area - an increase of nearly 50%
• Willy now has a sprite mask.
• All sprites can move in any direction.
• Room events are changed to sprite events. E.g. Kong is a sprite and not a cavern that has Kong in it.
• Sprite events can be mixed. e.g. Kong- Skylab - light beams etc can all exist in any cavern.
• Sprite events specify their own graphics. e.g. you can have differing graphics on the Skylab graphic event in the same room.
• Sprites can cross other sprites - without killing Willy.
• Sprites can cross graphics in the background without killing Willy.
• every sprite can define its own graphic.
• Sprites can be 16, 8 or 4 pixels high.
• Addition of worm collision sprites.
• Addition of time phased dropping sprites.
• Addition of animated items/keys.
• Colour cycling on items/keys cycles correctly in 7 cycles and does not repeat in cycles of eight with duplicate colours.
• Keys/items can animate in  1 phase, 2 phase, 4 phases.
• Cavern graphics allow up to 16 differing graphics per room.
• Cavern graphics incorporate a new style of tile - being an invisible/ignore tile.
• Graphics such as the nasty graphics are during game cycle allowed to act as nasties and also be ignored. -- reason for ignore tiles -- In JSW/MM - Willy can stand on any tile -- These tiles need to be ignored due to being able to survive nasty contact.
• Graphics do not suffer the duplication of colours bug that plague the differing versions of JSW and MM. Possible to have two differing tiles and one colour.
• Multiple on screen Conveyors can be animated in different places. 
• Conveyors can have both left and right conveyors in the same cavern.
• Special code added to allow Willy to straddle two conveyors and not lock the movement keys out.
• Air bar is depleted in a progressive manor. Depletion when full is slow. When nearly empty depletion is fast. Rate of depletion is based on the height of the oxygen. The change in speed of depletion is constantly changing.
• Air bar depletion is also changed by the game level played. Easy levels use a slower rate of depletion compared to the harder levels of play.
• Dual title music playing routine 
• Music routine play pitch corrected notes.
• Music routine illuminates correct keyboard keys.
• Music routine allows music tempo change.
• Music routine allows notes of differing length
• Music routine allows rests.
• Music routine can play notes from 5 octaves

Multiple game playing modes 0) Trainer, 1) Normal, 2) Expert, 3) Ace , 4) Lantern, 5) Torch. Each mode differs from the others modes in a specific way.

Behind the scenes a lot of added code is taking care of several aspects of space management. Since this is just a short note those aspects and the details of the changes will not be added here.

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• Submitter
  Norman Sword
• Submitted
  12/09/2020
• Category
  Manic Miner [Remakes]

 

[Spider]

Thank you for the submission Norman 🙂

[IRF]

Good stuff!

I feel that Pgyuri (or is it Pyguri?) from the World of Spectrum forum deserves a mention, for having come up with the original 'dark cavern' idea 💡 which inspired the 'Lantern' and 'Torch' game modes of this project - although of course Mr Sword has refined the idea greatly and made the dark caverns infinitely more playable! 👍

[Norman Sword]

Willy having a directional beam of light.

A topic I have known about for many many years. Which was not a new idea for me, so-

Sorry to disappoint you, but the original code and idea was mooted for Jet Set Willy 2. The room with the trip switch was designed to switch off the lights and implement a circle of light.  The circle of light code was written, but took too long to implement as a game feature. 

 I'll expand on that - Derrick P Rowson had written a graphic routine to illuminate a circle of light. If the code had been implemented on the spectrum first the circle of light would have been implemented. Alas the original version was on a CPC 464 and the speed of processing was not fast enough.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Norman Sword
reverted back to original post

[IRF]

And Mr Rowson gets credit then. 😉

[IRF]

BTW, that's a very interesting titbit of knowledge about JSW2. 🙂

We should probably give Pgyuri a shout anyway, pointing him to this project and saying: "Look what someone else has done with a similar idea to yours (developed independently).  It would be a good way to announce the revival of this site over on WoS. 😀

Edited December 10, 2020 by IRF

[jetsetdanny]

4 hours ago, IRF said:

BTW, that's a very interesting titbit of knowledge about JSW2. 🙂

We should probably give Pgyuri a shout anyway, pointing him to this project and saying: "Look what someone else has done with a similar idea to yours (developed independently).  It would be a good way to announce the revival of this site over on WoS. 😀

The revival of the site has been announced over on WoS, as mentioned in the "Welcome back!" thread 🙂 .

Regarding Pgyuri, he released/uploaded a 'dark cavern' MM version at some point earlier this year, didn't he? If this is right, I will discuss this version on JSW Central as a "minor" version of MM, independently of "Manic Panic" (which will fall into the category of "Games using other game engines", I believe).

I've got some serious catching up to do with things that happened between March and August...

 

 

[jetsetdanny]

There a question by JianYang over on Wos: 

"Is there a way to slow down Manic Panic? That unusually fast speed is really confusing me."

I guess Norman Sword would be best placed to answer it...

[IRF]

If the fast speed is panicking JianYang, then maybe that is the point of 'Manic Panic'... 😄

[JianYang]

4 minutes ago, IRF said:

If the fast speed is panicking JianYang, then maybe that is the point of 'Manic Panic'... 😄

I deserve that.

 

@Norman Sword Great work! What tools and libraries did you use to make Manic Panic? Or is that a secret?

 

I once started something similar using z88dk, sp1 and zx7, but I panicked (how appropriate) when it came to deciding on the level format and postponed it indefinitely. That means I designed a status bar ripped some tile graphics from MM managed to display them and then gave up.

 

Thank you for making my dreams come true and maybe when I try again when I'm less tired I might actually be able to handle the speed.