Manic Mission - Manic Miner / Impossible Mission mashup game

[Norman Sword]

Jumping arc of travel.

It is noticable that when Willy does his sumersault jump, that one frame after the rotation part of the sumersault. Seems to be out of sync. This gives the visual feedback of pausing animation and moving horizontal mid jump. Crude picture to try and explain better. (moving from left to right) 
 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Norman Sword

[Heracleum]

On 9/13/2022 at 5:15 AM, jetsetdanny said:

All right, my first (minimal) feedback:

I seem stuck in "The Cauldron", unable to either get back up or go anywhere else, as can be seen in this picture:

I'm not sure if it's an intentional trap or a bug 😲.

Hi @jetsetdanny Sorry I missed the posts!

So yes in that spot you have two ways to go:

1. Use the Lift at the left as @Ligan suggested. That Lift is coupled with the other lift two levels above (which going up one step reached the top) so it won't move further up but you can then jump on the cauldron handle and climb up...
   
2. Down the cauldron, that striped platform is actually a huge lift that can go up/down just a block.
    

 

@Norman Sword Well that's an unconventional jump indeed, the basic need was to allow for longer jumps (because during the somersault frames Willy advances by 3px instead of 2) and also a way to allow him to jump robots/creatures in a 4block height without hitting his head and fall. This happens only if the ceiling is made by Mission Impossible blocks (including bottom of lifts).

So yes the dynamic is weird because Willy starts his normal jump then hits head, does the somersault but then lands in the normal 'less athletic' way (his feet sticking out of the curve is probably what you noticed in your sketch?). I hope I didn't misunderstand!

Edited October 16, 2022 by Heracleum
Added reply to Norman

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for the explanation, Heracleum!

I haven't played your game since that last post of mine, because some very important Spectrum stuff cropped up and I gave it absolute priority. Now that it's done, I should be able to have a proper go at Manic Mission.

I will report back 🙂 .

[Heracleum]

Sure, no problem I subscribed the channel and receive the updates/notifications, in fact I've seen a lot of stuff published recently 👌

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for your support, Heracleum! I appreciate it 🙂 .

I will do my best to play "Manic Mission" 'seriously' this weekend 😎.

[Spider]

Looking forward to seeing the results! 😄

[jetsetdanny]

All right, I've spent a couple of hours playing the game.

I first toyed with the Puzzle Trainer and then played the game proper. I ran out of time twice. The first time I managed to collect 59 flashing items:

and the second time - 48 flashing items:

My feedback:

I liked the Manic Miner part. The game mechanics are very nice, they seem to reflect the Spectrum ones (which are the ideal for me) quite well, and the (non-Spectrum) somersault jump is very nice too. I did not have any problems arising from inexact collision detection that has been a drawback in some other PC versions I've tried.

I like the room ideas and designs. If there are 32 rooms, I probably haven't seen them all yet, but certainly a good part of them.

IIUC, the map is drawn anew every time you play, but constructed in such a way that you will actually access all rooms, only in a different order. That's a nice touch and something I would perceive as a cool feature, especially if someone wants to play the game many times - it makes it more interesting.

IIUC, the game has infinite lives, but also a time limit, which makes you lose the game if you run out of time (or Air). The infinite lives part is good in that playing the game with a limited number of lives (like several or a dozen) without being able to do a Spectrum-style snaphot saving and reloading or some other form of safeguarding your progress would be frustrating (for me, at least).

On the other hand, especially in view of the time limit, it leads (in my case at least) to the player preferring to get killed many times instead of trying to negotiate their way back safely after collecting an item. This *is* the logical thing to do,  from the player's point of view, given the time limit (unless I am missing something here, like that you need to find the puzzle pieces after collecting some or all items in the room but before losing a life, or something like that). However, it goes against my idea of "elegance" of ZX Spectrum JSW games which for me is: being able to complete the game without losing a single life, even if it is assisted by reloading and saving snapshots. It's just an observation, not criticism. A possible criticism might be that it also goes against the Manic Miner rules, where if you lose a life, you also lose the items you have collected in the room you are currently playing.

If you were to apply the above 'No kamikaze' rule to the game (you lose a life, you also lose the items collected in this room so far, you need to recollect them after respawning), it would make it way harder. I would say this is an option to consider should you want to introduce an "Extreme" or "Hardcore" mode of some kind 😉 .

The time limit seems quite challenging for me. I'm not sure how many items there are in the game, but by my results so far I would say it may be really hard to complete the game on time if you need to go through 32 rooms and then solve the puzzle from the collected pieces. Some questions come to mind here:

On the Game Over screen it says, "Flashing items left", but the number it shows is really of the flashing items the player has collected. So why does it say "left" (not "collected")?

On the Game Over screen it also gives the number of "Passwords saved". I don't know what this is about, where these passwords can be found, how you save them, what the purpose of this is, etc.

Is the time limit reset/extended after the player has collected all items and puzzle pieces and starts solving the puzzle? If it's not, I would say it's really tight.

The Impossible Mission part is mostly lost on me. When I tried the Puzzle Trainer, I found it difficult and confusing. Within the game, I did not find any of the puzzle pieces. I did try pressing the Search key many times, in some rooms also after collecting all of the items in the room and trying it on every furniture item I could see, but to no avail. 

All in all, I think this is a very exciting project for people who are "open-minded" and "time-possesing" MM/JSW fans, willing to try new things beyond the most classic elements of the game. As for myself, I don't belong to either category for the following reasons: my focus is on MM/JSW games (or: games using the MM/JSW game engines) for the ZX Spectrum. Narrow as this focus might seem, there are still tons of things I would like to do in this particular field, such as playing all of the released games to completion and recording nice RZX walkthroughs of them, developing JSW Central and its YouTube channel, resuming the creation of my own games (which I have been putting on the backburner for the sake of the development of JSW Central and because of real-life constraints) and assisting others in creating their Spectrum MM/JSW games (by playtesting, etc.) if necessary. With all this, and the restrictions of the amount of spare time I can devote to my leisure activities (that we probably all know well), my readiness to devote time and energy to projects that are outside of the scope of my immediate interests is limited. That's to explain why I am reluctant to learn the puzzle part of the game, and why I probably won't be struggling to complete "Manic Mission" in the near future. However, I will definitely keep it on my list of things to come back to in the more distant future, if and when my Spectrum projects and activities allow room for other things, or I feel a desire to expand the scope of my interest 🙂 .

And I do hope there will be enough interest in the community to create new levels for "Manic Mission" 🙂 .

[Heracleum]

Very sorry I should have double-checked you had a clear idea of the gameplay before the weekend and especially all the Impossible Mission elements that could easily be missed if one hasn't played the original.

Most importantly:
Willy has to search for puzzle fragments in furniture pieces, press "UP" key to Search while standing against furniture. They are placed randomly in certain spots of the room.

A box with a "searching..." progress bar appears and when done the result could be:

• Nothing here
• A puzzle fragment
• A Snooze (freeze all creatures in the room for some time)
• A Reset platforms (all lifts and crumbles are restored)

The last two can be spent in terminals just outside the room (you need to visit at least once the room to use them)

The flashing keys/objects are needed to open/search furniture, you don't need to get every flashing item in the room (especially the risky/hardest one to reach, you could skip them to save time/air) getting all of them and completing the mission would be really a nearly 'impossible' one.

It says flashing items LEFT (on hand) since you spend them to open/search the furniture pieces. So yes the more you get the higher the score but the main mission is getting all puzzle pieces.

A couple links to short videos I recorded at the time, showing:

• a complete solution of one puzzle (no spoilers it always changes)
• and a bit of the gameplay to show the search on furniture pieces.

No problem I totally understand it doesn't fit the JSW standards 😉

It's just the game I always dreamt to play (mixing two of the greatest titles from the 80's) so I made it ...but of course it might be a matter of very personal tastes 👍

[jetsetdanny]

Thank you so much for all the information, it does indeed make some things much clearer! 🙂 .

It's great that you've managed to actually create a game of your dreams! 👍 That's what it's all about here - doing stuff we like and fulfilling our dreams in a way, and, hopefully, at the same time providing fun and nice experiences for the others 🙂 .

As I said, my MM/JSW priorities call me elsewhere at this moment, but I will keep "Manic Mission" on a list of things to come back to one day. Who knows, perhaps I'll even practice the puzzle part 'secretly' to become good at it and able to produce a nice recording of the game being solved some day 😉 .

[Sendy The Endless]

I can tell this is a real labour of love, and seeing the classic JSW/MM graphics with the spectrum gameplay but C64 colour palette is playing havoc with my nostalgia glands. I'll see if I can whip up a few rooms in the editor at some point, but I've had fun exploring the rooms you made, which look and play great by the way!

The only thing I really miss is the evil blob that chases you around. Not only was it a fun scary enemy, but it was so satisfying to shove it off of the screen with the lifts : )

Edited January 20, 2023 by Sendy The Endless