[File] pyramid.tap

[jetsetdanny]

New developments:

There is now a nice map of the game on Speccy Screenshot Maps. 

The game also has its individual page on JSW Central. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improving the description I created there.

The recording of the game on the RZX Archive YouTube channel has had 634 views so far. It has received 43 likes and 3 dislikes, and there is a fifth comment there, but I don't understand its meaning.

 

[jetsetdanny]

Regarding Geoff Mode(s):

After some consideration, I decided to drop the type descriptors of Geoff Mode I, Geoff Mode II and Erix Mode from the Complete list of MM and JSW games on JSW Central. I do mention these modes in the description of the games on their individual pages, but they have been deleted from the main list.

The reason for this is that Geoff Mode I was the only type descriptor that made sense there, but if it were the only one, this wouldn't do justice to the whole list, and it would be difficult to define other modes accurately. Let me explain:

JSWED recognizes some JSW48 games as certain modes, based on some particular pieces of code/data they contain. It recognises some games as Geoff Mode I, one game as Geoff Mode II, some games as Softricks; it also recognises "Henry's Hoard" as a separate type of games.

What JSWED does could be the reason for defining some categories of "modes", but then it would be a pretty lame reason, as JSWED only takes some individual pieces of information into consideration and cannot recognise some games properly (eg. it recognises "Maria vs. Some Bastards" as a Softricks game), and it does not have names for other games whose game engines may have been modified as heavily as, or even more heavily than JSWED-recognised modes.

Geoff Mode I is the only type descriptor that would still make sense, because there are five games altogether that use it, so it would make sense to have some category there. 

However, there is only one gamma-released game that uses Geoff Mode II ("ZX Willy the Bug Slayer"). So it's hard to speak of a category as such - it's just one individual game.

"Willy does the Great Pyramid!" could perhaps be considered Geoff Mode III, but again - it's just a single game at the moment, not a category as such.

The Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion" has a significantly modified game engine. I believe it is "modified enough" to be considered another "mode", but then it's also just a single game, so trying to create a new category of it wouldn't make any sense.

The same goes for "Maria vs. Some Bastards" which would be the sole representative of "Erix Mode" (unless "Manic Mining Robot's Day Out" has a similar structure, I can't tell right now). This is also the situation of "Jet Set Mini" or "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre 48K Edition" - their game-engines are much-modified in relation to the original one, but it wouldn't make sense to make a category of each of them. In fact, "Henry's Hoard" would fall into the same category, too - of a significantly-modified game engine with only one game as the example of it.

Taking the above into consideration, while leaving "Geoff Mode I" as a type descriptor would make sense IMO, it would be misleading to only have this one descriptor and leave the other games mentioned above (and some others) without a proper notice that their game engines are modified in relation with the original one. Using other descriptors might also be problematic, as there may be some games which use e.g. some features of the Softricks mode, but not all of them. So having a "Softricks Mode" category would also be problematic, as it might be hard to decide whether or not a game uses this particular mode or not.

So, in the end I've decided that it will be better to delete these type descriptors altogether. I've only left the type descriptors of hacklevels for JSW128 games and hacklevels and versions for JSW64 games - because these can be defined beyond doubt for each of them, so it makes sense.

The mentions of Geoff Mode are still there in the descriptions of Geoff's games on their individual pages on JSW Central, alongside with links to Geoff's old website describing his Mode(s), so the info is still there for anyone who may be interested, it's just not within the main list of games.

[IRF]

6 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

The recording of the game on the RZX Archive YouTube channel has had 634 views so far. It has received 43 likes and 3 dislikes, and there is a fifth comment there, but I don't understand its meaning.

It's a reference to the fact that one of the room names ('An Ecumenical Matter') is based on a quote from the Channel 4 show 'Father Ted'.  Probably the kind of cryptic comment that you needn't concern yourself with. 😉

[IRF]

5 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

The same goes for "Maria vs. Some Bastards" which would be the sole representative of "Erix Mode" (unless "Manic Mining Robot's Day Out" has a similar structure, I can't tell right now).

Doesn't 'Eugene - Lord of the Bathroom' use 'Erix Mode' as well (albeit an Erix1 rewrite of the Manic Miner game engine, rather than of JSW)?

That's not to detract from your decision not to waste time categorising your list of games by game engine modifications - a decision which I can very much sympathise with!

I seem to recall that Igor Makovsky's 'Ultimate Manic Miner'* would merit its own similar reference in the list - I think that Igor modified the JSW64 engine in that game, though I can't recall the details?  Not to mention Norman Sword's numerous major game engine rewrites!  So for consistency, you either had to make major changes to a lot of the entries in the 'Complete list of MM and JSW games', or else trim out the extraneous detail such as which Geoff Mode applied to the various games by Geoff.

(*Incidentally, did you ever discover the personal tribute to yourself and many of the other 'Willy old-timers' in Room 54 of 'Ultimate Manic Miner'?)

[andrewbroad]

22 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

Taking the above into consideration, while leaving "Geoff Mode I" as a type descriptor would make sense IMO, it would be misleading to only have this one descriptor and leave the other games mentioned above (and some others) without a proper notice that their game engines are modified in relation with the original one. Using other descriptors might also be problematic, as there may be some games which use e.g. some features of the Softricks mode, but not all of them. So having a "Softricks Mode" category would also be problematic, as it might be hard to decide whether or not a game uses this particular mode or not.

Maybe what we need is some kind of metric for how heavily each game modifies the game engine?

[jetsetdanny]

If such metric could be created and then applied easily to each game, it could certainly be used to show how much each game engine is modified.

[jetsetdanny]

My replies are in green below.

17 hours ago, IRF said:

Doesn't 'Eugene - Lord of the Bathroom' use 'Erix Mode' as well (albeit an Erix1 rewrite of the Manic Miner game engine, rather than of JSW)?

Its game engine is very significantly modified in relation to the original MM.

I don't think it was ever classified as Erix Mode by Andrew (from whom I inherited the type descriptors), but it certainly could have been classified as a game with a modified game engine. I think if that happened two type descriptors would have to be created, such as "Erix Mode MM" and "Erix Mode JSW" or something like that, for each category of the game engine.

It's theoretical now, though.

 

That's not to detract from your decision not to waste time categorising your list of games by game engine modifications - a decision which I can very much sympathise with!

I'm glad you do 👍

 

I seem to recall that Igor Makovsky's 'Ultimate Manic Miner'* would merit its own similar reference in the list - I think that Igor modified the JSW64 engine in that game, though I can't recall the details? 

No, I don't think he did, he only used the various functionalities offered by the JSW64 engine ingeniously, creating effects that hadn't been seen before (like Willy shooting, or something like that, I still have to play the game in its entirety). He may have used some slight tweaks (I vaguely recall something related to droplets) based on POKEs provided by John Elliott, but the modifications to the game engine didn't going beyond that, IIRC.

His use of the game engine for things it's not really meant to do actually provoked some criticism. I remember a rather heated discussion on the Yahoo! Group at the time. I *think* it may have contributed to Igor Makovsky's being a little disillusioned with the whole thing - he "marketed" the game very strongly before its release, he evidently put a great effort in creating it and came up with some great graphics and some interesting, novel applications of the game engine (e.g. using multiple Switches, etc.), and he expected a great acclaim after its release (that's my hypothesis only). There were a lot of very positive reactions, obviously, but also some constructive criticism (basically saying: this game engine is not good for some of the things you did here, it would be best to stick to what it's really meant for). I hypothesise that Igor didn't create any other "big" games after that (he only created one 21-room JSW64 game and one 6-room JSW64 game, each dedicated to his girlfriend(s) at the time) in part because of that polemic.

 

Not to mention Norman Sword's numerous major game engine rewrites!

Yes, although these fall into the "Games using other engines" category on JSW Central, as, as you say, they are major rewrites.

 

So for consistency, you either had to make major changes to a lot of the entries in the 'Complete list of MM and JSW games', or else trim out the extraneous detail such as which Geoff Mode applied to the various games by Geoff.

And I opted for the latter.

(*Incidentally, did you ever discover the personal tribute to yourself and many of the other 'Willy old-timers' in Room 54 of 'Ultimate Manic Miner'?)

Yes, it's very nice and greatly appreciated! 🙂 

 

 

[Norman Sword]

Patch mode vector using jp (hl)

Taken from the source code of JSW2. So it is JSW2 mode

[geoff]

It may surprise you to know that I changed the way patch vectors work after reading about how JSWII did them 🙂

[jetsetdanny]

A very positive review of "Willy Does the Great Pyramid!" is here 🙂 👍 .