Manic Jet Set Willy.

[Spider]

Thanks again for the updates 😄 🙂

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for the update, Norman Sword! I am looking forward to playing the game this weekend 🙂 . Will report back, obviously.

[jetsetdanny]

OK, I've played the game to as far as I believe is possible.

Thanks for this offering, Norman Sword, it's a great addition to Miner Willy's weird universe 👍.

Completability:

I believe this version of the game is incompletable due to a bug in "Amoebatrons' Revenge". The conveyor there is invisible (which is not a problem, although it would probably be better if it was visible) and it goes rightwards. Since Willy lands on it jumping from a platform located at a higher level, he cannot walk to the left on the conveyor. This makes it impossible to complete this room AFAICT.

Other comments:

Squeezing both of these classic games into one 48K file is a great technical achievement, Norman Sword! Congratulations! 🙂 

The game runs extremely fast. My personal preference is for a game not to run that fast. The speed of JSW II would be optimal for me. I probably made a similar comment regarding "Manic Panic". This is just an expression of a personal preference, not criticism. IF options were still to be added to this otherwise impressive product, giving various speed options would be one I would put forward (it would probably be too much to ask for, though).

In the JSW part, since there are some item-related details that depart from the original JSW (the cross placed in "Top Landing", the separation of the two items on the beach - both elements are nice IMPO), I would suggest considering fixing "Conservatory Roof" so that all items there can be collected without loss of life. It would be nice to be able to complete the game without losing a single life.

The short-term immunity feature after losing a life is nice. It allows for some things you couldn't do in the original JSW (which is fine from my point of view), such as passing through "Entrance to Hades" and landing in "Off License" (nice, but not useful) or jumping from "Out on a limb" and landing in "The Security Guard" (this could save some time when playing while sacrificing lives for the sake of speedier completion).

The special effect at the end of the JSW part is very nice. Interestingly, putting (...) (I am omitting a word here to avoid spoilers) in "The Bathroom" is exactly what John Elliott did in his JSW64 (to demonstrate the features of his extended 128K game engine). I am 90% sure you did it without knowing what John did. This only proves that great minds think alive, if you will allow me to say so 🙂 .

The idea of losing cash because time is passing works very well in this game. However, given the "Britishness" of the original game and the virtual absence of Americans from the scene, the "$" sign might not be optimal, perhaps. A "£" sign would possibly be more appropriate, or better still - a Bitcoin sign (the doubly-crossed "B") would be even better in this day and age, if you managed to add the graphics 🙂. Just a thought (personally, I don't mind the "$" sign at all, since I'm not British and happen to be (temporarily) living in the U.S.).

Gaining money at the end makes one feel good! 🙂  It is a great reward, very suitable for the theme of this game/these games and very gratifying 👍.

The modified effect when losing a life makes this experience even more unpleasant than in the original 😄.

In the MM part, I didn't try to check exactly if the game is faithful to the original. Two differences I noted (without paying a special attention to this question) are:

- the range of the movement of the guardian at the ground level of "Attack of the Mutant Telephones" (much shorter than in the original);

- the sprite of the white horizontal guardian in "The Bank".

In both cases, I like the modifications. I'm mentioning them just in case your main goal was to reproduce the original as faithfully as possible - these are differences one notes easily.

The effect when the player reaches the portal after collecting all items is different from the original. I couldn't help but think that if you applied some flashing of the whole screen (something along the lines of the lose-a-life effect in the JSW part, I imagine the code is there to use) when Willy reaches the portal, it would create an effect superior to the current one (just an idea).

I think that's it for the moment. Thank you for giving us this excellent product, Norman Sword, and the pleasure of playtesting it 🙂 . The recorded result of my playtest is attached below.

I hope I have given you some food for thought, and I am definitely looking forward to v. 1.03 I know will be forthcoming 😉 .

Manic JSW v. 1.02 - Daniel's playtest.rzx

[MtM]

What excellent feedback Danny, I don't know how you find the time to do it. I will await Norman's response before I try and complete it over Christmas 😉

 

 

I agree with the speed comments too, just a bit quick for me.

 

Just watched the rex file all the way through Danny, top work, and I see what you mean about the conveyor / platform in Amoebatrons Revenge.

Edited December 12, 2021 by MtM

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks, MtM 🙂 .

While I generally prefer a slower pace in a JSW game, the good thing about the speed is that it takes less time in real world to complete the game 😉.

[Norman Sword]

Amoebatrons' revenge:

The data for the conveyor in the original Manic Miner. As defined in the Skoolkit disassembly.  (BELOW)

The next four bytes are copied to 806F and specify the direction, location and length of the (unused) conveyor.
#F66F    DEFB #01    Direction (right)
#F670    DEFW #7827    Location in the screen buffer at 7000: (9,7)
#F672    DEFB #03    Length

My extraction code picked up the data and generated the necessary compacted data. Which due to code change was created as an active conveyor. The created data has now been deleted to remove the conveyor.

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

currency changed to British Pound

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I have updated the animation in the game completed screen. Something that has not been seen so far.

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- the sprite of the white horizontal guardian in "The Bank".
The limit of the bouncing check is the vertical sprites either side. No change.

- the range of the movement of the guardian at the ground level of "Attack of the Mutant Telephones" (much shorter than in the original);

changed: was 15 to 19, should have been 5 to 19

also slowed down the middle green horizontal sprite

Duplicating the original sprite movement is more along the lines of ensuring it is completable. In the Manic Miner part, I can/could use any combination of sprites in any cavern. Even take the available JSW sprites. Similarly I could use the Manic Miner sprites in the JSW part of the game if I wanted to. 
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I will watch the run through - Might increase the bonus for Kong's demise.

I have increased the bonus for dropping Kong from his perch

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Changed the portal flash. This involves simply putting it back to the original routine I wrote. It was shortened to make the delay between rooms shorter.

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 I would suggest considering fixing "Conservatory Roof" so that all items there can be collected without loss of life. It would be nice to be able to complete the game without losing a single life.
 
I will see how difficult that is... All the data is compressed, would need to go back as far as the original data and change that, then assemble. Copy move directories - run another program, load my extraction code, run that, extract the data, go through the data and extract the compacted data for that room. Mmmmm..

After a few rounds of doing the above sequence, then playing the game through to the conservatory and not seeing what I wanted. I realised I needed to also change the original objects data as well. Moving the nasties and leaving the objects from the original data on top of the moved nasties. Caused the extraction routine to delete the unseen nasties. 

The object placement and the nasties are now different.

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The speed.
The music routine (in game music) plays the notes for a longer time than the original, which already slows the game down. I will see how much memory is available at present to add yet more code.

Change is keyboard key usage and options. The keyboard group <HJKL> and <enter> used to toggle music on and off. This has been changed to using just the keyboard <enter> key. The keyboard keys <H> and <J> now have a different purpose.

Change in how the music is played. To facilitate changing the speed, the music routine can not be turned off. What the music on/off via just the <enter> key does. Is to enable or disable the toggling of the speaker diaphragm. When the toggling is enabled the speaker diaphragm moves back and forth and you hear sound. When the toggling is disabled the speaker diaphragm is left in one state, and no sound is produced. This means the game is played at a steady state. There being no change in speed between music on and music off. The dancing Willies will indicate as usual the status of the music routine.

As mentioned above the music is toggled on/off solely by the <enter> key. The reason is that the keyboard keys <H> and <J> will alter the length of the music notes, and by extension to doing that, alter the speed of the game.

The keyboard key <H> will move the visual indicator bar left. Making the notes shorter and visual bar shorter.
The keyboard key <J> will move the visual indicator bar right. Making the notes longer and the visual bar longer.

If music is playing it should be obvious what is happening to the length of the music notes. As the notes get longer and longer the game will get slower and slower. Conversely as the notes get shorter and shorter the game will speed up. It will go from long notes to short note clicks.

The screen will show a music speed bar above the time, the longer the bar, the longer the notes being played.
    

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caterpillar logic and movement.

Unlike all the sprites in JSW and Manic Miner the movement of the caterpillar is not linear. It moves in a sinusoidal path. 

I did at one stage expand the logic to do very slow sinusoidal movement, and concluded ---- No one will actually notice, so reduced the data.

;-----------------------------

Down to just a couple of bytes of free memory.

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Obsolete version v1.03 deleted - Downloaded 9 times

 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Norman Sword
Corroctung mystakes

[Norman Sword]

Thanks for playtesting the game through to this point. I play through dozens of caverns/rooms for each change I make. After a bit I loose interest. I write logic code, the playing part is nowhere near as ineteresting to do, as the code is to write.  

Getting very close to not doing any more on this game (namely- Manic Miner / Jet set Will/ Manic Panic /Manic Jet set willy and all the other versions I have written). The time it takes is excessive, and I can not see any challenge that I am prepared to do or want to do at this moment.  The modern trend is just get a faster processor, and a bigger amount of memory. To write a note for the milkman, instead of it being a few bytes printed out, is now a few megabytes of data, printed in a fancy script and then printed out. It still says "NO MILK TODAY" 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Norman Sword

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for v. 1.03, Norman Sword, and the detailed description of the updates! Once again, they sound very impressive 🙂 .

I will do my best to playtest this version this coming week, real-world obligations permitting. I am looking forward to it, too!

If you don't do anything else on Manic Miner / Jet Set Willy/ Manic Panic/ Manic Jet Set Willy, does it mean you won't do anything else MM/JSW-related, or that perhaps you'll work on some brand-new project?

[Norman Sword]

I did update some of the graphics and displays. With no change in the gameplay as such. The update was held back and would/will not be published if a playthrough had appeared or is pending.

The up dates are trivial screen and logic changes.

•  Added a Norman Sword onto the title page. .

•  The playing screen now removes all the air bar when all the air is depleted in Manic Miner

•  The playing screen displays the music speed slightly different. I was not happy with the old display.

1.    The playing speeds are also shifted towards the faster game speeds.

• Cheat mode - yes there is one.

1.      Will only play JSW screens.
2.     Can not be used in MM screens.
3.     Will not allow access to the undefined rooms.
4.     Is deactivated on game completion. (e.g. the auto play modes)
5.    Displays a screen activated marker.

 

Runs and plays in 48k not in 48Megabytes.
 

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Norman Sword
spelilng

[Spider]

1 hour ago, Norman Sword said:

The update was held back and would/will not be published if a playthrough had appeared or is pending

I appreciate the updates. 🙂

Its sometimes the smaller things cosmetic that upon reflection later we think "I could tweak that a bit more"

I'm not sure if any playtesting is pending as such, I do plan on doing one tomorrow or Thursday as soon as all the erm chaos in "real life" dies down a bit. 🙂