JSW - Willy's Weirdy Nightmare

[SymbolShift]

That's weird, I wrote a long reply to this and it posted, at start of page 2. Now it's totally disappeared, like it never happened. Anyway to get it back, since I don't remember half of what I wrote? 😁

[MtM]

Did you definitely click on submit reply?

[SymbolShift]

Yep, clicked the big blue "Submit Reply" button, and it showed up like it was posted. I refreshed about 20mins later and it vanished, like it was deleted. I thought maybe I clicked on "Preview" instead of "Submit Reply", but that's a small icon and not even next to the submit button. Don't worry about it, it's probably my fault somehow. I'll redo when I get chance.

[Spider]

Not sure what to say about that sorry 😞

I've resynced the this forum which should (if it was there) fix it. It seems it was not saved. There's nothing in the logs recently about any errors.

I have on random occasion have it happen with a PM reply but not the forum itself (but the editor is the same thing)

[SymbolShift]

Hopefully it posts this time... 😄

Before JSW '97, I wrote three other platformers:
The Adventures of Wormface Demo (1993) - my first attempt at MM style
Wheelchair Wizard (1993) - similair to MM, but main character is in a wheelchair!
SkullHunter (1994) - large platformer, similar to JSW

and two Shoot-em-up's:
Rag II (1993) - an intense and addictive asteroid dodging game
Plasma (1993) - a multilevel space invaders type game

These were all pre-internet, so never got released on Aminet like JSW '97. I had no access to any other existing platformer code to write them, it was a case of "try and see if it works". Back then, the only example code you could get was in badly written books, the manual, or in magazines. Looking back the code I wrote was very sloppy, but it got the job done. With every game you learn a bit more.

AMOS still has a following. Francois Lionet, it's creator, moved on to other projects after AMOS, such as Click & Create, and Multimedia Fusion. These were more visually driven creators, rather than traditional code. In theory, this sounds easy and great, but the reality is they are very limiting. A couple of years ago he even announced AMOS-2 for the PC, which has since been renamed AOZ-Studio (terrible name). I was excited about this, until I tried it. Just seemed like a jumbled bloated java mess.

After AMOS, I moved from Amiga to PC and started programming in VB. It was great for making apps, but MS ruined it when they came out with VB.net. My brain is more procedurally wired, but VB.net and almost everything now is OOP. I get why they did this, but they really shafted beginners with this move. BlitzBasic is also worth a mention, and was massively underrated. Andy Noble was using this for a while. However, like most things Blitz died, and the author moved onto other things.

I also used Stencyl several years back, and re-wrote Rag II (now called Basteroids). It's one of the better "drag & drop" creators. I soon ran into limitations. They are pitched as being easier than code, but certain tasks can actually be harder than code! In recent years I've settled on using GameMaker Studio2, which is pretty good. It's a steeper learning curve than others I've used, but it's still powerful. Annoyingly, I still feel that in 2022, many engines still miss features that AMOS and Blitz had, especially when it comes to sprite manipulation. Reason for this is because the Amiga used the Blitter chip, which was so good at dedicated sprite tasks. GameMaker does have a drag & drop mode, but I don't recommend it. It all depends on what your target platform is really. If you want to compile to Android and iOS, then you have limited options. If you want to only create for PC, then Blitz, although discontinued, is still a great option for learning the ropes.

I've never heard of Laser Basic, but the MPAGD looks very interesting!

 

[SymbolShift]

JetSetDanny - I was wondering if you plan to add the Amiga versions to your JSWcentral website?

[jetsetdanny]

No. As per the Scope and principles, "the main interest of this website are games based on MM and JSW game engines for the ZX Spectrum". Hence, "games for other computer platforms which feature Willy or are inspired by JSW or MM are beyond the scope of interest of this website for the time being." 

When I wrote this, I did put "for the time being" to leave a small 'window' open for a possible expansion of the website's scope in the future. That window is still open, but I don't envisage using it in the foreseeable future.

To be honest, my main interest are not really the original "Jet Set Willy" and "Manic Miner" (much as I appreciate and like them). It's the new games created using their excellent game engines (and modified/extended game engines). I created and develop (when new ones appear) the Versions of the original Manic Miner and Versions of the original Jet Set Willy sections mainly because I felt frustrated by the confusion between what I would classify as new games (sometimes the result of hundreds of hours of work or more) and minor mods (sometimes amounting to just a change of a few bytes - producing some interesting effects, but not making it a new game).

[SymbolShift]

19 minutes ago, jetsetdanny said:

No. As per the Scope and principles, "the main interest of this website are games based on MM and JSW game engines for the ZX Spectrum". Hence, "games for other computer platforms which feature Willy or are inspired by JSW or MM are beyond the scope of interest of this website for the time being." 

When I wrote this, I did put "for the time being" to leave a small 'window' open for a possible expansion of the website's scope in the future. That window is still open, but I don't envisage using it in the foreseeable future.

To be honest, my main interest are not really the original "Jet Set Willy" and "Manic Miner" (much as I appreciate and like them). It's the new games created using their excellent game engines (and modified/extended game engines). I created and develop (when new ones appear) the Versions of the original Manic Miner and Versions of the original Jet Set Willy sections mainly because I felt frustrated by the confusion between what I would classify as new games (sometimes the result of hundreds of hours of work or more) and minor mods (sometimes amounting to just a change of a few bytes - producing some interesting effects, but not making it a new game).

That makes sense! With many things in life, one has the draw the line somewhere. I appreciate the explanation.

[MtM]

That makes me think Danny, and I am too lazy to look!, I wonder if there is a site somewhere that is dedicated to

at least listing every known version of MM&JSW, say at least 2 categories, official versions, which would

probably be fairly easy(!) and mods or unofficial versions (much harder as you know.)

 

[Spider]

I do try to feature other platforms here for JSW and MM , although modified/edited games on other platforms using their engines are very few and far between. 🙂