Ropes & Arrows

[SymbolShift]

I maybe completely wrong, but I've always felt that ropes & arrows in JSW were an after-thought. Almost like JSW neared completion, then Matt played arcade Hunchback and thought "oh, I like that!", rolled up his sleeves, and headed straight to his TRS-80. Probably some truth in this, since other Hunchback elements were clearly in JSW. Neither ropes or arrows were present in MM, and to me, it feels like they never belonged in the Willy universe.

Both these elements also introduced a new level of unpredictability (which could be considered a good thing!). In MM, you could sit back and study the boundaries of sprites, and almost plan a route in advance. With arrows, their shooting frequency, and location, appears random, and with ropes it's counterintuitive to climb, and to dismount with any degree of accuracy.

The reason I bring this up, is my new game I'm developing has neither ropes or arrows. I could easily add arrows, but I'm hesitant since I've never been a huge fan. Ropes on the other hand are a tricky beast to code from scratch, or at least to emulate their quirky JSW behaviour.

What are your general thoughts of Ropes, Arrows, and is it blasphemous to exclude them in a new JSW game?

[MtM]

This is a good and interesting post! Not something I had thought of really before about MM / JSW. I suppose it seemed like a logical progression, JSW is a more complex game than MM, and ropes and arrows fit in and are part of that complexity. Not sure I would agree with an afterthought by MS, only personal opinion of course, but Hunchback was what, 1980 in the arcades, 81 at the latest? So it predates MM by several years and was a really popular arcade game of its time, I put enough 10ps in to last a lifetime, I loved it, and finished it actually once or twice, well, got to round 15 and then it all changed as I remember.

 

Anyway, ropes and arrows seemed to be coherent to me in JSW, due to their complexity and MS's improving coding skills maybe too.

 

I love ropes! I don't know if you have ever played Turmoil on the Spectrum by David Turner, it is a spell blinding game, full of short ropes, very very difficult but not quite as hard as Technical Ted I would say. Ropes seem to be the ultimate mode of transport in a platform, especially a flick screen platformer. If you think of conveyors, moving platforms such as in Chuckie Egg / elevators etc., nothing quite matches a rope. The chutes in Bounty Bob are pretty good too, but not so controllable, perhaps the fact you remain in control of Willy the same on a rope as elsewhere makes it a positive experience.

 

So I would love to see them in a new JSW game. Perhaps JSWDanny can name a few mods etc. that feature ropes, I cannot think of any but that is not surprising!

I would definitely aim for ropes and arrows in your game SymbolShift. How about a diagonal arrow as a challenge? Or one with an arc, where you had to run under the arc?

Good topic though. Maybe Norman has some ideas if it is possible or how hard it is to do?

 

[SymbolShift]

14 minutes ago, MtM said:

This is a good and interesting post! Not something I had thought of really before about MM / JSW. I suppose it seemed like a logical progression, JSW is a more complex game than MM, and ropes and arrows fit in and are part of that complexity. Not sure I would agree with an afterthought by MS, only personal opinion of course, but Hunchback was what, 1980 in the arcades, 81 at the latest? So it predates MM by several years and was a really popular arcade game of its time, I put enough 10ps in to last a lifetime, I loved it, and finished it actually once or twice, well, got to round 15 and then it all changed as I remember.

 

Anyway, ropes and arrows seemed to be coherent to me in JSW, due to their complexity and MS's improving coding skills maybe too.

 

I love ropes! I don't know if you have ever played Turmoil on the Spectrum by David Turner, it is a spell blinding game, full of short ropes, very very difficult but not quite as hard as Technical Ted I would say. Ropes seem to be the ultimate mode of transport in a platform, especially a flick screen platformer. If you think of conveyors, moving platforms such as in Chuckie Egg / elevators etc., nothing quite matches a rope. The chutes in Bounty Bob are pretty good too, but not so controllable, perhaps the fact you remain in control of Willy the same on a rope as elsewhere makes it a positive experience.

 

So I would love to see them in a new JSW game. Perhaps JSWDanny can name a few mods etc. that feature ropes, I cannot think of any but that is not surprising!

I would definitely aim for ropes and arrows in your game SymbolShift. How about a diagonal arrow as a challenge? Or one with an arc, where you had to run under the arc?

Good topic though. Maybe Norman has some ideas if it is possible or how hard it is to do?

 

Thanks for your input MtM. It's possible Matt saw them in Hunchback and just thought they would be a good fit, and was wanting to add something extra to JSW. According to Wikipedia, Hunchback came out on the arcade in 1983 (time of JSW writing), but was not ported until 1984.

Yes, I'm familiar with Turmoil, great game! It's a good example of a swinging rope, from 1984. Lots of games around that time used vertical ropes, and ladders, rather than swinging ropes.

[jetsetdanny]

For me, ropes are a great part of the charm of JSW. They are cool in the way they are designed, pleasing aesthetically, and they allow for nice gameplay features - like Willy falling down through several rooms, seemingly to a certain death, and then landing safely on a rope. I love ropes in JSW 🙂.

Arrows are also a feature of the game I like a lot, especially the warning sound before they appear. It's always been a little part of the magic for me.

It's just a personal opinion since you've asked, not meant to influence your choice of whether or not to have them in your game, SymbolShift 🙂 .

[jetsetdanny]

2 hours ago, MtM said:

So I would love to see them in a new JSW game. Perhaps JSWDanny can name a few mods etc. that feature ropes, I cannot think of any but that is not surprising!

Well, a significant majority of new JSW games use ropes, I would say. The ones that don't use them are few and far between, I believe. 

Ropes in JSW games have undergone a serious development over the years. A lot of new elements have been introduced, including:

- ropes with new parameters (position, length and swing) than the one in the original JSW;

- still ropes;

- multiples ropes in one room;

- invalid ropes (winding into the adjacent room, so to speak);

- killer ropes (that kill Willy when he touches them);

- the effect that Willy gets picked up by the rope no matter where he is in the room when the rope touches something else - interesting challenges have been built around it because of the time constraints it introduces;

- ropes that allow you to cross solid walls;

- ropes that are used during the toilet run as additional challenges that the player has to overcome before completing the game;

- ropes used as starting points for other quirky challenges (such as a jump through an Innocent-Looking Block that has to be effectuated from the rope, possible from only one position).

I have probably missed a couple of things, writing this off the top of my head. A whole dissertation could probably be written about the use of ropes in JSW! 

Incidentally, a similar creative evolution has also happened with arrows (perhaps a little more restricted because of their character), with the introduction of arrows of different shapes and colours, invalid arrows producing special effects (such as moving platforms), etc.

[CPL]

I've just added ropes to my scrolling JSW remake (done in Game Maker Studio 2 - nothing elaborate). I got the data from the disassembly. They aren't as complicated to implement as you might think. 

I won't go into it if you've decided you definitely don't want them, but if you're interested I can post an explanation of how they work.

[SymbolShift]

On 4/26/2022 at 6:04 AM, CPL said:

I've just added ropes to my scrolling JSW remake (done in Game Maker Studio 2 - nothing elaborate). I got the data from the disassembly. They aren't as complicated to implement as you might think. 

I won't go into it if you've decided you definitely don't want them, but if you're interested I can post an explanation of how they work.

Sounds like you are the person to talk to! I would totally implement ropes in my version, if I could wrap my head around it (which is coincidentally also in GMS2!). I think I could "probably" figure out how to make it swing, but I feel like my "Willy platform detection code" would completely break if I tried to make him attach to the rope. I'm not using any physics, so the walk/jump/landing code is written from scratch. I had the hardest time just getting ramps working, since they break the "stick to the nearest horizontal 8 pixel rule".

An explanation of how ropes work, especially from a GMS2 perspective, would be amazing!!

Edited April 27, 2022 by SymbolShift

[Norman Sword]

In zx spectrum JSw and JSW2 and JSW2+. When Willy is walking along he is always aligned to a character cell. When Willy is above a ramp/stair he is still aligned to a character cell, but is drawn with a displacement. When Willy appears to walk diagonally up or down a stair. He actually walks in steps of one char up and down the stairs. It is the displacement code the makes him appear to walk diagonally.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Norman Sword
SpeLiKing

[SymbolShift]

30 minutes ago, Norman Sword said:

In zx spectrum JSw and JSW2 and JSW2+. When Willy is walking along he is always aligned to a character cell. When Willy is above a ramp/stair he is still aligned to a charecter cell, but is drawn with a displacement. When Willy appears to walk diagonally up or down a stair. He actually walks in steps of one char up and down the stairs. It is the displacement code the makes him appear to walk diagonally.

Thanks Norman, that is good to know! Do you know how the displacement works when being on a rope? that's what creates the headaches for me.

[Norman Sword]

Assuming you can draw the rope. Starting at the top we count the pixels drawn for the rope draw.  

If Not attached to the rope. Each cell drawn is tested for collision. if collision then willy is attached to the rope at that point. 

If attached to the rope. The cell that is assigned as the collision point (as above) is used as the x,y position to draw Willy - (slight shift adjustment needed in zx spectrum code)

To move on the rope the point of collision is moved up or down the rope 

To detach from the rope. A timer is set and Willy is cell aligned and exits from the rope.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Norman Sword