JSW engine should pause briefly when you die

[Sendy The Endless]

Here's a bit of a pet peeve of mine with the JSW engine. When you die unexpectedly, if you're holding down any movement keys, you will instantly move/jump when you respawn, often into a nasty or guardian or off a cliff, wasting several lives until you realize what's going on.

I actually quite like how in the Softricks version, the screen flashes red briefly. Gives you a moment to register that, oh, something killed me, but ideally the pause should last for about half a second.

[Spider]

I did modify the softtricks effect a bit in two ways a couple of years ago, I may have the results still in a text file. Basically I:

1 > Removed the flash of the title screen because it annoyed

2 > Experimented with different speeds of the border effect, although it looks and sounds bad if its too slow.

3 > Put the code somewhere else, a more sane place if I recall, just before or just after where a charset would (have to) live

 

If you just want a quick/dirty fix for the original JSW then:

POKE 35858 , 14 (or 50)

Could be improved on a lot I know.

[jetsetdanny]

There are at least two ways in which the issue of Willy dying several times in a row after getting killed has been addressed, I believe:

1. Safe restart positions. You respawn not where you died, but at a location within the same room where it's safe (you won't die again immediately). I believe (off the top of my head, without checking) that this is something that was initially done in "Jet Set Willy II", but there is also a patch for a regular JSW48 game that does it. My recent description of it is here.

2. Norman Sword's immunity. Right after being killed, Willy is immune to, I believe, any kind of danger for a second or two: he does not get killed by guardians or Fire cells or by falling from an excessive height. Norman has applied it in "Jet Set Willy in Altered Reality" (where Willy is flashing while the immunity lasts) and "Manic Jet Set Willy" (where a receding horizontal bar below the screen shows the immunity) [please note that the JSW Central web page for "Manic Jet Set Willy" needs updating, it's on my to-do list]; possibly also in some other projects, I'm not sure right now without checking. The 'side effect' of this solution is that it in some cases it allows the player to take an alternative route through the game (by sacrificing one life to be able to fall from a great height and land safely, or pass a guardian or a Fire cell that would normally not be passable), which can accelarate the completion time (by sacrificing a life/some lives you can complete the game faster than normal).

[jetsetdanny]

I extended the death effect in "Willy's Hoard" to make it longer (and different) than in the original "JSW" . To quote from the Readme:

I modified the value of the addresses #8C1A - #8C30, copying the code from the 1985 version of "Henry's Hoard", to change the "lose a life" special effect.

[Sendy The Endless]

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about removing Infinite Death Scenarios, rather just giving the player some down-time when they're killed, so they can take their fingers off of the controls and regroup. So a simple delay loop before you respawn, basically.

I like the idea of safe restart points. I used them in my game Trundle's Trials. The only problem with them is that they can let you "death warp" through Promised Lands room boundaries : )

[Spider]

Yes that's one issue with safe restarting points, you can cheat and for instance get to say the other side of a difficult room.

[Spider]

The softricks editor has this change where the "lost a life!" routine lives (35841)

35841: LD A, 201
35843: LD (34965), A
35846: CALL 34835

^ Clear the screen and display the title screen picture with triangle etc

35849: LD A, 1
35851: LD (34965), A
35854: LD B, 50
35856: PUSH BC
35857: LD A, B
35858: CALL 38622
35861: POP BC
35862: DJNZ 35856

^ Call the routine to play a sound. Default use of this is for playing the title screen tune but its used here for a repeating loop. Alter the value of 50 , try 25 or 75.

35864: JP 35891

^ Finished so carry on "as normal" with the code to check if any lives remain

The second (and third) part could be applied easily to an existing game without using the SoftTricks editor or if the game uses it remove the first three instuctions. I'd recommend trying the effects of altering the value of B at 35865 with the default ST game after removing the first three instructions simply as its easier. Then when happy with the delay/effect, apply those to the existing/new game minus the other ST 'extras'

[Spider]

I thought about a 'cruel and unusual' delay for this , I may build a test file tomorrow if I can just of half a dozen rooms to see how annoying it can be. 😉

[IRF]

On 3/19/2023 at 8:05 PM, jetsetdanny said:

The 'side effect' of this solution is that it in some cases it allows the player to take an alternative route through the game (by sacrificing one life to be able to fall from a great height and land safely, or pass a guardian or a Fire cell that would normally not be passable), which can accelarate the completion time (by sacrificing a life/some lives you can complete the game faster than normal).

The most glaring example of that is that it is MUCH easier to access 'Under the Drive' / 'Tree Root' thanks to the immunity - just drop down through one of the Security Guards (twice, first time will kill you but you can survive the second time if you do it fast enough).

[Spider]

Yes problem is you could set the safe restart to the top, but then that also allows a player to cheat if they are not great at that screen, in particular I am not brilliant at moving right to left , when finishing the outer extremes of the game. One solution would be this maybe but its far from ideal.

 

EDIT... My post was eaten 😞 I did write quite a lot before.