"Willy Games: The First 30 Years Quiz"

[jetsetdanny]

A quick question to everyone in the run-up to the release of the Quiz. Please answer ASAP  :) .

 

One of the Quiz questions concerns the number of rooms in Vidar Eriksen's game "Manic Miner Mythologies: Eugene - Lord of the Bathroom". It is a game using the MM game engine (modified in various ways). Since it is a MM game, in my question I instinctively used the word "cavern":

 

"Manic Miner Mythologies: Eugene

[Spider]

I would go with Caverns (rooms) possibly. I pick this simply as Richard has in the disassembly described the "screens" in MM as "Caverns" opposed to in JSW where they are described as "Rooms"

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for your speedy reply, Andy :) .

 

Meditating on it further, I've remembered that there are also two questions referring to caverns/rooms in the original "MM". In one of these questions I used the word "room", in the other "cavern". I should make it uniform. I'll go with "cavern", but regarding the original "MM", it's easy, they *are* caverns. With "Eugene - Lord of the Bathroom" it's not so obvious...

Edited December 29, 2016 by jetsetdanny

[jetsetdanny]

OK, I think I've found a solution  :) .

 

It's often good to refer to the text files accompanying games and their authors' intentions. Vidar Ericksen uses the word "levels" consistently in the Readme. That's what I'll do in the Quiz as well - that's fair enough, isn't it?

[IRF]

Sounds fair enough to me.  :)

 

Maybe levels (caverns), just to avoid ambiguity?

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks, Ian, it could be a good solution, too. I'll sleep on it  :) .

[andrewbroad]

I prefer to use

Edited December 30, 2016 by andrewbroad

[IRF]

Also, I did wonder whether 'level' could be interpreted as 'platform'? e.g. the Pair of Atlases rolls across the upper level of The Bathroom in the starting room of original JSW.

[jetsetdanny]

Thank you for your fast replies, Gentlemen, and for all your valuable comments!  :)

 

In the end I have decided to apply the following wording:

 

"Manic Miner Mythologies: Eugene

[jetsetdanny]

I am pleased to announce the release of a brand-new game for the ZX Spectrum 128: "Willy Games: The First 30 Years Quiz".

 

It is a multiple-choice quiz which revolves around Manic Miner (MM) and Jet Set Willy (JSW) games for the ZX Spectrum created between 1983 and 2013 or, to be precise, games which use the MM and JSW game engines, as they do not all feature Willy as protagonist. Over a hundred of them have been gamma-released so far (a full list can be found on JSW Central). Creating and playing them became a hobby - or even more than that: a passion - for many people. If you are a member of this Community, you certainly know why. If people ask you to explain it, though, you could suggest they take a look at my favourite quotations related to the subject.

 

The game makes use of the JSW64 V game engine (developed by John Elliott a decade ago) in a very unorthodox way: to create a multiple-choice quiz rather than a platform game. It is meant to be a "meta-tribute" to MM and JSW games, their authors and everyone else who contributed to their development.

 

The Quiz is divided into four sections: Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert. Each section has 30 questions. I think that it should be possible to pass the first section for someone familiar with the original "JSW", "JSW II: The Final Frontier" and "MM", and with a general knowledge of the subject. Then the Quiz gets progressively more difficult and requires in-depth knowledge of the games that were created after the original trio.

 

I would like to express my special thanks to John Elliott, for his excellent JSW Editor v. 2.3.7, which was the main tool I used to create the game, and for his crucial help with some technical issues, and to Paul Equinox Collins, for his valuable comments on the Quiz questions. Thanks also to Andy Ford (Spider), for his useful suggestions and playtesting the Quiz, and to Richard Dymond (SkoolKid), for his complete JSW and MM disassemblies, which were instrumental in the creation and implementation of the technical novelties introduced in the game.

 

The Readme included in the release ZIP package contains, among other things, more acknowledgements and thanks, instructions, a short history of the development of MM and JSW games for the ZX Spectrum, game history and background information, a description of the title screen, and technical info, including descriptions and disassemblies, about how the program was modified beyond the standard operation of the JSW64 V game engine.

 

"Willy Games: The First 30 Years Quiz" can be downloaded from JSW Central. Have a go at it and see if you are an expert on MM and JSW games!

 

Please download, enjoy, and send me - or post here - any comments you may have, or just mention that you have played the game!  :) 

Daniel Gromann

Edited December 31, 2016 by jetsetdanny