Gaming competitively and how it applies to Miner Willy

[DigitalDuck]

So speedrunning and score attacking Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy have been around for as long as the games have, in various forms, and I'd argue make the game much more fun than merely playing "for completion". However, I wanted to make a post to highlight some things that go on outside the circles here that CPL, crem, and RuffledBricks have kinda introduced but maybe weren't fully understood due to differences in terminology. So let's cover the terminology, as used by the competitive gaming scene in general:

Score attack: only applicable to games which have a score counter, the object is to get the highest score possible. If two players earn the same score, the winner is typically the one who achieved that score more quickly. Manic Miner is the only game in the series to have an explicit score counter, but you could argue the item count in JSW2 is also a score of sorts. In both cases, there is otherwise optional content that must be done to maximise score: defeating the Kong Beasts in Manic Miner, and collecting all items in JSW2.

Speedrun: in a speedrun, the object is to complete the game as quickly as possible. Sometimes there will be additional optional restraints placed, for example "no deaths allowed", "no glitches allowed", "must collect all items"; these are typically known as "categories", and competitions usually occur within individual categories. Any of the Miner Willy games can be speedrun; JSW2 even includes an in-game timer which can be used.

Both of these can be split further into three types, depending on how the run is performed:

Real-time: this refers to completing the run from start to finish in one go, without the use of any additional tools like rollback or snapshots. "Score attack" or "speedrun" by themselves usually imply real-time, but not necessarily depending on context.

Segmented: this is also without the use of any additional tools like rollback or snapshots, but rather than require the entire run be completed in one go, it is split into "segments", usually through the use of in-game saves. You could split Manic Miner per-level, using the in-game cheat to select a level and then try to complete that level with the best time or highest score possible. You take as many attempts as you like to optimise that one level, and then move onto the next. These scores and times are usually kept by themselves, in the form of Individual Levels (ILs); but once you've completed all segments to your satisfaction, you could combine the segments and get a total score or time that way, although this is rarely done in the case of score attacks.

Tool-assisted: this refers to completing the run using additional tools not intended for use with the game. This includes rollback, snapshots, savestates, and frame advance. You can essentially micro-segment this way, and then recombine everything to get a total score or time at the end of it. Most tools store the inputs along the way so it can be replayed as though it was done in real-time; this is how .rzx works, for example, and the majority of .rzx recordings are tool-assisted as they use rollback.

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So with that out of the way, there are four major sites for competitive gaming; Twin Galaxies primarily deals with real-time score attacks; Speedrun.com primarily deals with both real-time and segmented speedruns; Speed Demos Archive primarily deals with segmented speedruns; and TASVideos primarily deals with both tool-assisted score attacks and tool-assisted speedruns.

 

For real-time speedruns, I've set up and run boards on Speedrun.com. Video evidence is required, but you don't need to have a timer on-screen - we're capable of verifying the time ourselves.

Manic Miner has two major categories:

• 1 loop requires reaching the swordfish as quickly as possible; the Spectrum record is held by CPL with a time of 13:24.
• Kong Beast requires defeating the Kong Beast as quickly as possible; the Spectrum record is also held by CPL with a time of 4:35.

These categories have sub-categories, meaning that there are separate leaderboards within these; these are effectively just major versions of the game, as it's not fair to compare versions with different level designs etc. In addition, the Game Boy Advance and SAM Coupe have their own categories as they have multiple level sets.

Jet Set Willy has three major categories:

• any% (a common way in speedrunning to say "just beat the game by any means necessary") requires reaching the toilet as quickly as possible; the Spectrum record is held by myself with a time of 19:01, however this is more of a technicality as RuffledBricks' run was performed on the slower 128K; his run is better and you should definitely learn from that run instead.
• Warpless requires reaching the toilet as quickly as possible, without using unintended room exits (defined as the upwards exits in Rescue Esmerelda, On the Roof, Watch Tower, and The Beach); the Spectrum record is held by RuffledBricks with a time of 21:59.
• Max Lives requires reaching the toilet as quickly as possible, without any unnecessary loss of life; the Spectrum record is also held by RuffledBricks with a time of 22:19.

These categories also have sub-categories for versions; the 2015 bugfix is one such sub-category as it's a notable mod that fixes issues in the game without adding content. There's also a WRITETYPER category, in which the WRITETYPER cheat is allowed to help you beat the game, but that one's more for fun.

Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier has four major categories:

• any% requires reaching Central Cavern as quickly as possible; I'm the only one with a recorded Spectrum run with a time of 29:26 (or 55:04 using the in-game timer), and I completely understand why.
• 100% requires reaching Central Cavern as quickly as possible having completed every item and visited every possible room in the game; nobody has submitted a Spectrum run and I also completely understand why.
• Cartography Room requires reaching the Cartography Room as quickly as possible; the Spectrum record is held by myself with a time of 1:57 (IGT of 3:24).
• Cartography Room Item requires collecting the item in the Cartography Room as quickly as possible; the Spectrum record is held by myself with a time of 3:12 (IGT of 5:54).

Once again there are sub-categories for versions; JSW2+e.22 is more popular than the original game, probably because it's actually playable. In addition, the C16 version has its own category as it has multiple levels.

Finally, Multiple Miner Willy games is just beating all three games one after the other, also known as the "Willogy". I'm the only one with a recorded Spectrum run with a time of 1:03:32, which isn't a surprise as it's also the only run I actually managed to complete.

 

For tool-assisted runs, I've submitted a few runs to TASVideos; the Miner Willy-related runs are Manic Miner (with a lot of help from crem), Jet Set Willy,  and Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier. Runs on TASVideos are timed differently - rather than starting the timer when you begin playing, they are timed from the moment the computer is turned on until they very last key or button is released, but it's possible to get a real-time equivalent by simply timing the portion that's normally timed in a real-time speedrun. These are listed in the commentary for each run (found by clicking the "Author notes" button). With these, my tool-assisted Willogy time is 51:54.814, more than 11.5 minutes faster than my real-time run.

I'm going to continue doing tool-assisted runs for the Miner Willy games, both alternative goal choices for the original games as well as notable mods for the series. So I guess the question is, what would you like to see?

[CPL]

It would be great to see more runs submitted. So get involved!

DigitalDuck did briefly touch on this in his post, but to be fair to everyone who thinks they might like to try it, it should be said explicitly with relation to the Speedrun variant - The Miner Willy games run faster on a +2A than a 48K. I think 3 also runs at the same speed? Better known is the fact that they run faster with the music off. So if emulating, use +2A and switch the music off. Check speedrun.com for emulator restrictions.

I'll also say that RuffledBricks has a great set of tutorials of how to speedrun them on youtube. It's how I got started, with a few additional route modifications that were revealed by crem's algorithm solutions.

Edited October 4, 2023 by CPL

[DigitalDuck]

My Jet Set Willy II+ TAS has just been published to TASVideos, so now I've done the full set of official/semi-official Miner Willy games.

I'll probably focus on some other games for a bit before I come back to Miner Willy, but when I do some things I'm thinking of working on:

• Manic Miner GBA - there's already one TAS for this but I think it can be improved upon using some of the things we found for the Spectrum version.
• Manic Miner Max Score (no deaths) - since this is how the game is typically played competitively, I should package this together at some point as well, even though it will be 85% identical to the existing run.
• Jet Set Willy WRITETYPER - I've done it myself in real-time in under 3 minutes and seen RuffledBricks do it even faster, so I think it'd be fun to see just how quickly it could be done if you had superhuman reflexes and three hands.
• Jet Set Willy II/+ 100% - visit all rooms, collect all items. It's a lot more work but it would be nice to actually show off some of the more interesting parts of the game.
• Some notable mods - typically these are frowned upon but exceptions can be made for those that are sufficiently different to the originals and provide something new and unique. I'm thinking JSW Nightmare Edition, Manic Panic, and JSW Altered Reality as candidates, as they all do interesting things and would make entertaining viewing when played "perfectly".

[jetsetdanny]

On 11/16/2023 at 11:18 AM, DigitalDuck said:

Some notable mods - typically these are frowned upon

Why? Many of them are actually much better (more interesting, better graphically, more challenging, etc.) than the original games.

[DigitalDuck]

19 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

Why? Many of them are actually much better (more interesting, better graphically, more challenging, etc.) than the original games.

If they allowed mods in general, you'd have an issue where the site is flooded with the most minor of mods in which there's basically no difference between them and the original game. It makes sense that they only want mods which are effectively completely new games. It just means that there's a higher standard to meet for acceptance.

[jetsetdanny]

They could use the lists on JSW Central to define the difference 😉. One of the things I feel very strongly about is the difference between what can be considered new games and the 'versions and minor mods' of the two original games. JSW Central makes this distinction very clear by placing them on different lists: one for new games, and two others for the minor mods and versions of MM and of JSW, respectively. Just a suggestion 😉.

[DigitalDuck]

11 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

They could use the lists on JSW Central to define the difference 😉. One of the things I feel very strongly about is the difference between what can be considered new games and the 'versions and minor mods' of the two original games. JSW Central makes this distinction very clear by placing them on different lists: one for new games, and two others for the minor mods and versions of MM and of JSW, respectively. Just a suggestion 😉.

I'll definitely use it to help justify the inclusion of any runs I do. I'm certainly not going to do the whole list though...

[jetsetdanny]

That's great, thank you! 👍

[DigitalDuck]

Manic Miner "maximum score" TAS has just been published to TASVideos. I originally submitted it as "maximum score, no deaths" as it's possible to score infinitely high otherwise, but I'm not in charge of the final naming. Total gameplay time is 2:17:43.