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Message: 1969

Author: andrewbroad

Date: 21/02/2001

Subject: Invalid Arrow Technology / Invalid Ramps

 

yes. with a bit of fine-tuning this allows you to create moving-platforms, moving-holes-in-the-ground, moving-nasty-blocks, floors with moving-nasty-patches on them, platforms which are snatched from under your feet, and platforms which suddenly appear to help you. (all of which appear in WGDTB. i call it 'invalid arrow

technology' :)

Wow! Yes, there's certainly plenty of
mileage in invalid arrows! I guess you could do JSW I
versions of "The TRUBBLE with TRIBBLES" and "Highway to
Hell" that way! :-)

i'm not sure i get this

whole 218 = 255 thing ?:)?.

i was referring to ramps with a value other than 0 or

1.

Offset 218 holds the direction of the ramp, which is
ordinarily 0 or 1, but 255 in the case we're talking
about.

invalid ramp air - chaos

:)

I take it that's not just the springy platforms

seen in We Pretty and JSW(again)?

(background colour = ramp colour) "

well, same principle, but the ramp is invalid, and

the results are *much* more voletile.

i recommend people try it - it opens up a whole new

can of worms as far as quirky features goes!
(heard of the expression - "everything you know
is wrong!"? :).

Sounds very exciting! (for
want of a more profound reply ;-) )

as

there are 254 invalid values, there is also
plenty of room for experimentation, although
most of the values seem to give tediously
similar variations on a theme.

We ought to go
through the room formats for MM and JSW, and try out all
the invalid values for everything! :-)
the interesting thing about discovering quirky

features is the increasing possibilities for combining them all into more complex

situations.

it's probably limitless, and it forces you to see beyond the '4 block types, ramp and a

conveyor' of it all and really get those grey
cells moving!

Yes indeed. Combination is a key
feature of good MM/JSW design, and we are already
starting to derive higher-level features from the
primitive features (my list of quirky features consists of
mainly primitive features, although I haven't actually
attempted to declare a set of primitives).

The
possibilities are fundamentally finite, though - just as there
are 2^8 = 256 possible values for a single byte,
there are 2^(8*256) possible JSW rooms (possible bit
combinations for 256 bytes), but that's as good as infinite to
all intents and purposes! ;-) Of course, most of
these possible rooms are invalid, but it would be
interesting to explore some of these!

--
Andrew
Broad
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/

 

 

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