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Message: 3736

Author: Carl Woffenden

Date: 14/09/2003

Subject: Re: [Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy] Re: Announce: Update to JavaScr

 

Thanks for you feedback, Andrew. That's by far the most comprehensive
list I've received!

> I'm playing it under Internet Explorer 5 on a Tiny M840 laptop PC with
> a PIII 600 processor):

I didn't test much is IE 5.0 on Windows as it doesn't quite do certain
things right. The PIII *should* be fine though as I wrote the entire
thing on my ancient G3 PowerBook.

> 1. There's a bug where the screen suddenly scrolls up

This is an IE 5.0 bug - it doesn't happen with any other browser/OS
combination. It's not on my list of things to fix any time soon.

> 2. Usually when I restart the game I get a "Stack overflow at line: 0"
> pop-up error

I thought I was the only person in the entire world to have seen this -
it's caused in the callback to the image preloader. It's an IE/Windows
only thing and is a high priority fix.

> 3. Upon restarting the game, the room-titles, scores and remaining
> lives sometimes disappear.

Titles and scoring was rather quickly. This will all be re-written to
match the original.

> 4. The jumping is inaccurate with respect to the Spectrum-version

Oh? I thought I had it right this time - I'll look properly into this.

> 5. I miss the sound.

I would love to add sound but there's no easy way of doing it cross
platform. I have a choice of adding samples using a hidden Flash movie,
Java applet or other plug-in, or writing a programmable sound generator
plug-in (possibly applet) for beeper effects. None of the ways are
satisfactory as they take it away from the simple
just-works-in-any-browser vision I had.

> 6. I miss the Game Over screen.

It will be added. I dunno when I'll have the time, though.

> 7. As a Spectrum-purist, I miss the colour-clash. ;-)

I toyed with the idea for a long time but it just simply wasn't
practical. To be honest, writing a game in JavaScript isn't practical
either!

> 8. I miss my usual keys (O & P for left & right, Enter to start the
> game, and the PAUSE-BUTTON).

P causes Opera to print (and usually crash). Any alpha key causes
Mozilla to search for links/words beginning with that letter, hence the
cursor keys.

> 9. The speed is erratic (mostly too slow, but then it speeds up... and
> slows down again...).

This could be a whole host of things - from the speed of your CPU to
the dodgy IE browser. JavaScript isn't exactly designed for gaming but
I haven't had many grumbles about the game speed.

> 10. There's sometimes a long delay in starting the game or between
> caverns.

This is usually due to the level graphics being dragged across the
internet - I intend to add a progress bar.

> 11. The portal consumes you a step too soon (a step too late when
> jumping up into it from below).

I'll look into this.

> 12. The playing-area doesn't go black and blue when you complete a
> cavern.

Not really possible without loading in extra coloured versions of the
graphics.

> 13. There's no way to stop the remaining lives animating.

Too be fixes.

> 14. I seem to be finishing the caverns with less air left than on the
> Spectrum.

Mmm. I'm starting the levels off with the right amount of air, I think.
Are you roughly getting the same scores?

> 15. In "Eugene's Lair", you can't jump over the static nasty and land
> inside the wall. This is the major problem with all of the non-
> Spectrum MM/JSW games that I have played

I have been checking and adding these. I'll further into it.

> 16. In "Processing Plant", you miss the item when emerging from under
> the wall holding jump

I spotted this recently, since I fiddled with the jump code. It will be
fixed.

> 17. You can't stop on a conveyor by jumping up and holding the
> opposite direction

Not something I'd intended. Again, I'll look into it.

> On the other hand, you /can/ jump straight up onto a conveyor and then
> jump in the opposite direction!

I couldn't have missed this one out!

> 18. The falling Kong Beast is red!

I thought it was supposed to be red!? It was in the Jester releases, so
I might have just got all confused.

> (Tell Mikey I have good news...)

??

> 19. Collision-detection for guardians appears to be position-based
> rather than pixel-based

I wrote a pixel-based routine but the data were too big for modem uses
(it's not possible to access pixels from JavaScript so a text encoded
bitmask was needed for each sprite). I *might* add this back in.

> 20. You can fall onto a conveyor and walk the wrong way on it

I thought I'd fixed this. Oh well!

> 21. In "The Sixteenth Cavern", you can fall through the portal and
> collect the item.

I'll probably leave this in.

> 23. The conveyor-animation in "Amoebatrons' Revenge" is missing.

I classed it as a mistake in the original and removed it. I suppose I
could add it back in.

> 24. No solar power.

In JavaScript?! I couldn't even muster up the processing power to do
this on the Mobile versions I wrote. It's possible that this will be
added later.

> 25. No Room 19 picture.

To be fixed.

> 26. You cannot use the wall to stop on the conveyor in "The Final
> Barrier".

Don't know what you mean? Can you do a screen grab/movie capture?

> 27. No swordfish when you complete "The Final Barrier" (unless this is
> because I got there by teleporting ;-) ).

To be added.

> 28. No extra life every 10000 points.

To be added.

Thanks again for all your help!

Regards,

Carl.

 

 

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