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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 4140
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 28/04/2004
Subject: Re: Taxonomy of JSW-engines
john_elliott_uk wrote:
>Nice one! Though it would be useful to have an extra column for the
> jgh@a... wrote:
>
>> How aboutx x, giving:
>> JSW48x64x256 - The standard JSW
>> JSW48x128x256 - The JGH 7-bit room patch
>> JSW128x256x256 - John Elliot's JSW for the '128 with 8-bit rooms
>> JSW128x64x1024 - John's new JSW64/JSW128x4
>> MM48x20x1024 - The standard Manic Miner
>
> See <http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Jsw/taxonomy.html> for all the
> JSW engines I can think of at the moment. And If you can think of
> any sane naming scheme which covers all of these, do let me know.
number of bytes per room (256, 1024, &c.).
Erix1 Mode is based on Softricks, as it locates the item-table at
65024 (sacrificing Rooms 62 & 63) rather than 41984. I found this
out when trying SPECSAISIE ItemsJSW on a saved position of Role
Reversal (my beta-test should be finished by the end of the week) -
like Softricks, Erix1-mode games need the "-s" flag for ItemsJSW.
I would consider adding "Geoff Mode 2" - the engine for _ZX Willy
the Bug Slayer_ - to the taxonomy.
There isn't really one single "Andrew Mode", as I've applied various
combinations of patches to my games, namely:
* Jet Set Willy: The Lord of the Rings (player sprite-page +
teleports + accents)
* Goodnite Luddite (24-hour clock + custom font + cyan arrows)
* Party Willy (player sprite-page + 24-hour clock)
* PW128 (ditto + JSW128 mid-game completion patch)
I would add the Manic Miner variants to the taxonomy (you've already
included Manic Miner as the basis for JSW48, after all):
* Bug-Byte edition
* Software Projects edition
* Manic Miner 5 (accents)
* Manic Miner Mythologies: Eugene - Lord of the Bathroom
* MM Patch (where the top 5 bits of border-colour specify whether
the room has VGs, Eugene, KBs, Skylabs & Solar Power)
* Manic Miner: Allana Truman (MM Patch + plays the in-game tune at
half-speed)
I don't know whether you'd want to count MM:AT as a new game-engine,
since my additional patches are very minor (MM:AT also has a cyan
solar-beam that detects Willy's colour-attribute as white on bright
black rather than white on dull green).
When does a patch create a noteworthy variant?
- When it edits the operands of instructions?
- When it replaces instructions without needing code-motion?
- Substantial extensions, i.e. ones that do entail code-motion?
- When data-formats are affected?
- When existing rooms need to be edited to accommodate the patch?
MirrorMM edits the behaviour of the Kong-Beast rooms, the Skylabs
and Solar Power, as well as the title-screen (appearance and tune)
and Game Over screen. As we shall see when I get round to writing
these up in the near future, these just entail editing instruction-
operands - except solar-power mirroring which NOPs out a certain
instruction (reinstating it if it's already NOPped out).
The taxonomy could also be presented as a lattice, given the
dependences between variants - sometimes with multiple inheritance
(i.e. more than one entry in the "Based on" column).
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/download/
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