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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 4313
Author: jet_visy
Date: 04/07/2004
Subject: A short article about MM&JSW editing, comments?
I've written a short article about MM&JSW for a finnish demoscene mag,
The [ALT]mag, and the party itself is Altparty.
More info on it at it's website:
http://www.altparty.org
I _think_ there may be factual errors, or that something may
be missing. That's why I'm asking you for creative comments
about my article. All critisism and possible fixes to errors
are more than welcome.
Article below:
---
Miner Miner and Jet Set Willy - a look into the remake scene
by Visa-Valtteri "visy^tukka" Pimiä, 2004.
Introduction
Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner were two platform games from the 80s by
Matthew Smith.
Miner Miner was released by Bug-Byte and later by Software Projects,
as was Jet Set Willy for
The ZX Spectrum home computer in US, which was the most popular there
in the time.
The games stood out from other games because of their high
playability, then cutting-edge graphics
and right amount of difficulty. Manic Miner has highly popular, so
soon after fans began to
demand a sequel for Manic Miner. Jet Set Willy was one of the most
anxiously waited games ever to be released.
It was sold out very quickly, and when people got their hands on it,
they realized the game was even more advanced
than it's predecessor. After Jet Set Willy, a third instalment was on
the pipeline, The MegaTree, but nothing
was ever released. Matthew Smith himself disappeared from the public
for a number of years, causing a controversy itself.
Manic Miner
The introduction to Manic Miner is quite simple, as videogames of the
era tend to be:
"Guide Miner Willy through 20 lethal caverns..."
That's fancy talk for jumping, collecting treasure(depicted by
flashing items) and surviving.
The basic idea of a level is to collect all flashing items in the room
and then make it to a flashing
exit portal, which then takes you to the next level. When you get to
the last level and complete it,
the game starts from the beginning. (doh!)
Jet Set Willy
In Jet Set Willy the game has more depth and story elements to it.
Miner Willy is now rich and has
bought a mansion and hired a housekeeper, Maria. Willy throws a wild
housewarming (mansionwarming?)
party and wakes up next morning in his bathtub. When we walks to his
bedroom and tries to go to bed, his
housekeeper Maria stops him and demands he collects all the glasses
first in his huge mansion. That is the
purpose of the game, to wander around the very huge mansion and
collect flashing items. Differently from
Manic Miner, the movement is unrestricted and you can explore the
mansion in any way you feel like.
These modern times
Various Spectrum mags of the time included some JSW & MM editing tools
on their covertapes, and other
programs were also released in various places. Some edited JSW & MM
games from the 80s and early 90s
still exist in the internet, but the golden age of JSW & MM editing
really started when Dr. Andrew Broad,
a long time JSW & MM and general Spectrum fan, started
manicminerandjetsetwilly Yahoo! group. It quickly
gathered a small bunch of JSW & MM fans, and after a while some new,
high quality JSW & MM games started
to appear on Dr. Andrew Broad's JSW & MM game list on his webpage. Dr.
Broad has even developed an editor
himself, MMSE(Manic Miner Screen Editor), which is available on his
webpage.
Editing itself
Edited versions of Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy are usually based on
a backstory, as the original games were.
Some of Dr. Broad's games include huge design documents, some even had
diaries of the game characters included.
The games usually draw their ideas from the original JSW & MM, pop
culture, scifi, internet, you name it. That is why
edited versions of JSW & MM are superior to many other simple "mods"
people like to do these days. That's why it's usually
a very long task to make a good JSW or MM game. Some of Dr. Broad's
games have taken years to be completed!
MM rooms are composed of fairly simple elements. You have four basic
block types:
Air - The background. No effect on Willy. If white, collects items
automatically, as the game checks if items touch white "ink".
Earth - The blocks Willy walks on. Cannot be walked thru sideways. In
Willy falls on earth block from too high, he dies.
Water - Can be walked on. Can be walked thru sideways. Falling death
also applies to this block type.
Fire - Kills Willy if touched from any direction.
These blocks can have any 8x8 graphic, and two colors, as they are
normal text characters redefined. Two blocks cannot have
the same pixel pattern, as this confuses the game engine and causes
strange things to happend(which can be exploited and have
been for a number of times).
All rooms also have items, which all have the same pixel pattern, and
their colors cycle.
There is also a special type of block, the conveyor, which is defined
as a line of blocks. The lenght and direction can very.
Jet Set Willy introduces a new special block type, the ramp. The ramp
can be walked up or down, and walked thru.
By clever block alignments, you can have various "quirky features"
happen, which are listed on Dr. Andrew Broad's website.
Presenting the Best
To be added.
Acknowledgements
MMSE, his games and information about them is (c) Dr. Andrew Broad
Jet Set Willy & Manic Miner by Matthew Smith, now owned by Jester
Interactive
Links
Dr. Andrew Broad's JSW & MM site, the best there is.
Home of MM & JSW game list, list of quirky features, you name it.
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
Information about Matthew Smith, by Peter Mella.
http://www.pmella.freeserve.co.uk/specsite/mattindex.htm
Contact me: visy@...
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