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Message: 4602

Author: john_elliott_uk

Date: 17/11/2004

Subject: Re: Editing JSW2

 

In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, darkman_1971_2004 wrote:

How different are the JSW/JSW II game engines?

Very.

Obviously, the main difference is the compressed room format of JSW
II. The other differences I can see are:

-new guardian types: diagonal, lifts, guardians on extending ropes

The "extending ropes" thing is done by patch vectors.

-guardians able to collide without fatal results for Willy: eggoids
(guardian/guardian collision); crypt, decapitare & pit gear on
(guardian/block collision) Are these special cases, or a change to
the game engine?

Change to the game engine.

Surely, however, the engines can't be that much different basically, as all the origional rooms play pretty much the same.

Not necessarily. Consider Chip's Challenge. That game has two major
versions - for the Atari Lynx and for Microsoft Windows (there were
other versions, including one for the Spectrum, but they don't seem to
have the same following). Other than the fact that the original 148
levels are solvable in both game engines, the two have almost nothing
in common. Behold...

http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/tworld/rulecomp.html

(A tangent: If you thought JSW fans were fond of quirky features,
nitpicking, and movement that requires frame-perfect accuracy, you've
not seen CC fans.)

Regarding editing JSW II, how likely is the variable room size to
cause problems? i.e: would several complicated room designs mean
either several simple ones to compensate, a reduction in the overall number of rooms, or would there be no problems?

The more complicated a room, the bigger its compressed
representation. You would either have to lose bytes from another room,
or decrease the number of rooms.
Having said that, I don't think that whatever utility was used to
compress JSW2 did an optimal job, particularly on the room titles. The
program I used to compress JSW2:SPSE (which for the time being shall
remain nameless) did rather better.
(Trivia quiz: How many rooms does JSW2:SPSE have?)

 

 

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