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Message: 4854

Author: Daniel

Date: 01/08/2005

Subject: Daniel's current activities and future projects

 

I would like to let everybody know about my current JSW activities
and future projects. They include three main groups of activities:

1. Playing the existing JSW and MM games to see what other people
have done, avoid unintentional copying of their work and to be able
to use their clever ideas while giving the authors credit for them.
I am almost done with MM games - Andrew Broad's "Ma jolie" is the
only one I haven't finished yet. I have to prepare myself
psychologically for it, though, since the memories of the struggle
with Andrew's "MM: Neighbours - Allana Truman" earlier this year (in
the spring) are still strong; it was a delightful challenge, but
extremely frustrating and nerve-wracking, too :-) .
I still have more than a dozen 48k JSW games to even start playing,
and among the ones I have played there are some I didn't complete at
the time I played them (or completed them with cheats like the
Writetyper POKE) and so I will want to go back and finish them
properly at some point.
I have most of the 128k JSW games still to play, plus the new JSW64
which I haven't even touched yet.


2. The above activity is related to my future plans of creating a
comprehensive JSW/MM website. I might mention them already, since to
a certain extent it will probably depend on the response of the
JSW/MM community of whether the site will be created at all and what
shape it will finally adopt.
I would like to call the website "The Universal Jet Set Willy and
Manic Miner Gaming Centre", or something like this (or "Center", I
might use the American spelling, which I think looks more
international, with an apology to all the British people among you :-
) ). It will be dedicated to the completed, "officially-released" ZX
Spectrum games. It will not deal with the designing process at all,
but concentrate on finished products. The idea is to have them
together in one place, with the game files, screenshots, maps,
descriptions, people's opinions, etc., to create a virtual Miner
Willy universe, comprised of an ever-increasing number of individual
worlds - the JSW and MM games.
I would like to structure the site by category (MM games, JSW 48k
games, JSW 128k games and JSW64 games), and chronological lists of
games, which would reflect Andrew Broad's lists - Andrew, at this
point I am formally asking your permission to use them (I will
obviously give you proper credit on the website).

My intention is to include for every game:

a) a zip file (files) with the game
I would like to create a Download Centre with the files of all of the
existing games (with the sincere hope that I will not run into
copyright problems with those non-commercial fruits of many people's
passion). Of course I will ask all of the authors of the games to
agree to their games being distributed from my website (especially
those who haven't defined the terms of ditribution in the text files
accompanying the games). I will probably try to talk to Steve Brown
of the "TZX Vault" as well to see if he would let me use the .tzx
files as well (in addition to other formats). I will also ask Gawp to
let me use the delightful phrase of encouragement found on his
website: "Download Willy games like there's no tomorrow!".

b) a picture gallery with screenshots of every room of the game
The format and quality of the pictures would be the same as the
screenshots of my games I placed on my website (http://xa.bi/jsw). To
host snapshots of every single room of every finished game ever made
will, of course, require a huge amount of web space. However, I hope
that with the ever-increasing capacities of HDDs by the time I am
ready to go online it will be possible to meet this requirement.
I am planning to apply the principle that new games will not be
graphically presented on the website until one year after their
original gamma release. This is, of course, in order not to spoil
anyone's pleasure in showing them the pictures before they've had a
chance to play the game (well, nobody has to look at the website, of
course, but I wouldn't want to lead anyone into temptation).
The picture gallery will serve many purposes, I hope. It will offer
the possibility of quick reference to the game authors, to check what
other authors have done. I hope it will remind the players (all of
us :-) ) of the happy hours we spent exploring this or that game. I
hope it will encourage people to play games they haven't tackled yet -
after all, it's nice to look at the screenshots, but it's a
completely different experience to actually enter a new JSW world and
play the game. And finally, I hope the collection of screenshots
can be considered a JSW art gallery, worth visiting even by people
not directly involved in the subject.

c) a map (maps)
The format of the map (or maps, if I feel the game is too big to have
it in a single file) should be similar to the format I used
for "Willy's New Mansion" maps (included in the zip package with the
game). So I would want to make a map comprised of pictures for each
game, and also a room chart (I'm not really sure what to call it)
with just the names of the rooms.
Such is the plan, but I will see how it goes, because some of the
games may be pretty difficult to map, I'm afraid. But I will worry
about it as I progress.
This point, understandably, does not concern the Manic Miner games.

d) the author's description
I will be asking all authors of the games to offer brief descriptions
of their own (containing any elements they think pertinent) for every
game they made. I think it would be nice to be able to read what the
creators of those new JSW worlds think of them (now also from the
perspective of time since the creation).

e) other people's comments
This should be a very important section as well, because it is the
reaction of other members of the community that is arguably even more
important than the authors' opinions. Of course I will plead with all
of you to give me as much material as possible. I will ask Gawp to
let me use reviews presented on his website. I will also try, time-
permitting, to sift through the old Club messages, and draw things
from there. I am not sure about the formal aspects of quoting on the
website something that was posted in the Club - I imagine I should
have the permission for every quotation, although I am not sure - if
something was made public once, perhaps it's OK to publish it
somewhere else? Or maybe those of you who wouldn't mind could just
give me a general permission to quote whatever they may have written
in the Club messages over the years? Well, I am sort of asking some
questions in advance, but I will deal with them in the still-distant
future when I get to that stage of work.

f) a recorded walkthrough of the game in the .rzx format
I will probably try to collaborate with the "RZX Archive" to
obtain their permission to use the .rzx recordings of JSW and MM
games they have. Should this be impossible, I imagine that if
somebody does a new, different recording of the same game, it would
be OK to publish it independently? Well, most of the games haven't
been recorded yet, anyway, but I would certainly want to gather a
complete collection over time and not miss anything. But again, these
are just very preliminary questions. In any case, I will certainly
ask all of the Club members to help me out with the .rzx recordings,
as I will almost certainly not have the time to do them myself.

f) other stuff
One idea I have is to make screensavers out of the snapshots of each
game and offer them for download. I am also open to any other ideas
and contributions anyone can make. So if you have brilliant thoughts
of cool things to do, let me know already (even though you will have
to wait for their fulfilment for a LONG time).

I hope the above description of my plans explains why I have dared
express some suggestions concerning Andrew Broad's list of JSW/MM
games. From the point of view of the intended website, it would be
unreasonable e.g. to have two entries for two (or three) versions of
the same game while only one of them is the definitive product. I
would be most happy to offer the older and / or alternative versions
for download, if the author of the game agreed and so wished, but I
would see it as useless to offer a full picture gallery or another
map of a version of the game which has only minor graphic
differences. At the same time, I would REALLY like to be able to just
mirror Andrew's list (lists) - if he allows me to do it, of course -
and not miss (or add) any entries which would alter the order and
create differences with Andrew's lists, which I consider the
cornerstone of the JSW / MM community.

I would also like to offer on the website a chronology of the history
of MM / JSW games for the Spectrum (and Spectrum emulators). I think
that the Club's mailing list would be an invaluable source for this,
but I will IMPLORE everyone's co-operation, since I am relatively new
to the internet JSW scene and don't have personal recollections of
what went on back in 1999 or 2000. I trust that those of you who do
will help me out to create an all-inclusive chronology which would be
a testimony to the beautiful story of JSW revival and development.

Now, all of the above is a "letter of intent" as it were. It is
something that I would certainly love to do, and have a strong desire
to do, and I think that once it's done and the main effort is over,
it should be possible for me to keep the website updated, since we
don't have new games cropping up every week. However, this "main
effort" is a huge, gigantic task, and I am not sure that I will have
enough time to realise it. So please bear with me if the progress is
very slow, and forgive me if at some point I decide I have to give up
because I have too many other non-JSW obligations and commitments.


3. In parallel with all of the above, I will certainly continue JSW
designing, as I seem to be kind of addicted to it, and feel the need
to continue. My projects and ideas are:

a) I have started work on a new game which will include most of the
rooms found in the unfinished games that form "The Unlucky Seven",
released by Sendy to the Club in March this year. Thanks a lot,
Sendy, for your permission to do it (message # 4789 ) :-) . I would
like to keep the name "JSW: Mind Control", even though the plot will
be very different, and there will be no time constraints found in the
original idea. The game will take advantage of John Elliott's 128k
engine, and will probably be expanded considerably beyond Sendy's
rooms. I will try to make the new stuff interesting, not just
transition rooms, even though there will be such as well,
undoubtedly. I do not want to give any time expectations, but it will
be several months, certainly, before I release it (this time perhaps
I will start with a beta version for the Club members, to take
people's suggestions into consideration and possibly introduce them
before "officially" releasing the gamma version).

b) If nobody else gets down to it by the time I may, I will probably
want to tidy up and finish "JSW 128: Mass Collaboration", also with
Sendy's permission (given already in message # 4786). I share Andrew
Broad's feeling expressed in one of his messages that it is a shame
if a large amount of somebody's work is wasted in the sense that it
does not produce definitive results. I firmly believe it is a good
thing to invest some more effort into the project in such situation
and bring it to fruition, which is why I am willing to tackle - if
nobody else is interested in it or does it first- the "Mass
Collaboration" project. This would take place some time next year,
probably, circumstances permitting.

c) Of course finally I would like to design a game all my own, or at
least "highly my own" (I would certainly use many people's sprites,
if they allow me to, but I would design most of the graphical
elements and maybe a part of the sprites myself). As a matter of
fact, I've had an idea for it for quite a while now (but it's been
shelved, waiting for its time to come). The game will be
called "Miner Willy in the Castle of Doom", and I would like to make
it both atmospheric/graphically satisfying and difficult/challenging
(with the quirky features and various other tricks), but not
forbiddingly difficult, so that it can be enjoyed both by experts and
by less-involved players. The idea persists in my mind, but as I say,
it is definitely a future project, and meant for a non-too-imminent
future.


Well, that's it. Forgive me the length of this message, and please,
let me know what you all think about my plans for "The Universal Jet
Set Willy and Manic Miner Gaming Centre" - if I create it, it will be
done for the members of JSW / MM community, so it is really your
response which will give me the boost necessary to start this huge
task.

Daniel

 

 

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