Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
Archive of the
Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy Yahoo! Group
messages
|
|
|
|
|
Message: 4856
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 04/08/2005
Subject: Re: Andrew and Daniel's current activities and future projects
[Re: JET SET WILLY IN PARIS RELEASED]
Daniel wrote:
>Or upload them to a secret location on your website, or store them
> And NEVER EVER leave your JSW files behind - buy a CF card or a
> Memory Stick or one of those, copy all the files, and carry them in
> your wallet, or with your passport, as your most treasured
> possessions! :-)
in a web-based email-account, as I do to protect my most important
data against the possibility of losing all my physical possessions.
> Are you now fully back into JSW activities, Andrew?Not /fully/ back, no - in fact I'm only about 5% back. Due to major
tennis-distractions which are still ongoing, I'm lucky if I can find
two hours a week for MM/JSW. However, this should increase
dramatically in about a week and a half from now.
These are my current/forthcoming MM/JSW activities:
1. Updating my List of MM/JSW Games. Between 7th February and early
July, I did nothing but compile a list of message-numbers,
references to emails and URLs pertaining to the next update. Now I'm
working through that list to update the List (I lost the partially
updated List, but not the list of updates, in my hard-disk crash).
2. Get back into playing MM/JSW games. I'm working through them
chronologically, playing them to completion, and up to 1998.
I also had a 40-minute wander around Goodnite Luddite the other day,
with the level of invincibility conferred by POKE 37982,0 and POKE
37994,0. I hadn't played it for ages, and I marvelled at some of my
flairsome touches and quirky features, whilst thinking "why did I
have to make it this difficult?" So I plan a more thorough look at
my own games to analyse what I did well, and what I may wish to do
differently in the future.
3. Work through the JSWED v2.2.3 manual, compiling a list of
suggestions. I started to do this before my efforts were wiped out
in the hard-disk crash, but never got to the JSW64 section.
4. Write MM:Outside, aiming for a 2005 release. I'm planning to do
it as a JSW64:MM game in order to use some JSW64 features and to
have slightly more than 20 rooms (the "segues" will have JSW-
connections rather than items and portals).
5. Write the patches for (48K) JSW that I need for Afrikaan:
vertical conveyors, vertical and horizontal lifts, possibly
arbitrary POKEs that are applied when you enter a room and undone
when you leave it (address in Offsets 238/239, value in Offset 237),
and possibly enable left and right controls in the middle of a jump
or fall.
6. Write Afrikaan (using a modified version of my JSW Construction
Kit to accommodate the above patches). I /was/ planning to release
Afrikaan on 31st December 2005 (so that the years of the Kari
Kriníková trilogy would coincide with the years of the Star Wars
prequel-trilogy), but having left it this late to start (other than
collecting ideas and writing one diary-entry), I don't really feel
like putting myself through the strain and the sacrifices it would
take to meet my self-imposed deadline. So I'll just say it's
finished when it's finished.
7. Update various pages on my website, including the addition of the
following:
* Jet Set Willy Room-Format
* How to Design a MM/JSW Game
* The Pokes Explained
[Re: Daniel's current activities and future projects]
--- Daniel <jetsetdanny@...> wrote:
> I would like to let everybody know about my current JSW activitiesI'm afraid MM:N-AT was written /after/ my decision to ease up on the
> 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 :-) .
difficulty of my MM games! ;-) _Ma jolie_ is the most fiendishly
difficult MM/JSW game ever written (and I hope it always will be).
You have to approach it almost like a game of chess, with the pause-
key as integral to the gameplay as left, right and jump!
I no longer (post-Ma jolie) set out to write the most difficult
MM/JSW games possible; I'm now trying to find ways to maximise the
fun. But when I place guardians in the editor, it often seems much
easier than when I playtest it, and when I playtest it, I'm obsessed
with determining whether the room is possible to complete, and only
loosening it as much as absolutely necessary! :->
> I still have more than a dozen 48k JSW games to even start playing,I've had at least a brief go of just about every Spectrum MM/JSW
> 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.
game released, but the days when I managed to keep up with
systematically completing every new game ended partway through 2000,
and my real Spectrum died while I was typing in Still Stealin' (I
used to type in every gamma-released game and visit all the rooms
using WRITETYPER if necessary). I still hope to catch up and keep up
like I used to (albeit using an emulator).
> 2. The above activity is related to my future plans of creating aYuck! ;-)
> 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"Sure.
> 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:Well, you have /my/ permission to redistribute my games per
>
> 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).
the "Copyright Notice" in my README.TXTs.
I would also like to replace the zip files of other people's games
on my site with hotlinks to the copies of those files on your site,
since my free Geocities site is currently using 11.5MB of my 15MB
quota, so at some point in the not-too-distant future I'll have to
delete some files from my website.
> b) a picture gallery with screenshots of every room of the gameAssuming you mean screenshots instead of snapshots (i.e. SNA/Z80
> 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.
files), SCR2GIF generates a GIF file of around 5K (it varies between
less than 3K and more than 6K, particularly if an animated GIF is
used to capture FLASHing colour-attributes). So to have a screenshot
of all 64 rooms of 60 games, we're talking in the order of 20MB.
But the real issue is that it would take an enormous number of man-
hours to take a screenshot of every single room in every single
game, and even more time to make maps with these screenshots.
> However, I hope that with the ever-increasing capacities of HDDsIn this age of 160GB hard disks, offline storage-space is no longer
> by the time I am ready to go online it will be possible to meet
> this requirement.
an issue for Spectrum-related purposes! The real bottlenecks would
be the restrictions on website storage-space and bandwidth (i.e. the
size of each file multiplied by the number of times it is
downloaded).
> d) the author's descriptionWell, I /have/ described my own games in their README.TXTs, albeit
> 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).
not in anyone else's format. One thing I plan to do for my own
website is to have an HTML page for each released game (I have them
for forthcoming games, after all) rather than just a link to the zip
file. Each page would probably consist of the text from at
least "Background Information" in that game's README.TXT, plus one
or a few screenshots from the game.
> e) other people's commentsIncluding opinions is a thorny issue, and one which I have avoided
> 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.
for my List of MM/JSW Games, partly because the List is objective
and unbiased in nature, and partly because I don't want to offend
authors with bad (or lack of) opinions on games which are not high
on my list of favourites.
> I am not sure about the formal aspects of quoting on the websiteI would agree with that, and I give my permission to quote anything
> 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?
I ever posted in public (provided of course that it's properly
attributed, and not taken out of context to make me look bad).
> I hope the above description of my plans explains why I have daredWhy thank you! Currently, my List of MM/JSW Games is based on the
> 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.
principle that each entry (other than Titbits or Future Games)
corresponds to a released product and a single zip file. Hence:
(a) My own Party Willy (and the DrUnKeN mAsTeR's F.I.T.) has one
entry on the JSW list because I consider it a single product - a box-
set of games where Party Willy is the main game (in two 48K parts)
and the others are extras (Titbits collected together). At no time
will I be splitting Party Willy into multiple entries, although
Party Willy 128 does have a separate entry on the JSW128 list.
(b) The two revisions of Adam Britton's _The Continuing Adventures_
have two entries because they are separate products with separate
zip files and separate release-years, and the Special Edition of
1998 cannot simply replace the original release, because it actually
deletes a room. I might consider merging them into a single entry,
dated 1985, with a zip file of the two zip files, although this
feels inconsistent with the author's original intentions (in 1985
and in 1998). Meditate on this, I will.
> I would also like to offer on the website a chronology of theHow would this "chronology" differ from an ordered list of games
> 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.
with release-years?
I could add to my List the day and the month of each release-date
(date of first gamma-release), although this information may be
unknown (for pre-Internet games which only have the year) or hard to
dig out. Also, listing only the year smooths over the headache of
representing multiple revisions of a game since the first gamma-
release, e.g. if Joe Bloggs releases JSWx on 5th August 2005 (the
date that would be listed as the first gamma-release) and a bug-
fixed revision on 8th August (the date that would hopefully go down
in history as the latest revision).
Or perhaps you /do/ mean to go into the designing-process after all,
with such details as "Kari Kriníková locked Andrew Broad away on
22nd October 2004 to force him to write Afrikaan, yet in reality, by
August 2005 he still hadn't written a single MM/JSW room since the
release of MM:N-AT").
I do plan to write up an autobiography of the MM/JSW-related side of
my life for my website, rather like the one Richard Hallas has
published on his.
<http://www.hallas.demon.co.uk/Software/spectrum.htm>
> Now, all of the above is a "letter of intent" as it were. It isThe release-rate is relatively low at the moment, but in 2000 and
> 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.
2002, it was more than a game a month! Certainly more than I ever
imagined when I got into the Internet MM/JSW scene in 1996, and
established such routines as typing every gamma-released game into
my real Spectrum. And who knows how the American Revolution will
affect the release-rate? :-)
> However, this "main effort" is a huge, gigantic task, and I am notFor me, the main effort was the easy part, and since 2000 I have not
> sure that I will have enough time to realise it.
managed to keep up to date in all the ways that I would like. But of
course the main effort is many times greater in 2005 than it would
have been in 1996.
> 3. In parallel with all of the above, I will certainly continue JSW_The Unlucky Seven_ is actually one of the biggest headaches of
> 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 ) :-) .
updating my List of MM/JSW Games, because it doesn't fit neatly into
any of the existing categories (it's released, but not really a true
gamma-release; we are "encouraged not to spread these, but I do not
prohibit it"; they are Future Games, but "will never see the light
of day"). I expect I'll find a way to integrate _The Unlucky Seven_
into the appropriate Future Games sections (of JSW, JSW128 and
JSW64), but the exact solution will require further meditation...
> b) If nobody else gets down to it by the time I may, I willAbsolutely! (if only David Bowie could be persuaded to cobble
> 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.
together a release-version of 2.CONTAMINATION...)
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
|
|
|