Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy Yahoo! Group
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Message: 5000
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 30/10/2005
Subject: Message 5000: Order of creation / Sketches
[Re: Herve Ast "way" of creating games]
Hervé wrote:
>When I start work on a new game, I start with a list of rooms (as a
> In the order:
>
> 1)plan on paper (several months!)
> with all the rooms, the site of the guardians and traps.
> the shape of the sprites.
>
> 2)creation on PC:
> a)titles of the rooms and positioning.
> b)creation of the empty rooms.(I like this stage)
> c)addition of the guardians and the sprites.
> d)test and improvement.
text-file), often subdividing it into rooms I /definitely/ want to
include, and rooms I /might/ include.
For Goodnite Luddite, I took a sheet of paper, and folded it into an
8x8 grid for the 64 rooms. I wrote a room-title into each rectangle,
then cut out the rectangles and arranged them into a map. I then
created the blank rooms in JSW CK, with their room-titles and
connections.
For Party Willy, the majority of the rooms already existed. I drew a
map on paper with clusters of existing rooms, then worked out how
the clusters would fit together, and where the new rooms would go.
In JSW CK, I started by writing each new room in full before editing
the old rooms.
I wrote JSW CK Part I (the room-editor) in 1997, and used it to
write We Pretty and JSW:LOTR without guardians. I wrote JSW CK
Part II (the guardian-editor) in 1998, then did the guardians for
the rooms I'd already written in We Pretty and JSW:LOTR; I did the
guardians for the later rooms as I went along (when I say "later", I
should point out that I don't write the rooms in order of room-
number).
[Re: Sketches!]
Igor Makovsky wrote:
>I drew this sketch /after/ I'd written nine rooms. I don't plan the
> P.P.S. If I'm right - on the Dr.Broad's site we can see his sketch
> for Goodnite Luddite, showing for about eight rooms. Remember it?
details of a room on paper - I design it directly in the editor.
Occasionally I draw a little outline for a room-idea on paper.
Alexandra wrote:
>When I was a kid - with no idea that I would actually be able to
> When I was a kid, I used to draw sketches of levels for games all
> the time on graph paper. But now I have editors for many games, I
> find it easier to just 'draw' directly onto the computer. That way,
> it's interactive - you can test it and expand on it and tune it
> into the game engine.
edit MM/JSW one day - I drew a huge map for a JSW game on paper -
just rectangles and room-titles. I've probably still got this piece
of paper in an old briefcase full of maps and other Spectrum-related
mathoms.
I also drew one single room for this paper JSW game (prior to
drawing the map). It was called "The Stile" - a very simple room
like "The Bridge", but with a wooden turnstile and blue-paper
background.
When we had to make Easter cards at school, I drew an enormous
hollow egg full of platforms and guardians. This was half the
inspiration for the "Egg" room in JSW:MM which ended up in Party
Willy. Maybe one day I'll write "Egg II" to fulfill my original
vision of the platforms and guardians being actually inside the egg.
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
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