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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 5001
Author: Hervé
Date: 30/10/2005
Subject: Re: "Jet Set Willy: Mind Control" released for the Club members!
In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, Daniel wrote:
Hello Everyone,
I am happy to announce the release of "Jet Set Willy: Mind Control" for the Club members. It can be downloaded from my folder (Daniel
Gromann) in the Files section, file name: "JSW-MC-Club.tap". It will be available for a limited period of time only – the final version
will follow soon. Please, do not spread the file outside of the Club and archive it only if you are a devout game-completist :-) .Credits
The game is a joint effort by Sendy (Alex Cornhill) and myself. I
started creating it inspired by Sendy's rooms released in March 2005 in the package called "The Unlucky Seven" (message # 4738). I want
to express my deep gratitude to Sendy for letting me use her
excellent rooms from her various unfinished projects and incorporate them into a finished, compleatable game :-) .Most of the rooms were created by Sendy or myself. Several of them
are remakes, or near dead-ringers, of rooms from our previous
games.
There are also two redesigned rooms originally by Richard Hallas
(from "Join the Jet-Set!") and two redesigned rooms originally by
Zoran Miladinov (from an unreleased demo of his). The game features sprites designed by Matthew Smith, Darren McCowan, Sendy (Alex
Cornhill), Zoran Miladinov, Herve Ast, Adam Britton, Richard Hallas, Michael Blanke and Arno Gitz, Andrew Broad, Greg Heslington and
myself. If I missed someone, do let me know – I will try to be fully precise when I write the text file. I should also mention the fact
that the game uses some design patterns from games by Andrew Broad
and Stuart J. Hill and from "Willy's New Hat", and some graphical
elements from games by Adam Britton, Stuart J. Hill and Richard
Hallas. Andrew Broad's games have inspired the use of a lot of the
quirky features seen in the game.I would like to heartily thank all of the authors mentioned above –
and anyone else I may have missed – for their permission to use the material they have created :-) .
The game was created using John Elliott's JSWED v. 2.2.3 and makes
use of his 128k game engine – thanks a lot, John!The Story
While basking in the sun in his New Mansion, Willy was suddenly
abducted by aliens. They carried him to an unknown planet and
marooned him there, with a strange helmet fixed firmly on his head, probably to monitor his movements and control his mind functions –
hence the title "Mind Control". Stupid fellows, they didn't know that Willy is smarter than they can ever dream to be – he starts to
explore the new territory vigorously and soon discovers that there
are a lot of shining items to collect. He climbs down the mountain, he encounters a quiet plateau and a castle tower, he goes back, makes a long fall and lands in the depths, where he starts to explore
tunnels, ancient factories and other weird places. Finally, after
many adventures, he arrives at the entrance of a house. There, after further exploration, he discovers a launching pad, on which another flying saucer is waiting to be used. Alas, Willy hasn't collected all of the shining items yet, and he doesn't have the energy necessary to run fast enough to enter the launching pad. Can you help him, so that he can fly back to his New Mansion and get rid of the alien helmet?The game
"JSW: Mind Control" has 114 rooms, of which 103 belong to the game
and 11 to the final sequence. You need to visit all of the rooms in order to complete the game successfully. You should be familiar with the quirky features of the game engine, otherwise some rooms may seem very difficult / impossible to complete. There are 256 items to
collect. I guarantee that theoretically you can finish the game
without losing a single life; in practice you can achieve it by
saving snapshots on an emulator (every few seconds :-) ), and going back to the last good one whenever you lose a life. If you get stuck and become desperate, do let me know and I will be pleased to tell
you what the trick is :-) .By my current standards, I would say that the game is very difficult for a novice, and a moderate challenge for experts. I hope it might be described as a mild challenge for top-level experts.
Notable features
In some of the rooms you can see the same combination of an overhead wall-block and an ILB as in "JSW: The 2005 Megamix", which allows
Willy to drop safely the height of over five blocks. Andrew Broad has recently confirmed that I seem to be the first person to have applied this particular configuration. In "JSW: Mind Control" you can see it in the rooms "Enigmatic One-Way Passage" (041) and "The Devil's
Workshop" (087). In the room "The Most Secret of All Places" (112) I applied a variant of this combination – watch Willy drop safely what seems to be over six blocks – which is probably the first time it has ever been applied.There is also an interesting combination of two quirky features –
entering a room below after jumping through an innocent-looking block and the necessity to keep walking after entering the room because
otherwise you get killed repeatedly – between "A Little Room with a View" (021) and "Playing with Yourself" (054). I don't know if it has been applied before, but in any case I think it's cool.The room "A Doubly Problematic Stairway" (034) exploits some
interesting quirky features relating to the superjump. I barely
touched the subject, but I have the feeling that it's a large new
field (or has someone explored it extensively before?) because the
superjump seems to modify significantly the way quirky features
relating to jumping through blocks work.I believe that the final sequence is very nice and worth struggling to reach. Do play the game, don't just look at it in the editor – it has many puzzles and surprises for you! (or so I hope :-) ).
Club Release versus final release
As the text on the initial screen of the game informs you, I would
like to release the final, "official" version of the game just
before Christmas this year. The purpose of releasing the Club version first is, apart from honouring all of you :-), to give you all an
opportunity to contribute something. If you discover problems of any kind with the game or have some bright ideas for significant
improvements – DO LET ME KNOW – I would like the final version to be so good that there be no need for a special edition in the future :- ) . So e-mail me any kind of feedback you may have before December
18 – I promise I will consider every idea carefully and implement the ones I will think deserve it :-).A special request towards the native English speakers – do let me
know if there are any problems or imperfections in the room names or the scrolling message! I will be very glad to correct them :-)Well, I hope you will all have the time and the desire to try the
game, and that at least some of you will enjoy it. I look forward to reading your comments / contributions! I will be offline for the next week, so don't expect an immediate reaction (whether you post in the Club or write to me individually), but I will certainly respond
whenever I have access to the internet again.Good luck with all your projects and "happy left- right- and jumping!" Daniel
Hi Daniel,
"Jet Set Willy:Mind Control" is a great creation!
I like much the graphics and the displacement of willy in the rooms.
I find well the spirit of the game which makes the originality of
Jet Set Willy.
I always play a JSW game without cheating and without seeing in
advance all the rooms,thus for the moment I saw only four rooms!
1)The Marooning: a beginning ever seen before, willy appears under a
flying saucer! Very good.
2)Two Signs and a Vision: a mysterious room with a mysterious
title... Very well.
3)Coming Down: there still, it's super to have thought of creating
this green staircase without end. I like much.
4)Sky Landing: the originality of this room impassions me.
I like the colors, the difficulty of the traps, and the sun.
It's a hyptnoptic room, I died hundred times at this place but I
continue to try to pass the third sun nevertheless! Is it possible?
I hope to be able there to discover the continuation.
A new JSW game is always large event for all impassioned,
and I am sure that much of them plays this new game with much
pleasure even if they do not say it!...
I joined Igor and Sendy to recall that a small message does not cost
anything and gives really pleasure! :)
Personally, I would be happy to know if somebody likes or not my
game, but I am sufficiently happy being in contact with some
impassioned of this club which helps me has to create my game!
Cheer with Daniel and of course, Sendy which created rooms, it's
super to see this game finished.
Thank you also Daniel, to have credited me for my sprites.
It's a great honor for me to see begun this play with a flying saucer
which I know well! (one will see it in my next game... but
silence...) :)
---------------------------------------------------
Concerning Maria, and her strange color...
I warmly thank John and Andrew for their assistance.
I know that if I want to make a success of the creation of the game
perfectly, I should absolutely know disassembler JSW.
I am novice in this field, and I still have some difficulties.
For the moment, I tested Hackman hex editor(like John advised it to
me), but I don't find the sequence "21 45 45" or "21 21 07"
I don't know if I must charge a file of my game to format TAP or SNA.
can be, I parameter not correctly this hex editor.
I have already create game 100% in language BASIC on commodor 64 or
Amstrad,I know how to modify parameter or orders.
single difficulty for me is to make a success of the stage of opening
of the file.
I also charged the program NetBeans 4.1 (for Java language)
great progress! I can now open the Andrew's program "SPECSAISIE 1.3",
in a window, I see the listing of this one...I will like to be able
to read the listing of JSW game in the same way.
for example:
38249: LD HL,4545h ;;; HL= upper two colourr-attributes
I will arrive at that!!!
I also try to open the game with my emulator "EmuzWin" but without
success...
--------------------------------------------------
"Sketches!"
Igor wrote:
I have a good idea!
When we create a game, first of all, we write down our ideas on the
paper, not to miss anything. Then we draw sketches with maps, rooms
etc. Let's post examples of our sketches with rooms and maps to the
specified folder, I've just created in the Photos section. It is
called "Skethes on paper".I suppose, that it is always interesting to see how you club mates,
draw sketches, isn't it?IgoR
Hi Igor,
Yes it's excellent idea!
I will place the original plan of "Jet Set Willy in Paris" in this
file.
I have already several plan for forthcoming creations,
I will also place there more finished of all
"Jet Set Willy in Park Attraction" a play which exists only on paper
for the moment...
(I would be happy to carry it before the end of 2006)
I have also some empties documents (file excel).
They are useful to me for creation of plans, rooms and sprites.
If you want I can place them too.
------------------------------------------------------
To finish:
I will show you the first three rooms finished of my new game.
-The Open Promenade Deck,
-Deep Blue Sea,
-Fish
(the names are not yet final)
Thank you!
See you soon
Hervé
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