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Message: 5185

Author: dm_boozefreek

Date: 30/11/2005

Subject: Answers for Daniel (and anyone else who's interested

 

Daniel wrote:

I played "Bizarre" to completion yesterday, without any POKEs, but
saving snapshots and going back every time I lost a life. The game
is toilet-completable, but I think that it cannot be completed
without loss of life – one life has to be sacrificed in "Romantic
Hallucinations" [073] in order to collect the lower rigthmost item –
you cannot get out of the corner after retrieving it – please
correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't actually know how that happened the last time I played through
that room it was possible without losing a life, but I lost of lot of
data in the making of this game (probably half the reason why my
inspiration faded). So maybe something to do with that is the cause.

Daniel wrote:

I will be honest and I won't say that I thought everything about the
game was wonderful. There were things I liked and things I didn't
like. Let me concentrate on the good things first:

- I like the general atmosphere of the game and the story behind it

a lot. In this sense I think the vulgar language is justified (in
this particular case), otherwise the atmosphere wouldn't be the
same. I particularly like some of the room-names (like "Mean Troll
thanks you!" :-) ).

Cheers :)

Daniel wrote:

- I agree with Igor and Herve that some of the graphics are

outstanding. I particularly liked the trees, the burning candle
in "Someones in My Fruit Cellar" [025], the train, the burning fire,
the mutant turtles and Technician Ted (?).

The graphics in those rooms are ones I actually took my time with. I
was a bit gutted when I kind of lost interest in this game because the
sprites you mention are ones that I would have put in a different
game,
same with some of the rooms that contain them. However I still can
recycle some of them I suppose, because in a way if I'd never started
this game they wouldn't exist in the first place. I notice the ? next
to Technian Ted it is him but animated more to a JSW flavour. I think
the actual TT in his own game has 12 or 16 frames of animation wheras
JSW only permits 8 (which is enough really as mine and every other
authors games are ample proof of). But anyway thanks for the kind
words they made me smile :)

Daniel wrote:

- I think that "Someone with a Fresh SOUULLL!!! [026] is a great

idea for the room design – it's probably my favourite room in the
game. I also liked the design idea behind "The Old Signal Box"
sequence a lot.

"Someone with a fresh SOUULLL!!!" took me ages to get right although I
maybe would have liked to have polished the monsters animation as it
moves right. The room design however graphically simple took me
absolutely ages to get right, so many playtests with it being
impossible to get the items without having to sacrifice a life. But
"someones in my fruit cellar" and "Someone with a fresh SOUULLL!!!"
are based on the film Evil Dead 2 which is one of my all time
favourite horror flicks. If you put the 2 titles together it's
actually a quote from the film said by the zombie monster woman in the
cellar. Which is what the sprite was based on.

Daniel wrote:

As far as criticism is concerned, DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! has expressed it
himself already. I will just stress the fact that the game is very
uneven, some rooms are very sketchy, too easy, perhaps, and that the
linear outline may be a serious problem if someone misses an item
and doesn't feel like using the Writetyper cheat.

A couple of points of constructive criticism:

- In the room "What happened to the bridge?" [020], it is possible

to jump through the block on which the items lies, and then walk to
the left and fall to infinite death (a curious player might do it to
see if there isn't a hidden room below).

If I ever SE this game I'll fix it, but if I ever SE this game
chances are it'll get almost a complete re-write, as far as room
graphics and layout go. That's half the reason I asked the group if I
should upgrade it to JSW64. If I ever do that in the future it'll be
a mass tidying that happens rather than adding new stuff. But there's
no point in holding your breath for that I probably won't do it.

- There may be a nasty infinite-death scenario if someone jumps up

to the left exiting from "Get me out of here I'm a ......." [093]
to "The Obligatory Milk Bottle" [094].

Not sure what you mean here as far as I know it's fine?

On the whole, DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!, it is good to see "Bizarre"
officially released and I look forward to your new projects :-) . As
Igor mentioned, you are an extremely productive author!

A couple of questions:

- Do you consider the current release of "Maria on Tour" to be the

absolutely final version?

I may fix the easy to get item in the kitchen area when I have time.

- Do you consider the current release of "Bizarre" to be the

absolutely final version?

Yup I have no desire what so-ever to add to it.

- What game engine will the SE of "Drunken Master" use in the end?

JSW 64 Version V.

- Have you solved the problem of upgrading games from JSW48 to

JSW64? And changing from .sna to .tap? I've never had problems with
it, I think.

I can upgrade a virgin JSW 48K tap file to JSW64 now, but I still
can't
save .Sna or .Z80 files to .tap files. However this doesn't help me
with 48K games I've already edited. The changing 48K games to .tap
files creates particularly nasty broken files if I've changed the tune
in them. Like I said in a previous post though I'm buggered if I'm
sitting correcting all the values with a Hex-Editor. It'd be quicker
in the long run if I just started from scratch.

 

 

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