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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 5328
Author: Alexandra
Date: 19/12/2005
Subject: Re: strangel: andrew's first playtest
> seeing as the special edition is due any day now, i have decided toWonderful :)
> embark on my first serious playthrough of sendy's classic (but
> certainly not /classic/) jsw128 game, strangel.
> ever since its release in 2001, strangel has been my most admiredThank-you! Coming from you that is wonderful to hear, since Strangel
> unofficial mm/jsw sequel other than my own, due to its ultrasurreal,
> we-prettyish atmosphere, its heavy and innovative use of quirky
> features (this was the jsw game that introduced invalid ramps
> ttbomk), and as difficult a challenge as i've seen outside of the
> broadsoft games.
was a direct response to finishing We Pretty. I even made the room
above the starting room a cave as a nod to your games. Do you mind if
I quote you on the above when I publish the game (which will be very
soon, directly after Manic Person which I'm uploading later tonight -
fingers crossed!)?
Incidentally, Strangel II is in with a strong chance to be an even
better game, since it has a story and concept to give it more depth. I
always felt Strangel was shallow next to We Pretty because of it's
lack of lore or real accompanying material for the rooms, but now I
have some good ideas to work with that will prove almost limitless
(it's going to be music-themed as I stated ages ago). There are rooms
literally begging to be made but I have so much on my plate right now.
> the rooms are very cleverly-designed, and the difficulty-gradient isI think after a while you can become so accustomed to the mechanics of
> steep from the start, requiring many minutes just to clear a single
> room of items! the rooms are also exceptionally well-put-together,
> with hardly any unintended loopholes at all from what i've seen so
> far.
JSW that you can see every possible outcome that the user can get from
playing a given room or area, and that is what enables us to create
(and solve) such tightly-controlled challenges. It's almost like
having the game engine encoded in your brain! I think I've got that
nailed now so my next frontier is of course graphics.
> the geography could prove to be a difficult factor, although theShould I apply the patch to the SE? I was tempted to but it would give
> paths i've taken so far seem to return me to the choice-points
> better than those in another jsw128 game i could mention. but i've
> still had to leave several loose-ends to be tied up later. and the
> difficulty is such that it will probably take me four more sittings
> to complete... even *with* john elliott's room-number patch! :-)
the teleport-swicthes away awfully.
> ----------------------Thanks, that is very rewarding to hear! It often scares me how much
> room-specific comments
> ----------------------
>
> i'm not going to comment on every single room, but i must say that
> if a room is mundane in strangel, it would be exceptional in almost
> any other game!
time I can use just obsessing over these games... Like I said, if I
hadn't played your games, Strangel would probably never have come into
existence. Lord of the Rings also gave me a lot of inspiration in
regards to the way it played and the kinds of atmospheres
(disregarding forest themes etc) I tried to create. The words
'delicate' and 'quirky' spring to mind! The only thing I can't
explain the inspiration for is the colouring I used. I was going for a
very particular kind of tone that I could only (poorly) describe as
'sweet and sour' which I have to continue with Strangel II somehow (I
may just repeat a lot of the colour schemes to make it seem more related).
> [0] "FEIN dish BRICK yarD": a prime example of clever room-design,I changed the harmless fire into a visible hole in the platform, which
> with quirky jumps through earth-cells. and i like that you get to
> hide from the arrow in the water-cells!
> _____it's taken me until today to realise that the title
> means "fiendish"! :-)
>
> [8] "NOToRI0US C - O - G": not as difficult as i remember after
> typing strangel into my real spectrum, except for the philip-bee-
> esque high jump over the bird! the hook-sprite looks good.
>
> [18] "skY laRK!!": the atmosphere is strongly evocative of we
> pretty's "SKYLIFE A V I A T I O N AVATAR". however, a nasty
> infinite-death scenario is on the cards if you jump and land on the
> invisible gap in the platform (the `harmless' fire-cells - harmless
> my foot!).
works well because I used the harmless fire to decorate the background.
> [25] "in THE spotLITE": this is the room of which i had the fondestI'm not sure. I'll check it next time I have it loaded.
> memories from playing strangel on my real spectrum. with the
> guardian-sprites resembling portholes that open and close, the
> atmosphere is evocative of the spectrum platform-game _booty_.
> _____is the player supposed to be able to take the top-left item by
> jumping up from below, or should they have to wait until they have
> the chance to walk on the top row via "It's a nOIse BeinG Noisy"
> [44]?
> [26] "the uNDERpaSs": having to walk along a long, low corridorI have an entire room planned based on that idea, only the arrows are
> before an arrow comes is a design-pattern of which i hope to see
> much more in the future.
going to be timed so you can run through the entire thing and narrowly
escape. I don't know what game to put it in, probably Nightmare World
in Death TV.
> [34] "not Everyone's Cup Of T": if you jump into the right-exit ofI'll look into it if it isn't fixed already.
> this room (a natural thing to do because there's an earth-cell in
> the way), there's a nasty infinite-death scenario in the next room
> [35].
> [35] "rHythm and blues Angus Steakhaus": i don't like it that downDitto
> is a one-way exit. you have to go down before you can get the bottom-
> left item, but since it's clear to the seasoned player, on
> entering "sisSy TOp" [39], that you won't be able to go back up if
> you persist with this route, the player should have the option of
> turning back immediately after going down into "sisSy TOp".
> [42] "fay's CANceLLATI0n": this room should be upheld as one of theWow, thanks :). It's certainly different, and I enjoy it, along with
> most amazing and innovative jsw-rooms ever written, from the
> wonderful pun (who's fay?) to the sheer quirkiness of the platforms:
> air and ramp have the same colour-attribute, which creates the
> springy-platforms effect, plus the ramp is `invalid' (it has a
> direction-byte of 105).
> _____invalid ramps are relatively uncharted territory, along with
> the quirky features associated with ropes and superjump.
"ceci n'est pas une chambre" which has a similar thing but used to
different effect. If invalid ramps are possible in JSW64 with pokes or
patches I will be so glad; otherwise I'll have to use older variants
for my more quirky games.
The invalid ramps in "trick step" behave like the stairs in C64 JSW,
so it would be nice to be able to use those again sometime. Using it
globally over a whole game would be a nice touch.
> [63] "your WAy"Three rooms just to give the impression of a trivial room with 2
> [64] "your WAy"
> [65] "your WAy"
> my way or the highway! :-)
ramps. I thought it had a nice atmosphere, though.
> [66] ""I wisH i hAd duCK fEeT"": a wonderfully atmospheric room withI'll fix it as appropriate. The sink-into-the-floor fire blocks are
> an innovative design-pattern featuring harmless fire-cells, and it's
> nice to see the feet from we pretty making an appearance! :-)
> ....*
> ...*|
> ..*|.
> .*|..
> *|...
> |.... (where * are harmless fire-cells)
> i'll have to remember this pattern if i ever want to write a
> nightmare-on-elm-street-inspired room where your feet sink into the
> stairs!
> _____there's an infinite-death scenario if you jump right into "fILT
> RAtE" [43] and walk back in here again - the upside-down willy
> collides with you.
also used in a room in Where's Woody to good effect. There is a
passage 2 blocks high with a guardian patrolling it. What you don't
see is that at the midpoint of the guardian's travel there's a small
pit made of harmless fire for you to drop into. A bit sneaky, really,
but there are other uses, definately.
> [78] "a place with no nAME": this room looks like it was drawn by aIt's always fascinating to hear opinions like this. I can see what you
> sixteen-year-old (it reminds me of "The Cave" in party willy
> JSW-MM_OLD.TAP) - which i suppose is a neat contrast to all the
> sophisticated rooms in this game! ;-)
mean, but I would have never made the connection by my own accord. The
ambiguity of 8x8 and 16x16px graphics and the atmospheres they produce
really is what makes them so 'magical' to me.
> [104] "X-es mark the sPOTS": "Xs" or even "X's" would be betterI always like those diagrams you seem to generate out of nowhere :).
> english, but i just love the design-pattern in the centre of the
> screen that gives access to the conveyor:
> ..|..|..
> <<|..|..
> ........
> ..-..-..
> --....--
> ..-..-..
Are you using Specsaisie (I think I spelled that right!)? I tried to
get that running one day but I can't remember what I needed to run it
that I didn't have.
> [105/106] "Trans "mog" riFicatION": some nice earth-cell quirkyIgor has plenty of fame these days with his amazing graphics and
> features here, and the player-sprite certainly appeals to me as a
> cat-lover. i hope igor makovsky - one of the scene's greatest
> artists - won't be too offended if i say that i prefer this cat-
> sprite to frosya. ;-)
professional-looking designs so he should be OK :). In both cases I
find the cats look awkward when they jump. Stiff cat. It really would
benefit from a seperate jumping sprite. I guess that would be doable
in JSW64 somehow.
I love cats too, and feline references in general. The room "nuclear
cats get new home" is the screen that I designed the cats for
originally (based on a 'song' with the same name), and it's one of my
favourites from the whole thing.
> [114] "Not Like All The Others": an artistic colour-scheme. i spentI love promised lands and forbidden grounds because they blur the
> ages trying to cross the top half from right to left, using my pause-
> snapshot-timeframe technique, and it took me a long time to conclude
> that it was impossible (and fortunately not necessary, although it
> does create an intriguing air of mystique about the forbidden holy
> ground in the top-left of this screen and top-right of "the PUSH"
> [116] - much like the inner corners of rooms 54-57 of the original
> jsw were for me as a child, before i discovered the amazing secret
> of climbing that mysterious ladder in "West Bedroom" :-o ).
distinction between display and gameplay, which is also the reason I
like little areas which you can explore but are there just for
atmospheric purposes, like a spare branch on a tree that you can walk
on or something.
> [116] "the PUSH": it's nice to see an invalid arrow, but it'sI'll see if I can make it more friendly. Eliminating the unfair and
> frustrating to have to search for the correct entry-position to jump
> onto the trail it leaves, and be forced to take a one-way exit each
> time you miss - thank goodness for instant snapshots!
frustrating things was my main goal in the SE, with goal 2 being
graphical improvement.
> --I would have dug up my sendy_baby account to reply to this but I doubt
> dr. andrew broad
I could remember the password! I can't believe so much time has passed
since the release of Strangel.
Sendy
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