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Message: 5341

Author: Alexandra

Date: 22/12/2005

Subject: Re: Manic Person RC: Andrew's comments

 

Thanks again Andrew. That is very useful! I knew the Readme needed
work but I'm shocked that there are mistakes in the levels, after
spending so much time tweaking! I guess it shows how my attention has
been mostly bitty recently what with juggling a lot of other tasks.

> > Also, if you think I gave too many lives in the easy version, I'd
> > like to know.
>
> I doubt anyone would try to complete this game without infinite
> lives and/or snapshots (except perhaps the DrUnKeN mAsTeR), even in
> Easy Mode (as it stands) where I only got as far as "Crash Test
> Dummy" before I lost all my lives and had to load a snapshot. :-o

Really? I thought the only really hard part was clearing the crumbling
platform on the right which acts as a barrier to falling into the
portal later. I suppose I could make some of the items easier to
collect (re: crumbling floors).

> As for Expert Mode, I don't recall ever having to roll back to
> snapshots on disk (as opposed to RealSpectrum's instant snapshots)
> as many times as I did today. The cunning use of Crumbly cells makes
> it all too easy to make mistakes that you have to pay for later!

Yes :). I could make some of these puzzles easier in Easy Mode. I
thought just thinning the enemies would be enough but the odd crumbly
-> water conversion might be in order.

> > Basically, any constructive criticism would be appreciated!
>
> It would be nice if Manic Person and all subsequent MM games could
> use the JSW item-sound patch (see TECHNICA.TXT of _Manic Miner:
> Neighbours - Allana Truman_). Yes, it would make "Missing
> Something?" [12] easier, but invisible items are frustrating enough
> as it is without being able to hear them.

I will try to apply it. I forgot it even existed. It would be a cool
effect as I've always liked that sound.

> In the scrolly, "colour-cycling items" would be a more accurate term
> than "flashing objects".

I'll try but it may not fit.

> > game with no real plot, just 40 meticulously crafted levels (20
> > Easy and 20 Expert) of hot willy-on-platform
>
> "Willy-on-platform" - unless you mean something else! ;->

I don't know why I stopped capitalizing Willy.

> In some of my games, I have filters in the BASIC loaders that can be
> applied to deal with potentially offensive graphics.

I would have to rely on someone else for that, aside from releasing 4
versions.

> [0] "Hoping for Frequency": Aww, one fewer Fire-cell than the 20th
> June 2004 revision! :-(

I may put it back in, then. It was that one near the end of the top
platform I think.

> [1] "Fruits of the Room": It's still called "Apple Crumble" in the
> documentation.

Whoops.

> Easy Mode is harder in one aspect: you have to climb up the right-
> hand ladder in order to relieve the top-right item of crumbly!

I liked the new puzzle that was created - it's not very threatening.

> [3] "Paranoia (Don't touch the floor)" / "paranoia": It's nice to
> see the old colour-scheme in Easy Mode at least.
>
> > Notice how the solar beam wraps around the screen sometimes!
>
> Yes - an interesting effect yet to feature in a gamma-release
> TTBOMK.

Right. Now someone just needs to come up with an actual use for the
effect ;)

> > It was suggested at the MM/JSW club that I could POKE the ray to
> > work on a black background, but the green grew on me.
>
> A reference to Message 4527 would be nice here, seeing as I have yet
> to add this information to my Manic Miner Room-Format (which is
> relatively low on my to-do list).

Ok, no problem.

> > In Easy Mode, I present a much earlier version of this room in
> > almost it's original form.
>
> "it's" can only ever mean one thing: "it is".
> The word you mean is "its" (by analogy with "his" and "her", which
> never have apostrophes).

Re: the spelling and grammar, I'm getting a program with a decent
spellchecker to eliminate these problems.

> [4] "Cheating Time?": The top section is a little too difficult in
> Easy Mode: if you walk a step too far before dropping into the pits,
> it's tough to recover under the pressure of crumbling cells and Fire-
> cells on either side.

If you jump early when crossing the crumbling bridges it seems fairly
easy to me, but I'll experiment with it.

> > If you're having trouble, here is a hint: hitting overhead fire
> > blocks is safe if there are earth blocks beside them, since the
> > collision in MM/JSW seems to favour the earth over the fire in
> > these situations.
>
> Think of it this way: the Earth-cell prevents you jumping up higher
> and colliding with the the Fire-cell.

It's true. But it's odd that fire embedded in earth from above has a
much more strict collision (you can't come near without getting
zapped). I guess you could argue that the latter has gravity involved.

> [8] "Soluble Dux": This room would be even more interesting if the
> jump through the ILB (8,15) were necessary.

Perhaps, but the room is just the right level of difficulty for me as
it is.

> [9] (Expert Mode) "Gimme Somethin Oldskool": The lowest item is
> rather trivial to collect, so I suggest the following design-
> pattern: make the player have to jump up for it from below, and
> protect it with a Crumbly cell at the same coordinates, that can
> only be crumbled from above.
>
> I'm suggesting that the bottom-right corner of the screen-layout
> look like this...
>
> ---..++|
> -_---.*|
> ----...|
> ........
> ........
> >>!!!>>|
>
> ...with the item moved one cell to the right so that it coincides
> with the Crumbly cell (_).

I'll look into it. I think I wanted to keep it fairly simple in that
respect but I'll experiment.

> N.B. You can't move items in JSWED (but you can in MMSE). If you
> delete the item and add another, the new item will be BRIGHT 1 (to
> agree with the Air colour-attribute), whereas the existing item is
> BRIGHT 0.

I usually set all of the items' colours again whenever I move one in
JSWED.

> [9] (Easy Mode) "Switch Hitch": A clever new room where you can
> actually cut yourself off from an item if you flick the switch too
> soon, and you can actually walk through the Kong Beast!
>
> But the bottom-left quarter is redundant because the item can be
> collected from the top-left - which could be prevented with Air at
> (7,4).

Whoops! I could have sworn I had it covered.

> [11] "Innocent-Looking Clocks": Having to remove the crumbly from
> the top of the Fire-cell on the conveyor may be a bit too difficult
> for Easy Mode, in which case I suggest replacing:
>
> ____..
> ...*..
> <<<<<<
>
> with:
>
> ___...
> ...*..
> <<<<<<

That's a good idea, and it did enter my mind but I was so proud of
that puzzle. But I think you are right that it's too hard for Easy Mode.

>
> > ILB's
>
> How are the people who had to be told to turn round to stand in one
> cell-column (in the previous room) going to know what ILBs are?

True. I knew I'd be adding to the Readme.

> Maybe you should have a little glossary at the front of the document
> to define ILBs, HGs and VGs (or define each term at its first
> occurrence). In fact I intend to add a MM/JSW glossary to my website
> in the near future.

I wanted to include a little trainer game, but ILB's and
crumble-protected items are the only real quirky features that need
explaining - other things such as jumping up on a conveyor can be felt
and reasoned out through the game engine, and the more advanced
block-based quirky features aren't supported in MM. I think I may
include a little "school" game in the Strangel SE.

What I may do for MP is just include a visual instruction on how to do it.

> [12] "Missing Something?": Suggestions for Easy Mode:
> 1. Make the items visible and change the room-title.
> 2. Change the conveyor to an off-conveyor. It's so cool as it is,
> but anything that makes you need to save a snapshot is too hard for
> Easy Mode.

That is probably the best thing to do.

> [13] "Catstep Vatstep": Easy Mode is impossible because of the
> following:
>
> |*____| |*..__| |*__..| |*____|
> |_____| |_..__| |___..| |_____|
> |_____| |_..__| |___..| |_____|
> |__...| |.....| |__...| |_____|
> |__*..| |..*..| |__*..| |__*__|
> |_____| |..*..| |__*..| |_____|
> |$____| |..___| |.__..| |$____|
> ||||||| ||||||| ||||||| |||||||
> __(a)__ __(b)__ __(c)__ __(d)__
>
> Diagram (a) shows the screen-layout as it is. Diagrams (b) and (c)
> show you what's left if you go down the left- and right-hand sides.
> respectively - there's no escape! Diagram (d) is my suggested fix.
>
> Easy Mode is impossible for a second reason: no item is near enough
> to the portal to escape angry Eugene!
>
> In Easy Mode, the slowness of the green cat is just frustrating.
>
> In Easy Mode, it would be more consistent with the colour-scheme to
> video-invert the portal.

I'll check all of those points out. The yellow portal was supposed to
be an indicator of the yellow background of the original room, but
I'll fiddle with it.

> [14] "I am Not a Miner" / "I Am Not a Miner": A slight difference
> between the room-titles in the two variants. Since you haven't
> capitalised conjugations of the verb "to be" in the other room-
> titles, I'd go with "am". There's a whole spectrum of case-
> conventions you could adopt:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_case
>
> Easy Mode is impossible because the magenta VG collides with the
> lower white HG before you can complete the room.
>
> The blue colour-scheme in Easy Mode changes the atmosphere from warm
> and inviting (as in Expert Mode's red colour-scheme) to cold.

I may try some other colour schemes for this room. I do want both sets
of graphics to be equally inviting.

> [15] "Bad Trip - The Divvy's Lair": Why fewer items in Easy Mode? A
> MM room should always use all 5 items IMO, even if some share the
> same coordinates (not possible with JSWED v2.2.8, but with MMSE), or
> are hidden in the portal. These tricks are really only effective
> with the JSW item-sound patch, of course.

For variation. The same way sometimes - very rarely - I don't use all
available cell-types in a room.

> [17] "The Dungeon of Erotic Punishment": I would remove the white HG
> from Easy Mode.

Ok. Did you think the lack of a non-animated 2nd conveyor in both
versions was OK, Anrdrew? I liked the way it made the upper right of
the room really intense but the visual (and the way the water stops
just short of a pit of fire with no visual clue as to why) was just
killing me. :)

> [18] "Pudding": Three different colour-schemes, with Expert Mode and
> the 20th June 2004 revision both looking better than Easy Mode, but
> it's difficult to say which of the first two is the more attractive
> version of this beautiful room.

You prefer the yellow and cyan check to the black and white check? I
may meditate upon it some more. My personal favourite is easily Expert
Mode - I made it by accident when trying to eliminate that mysterious
bug I mentioned a while ago. I set all the colours randomly for some
testing reason and got that combination for the walls.

> Suggestions for Easy Mode:
> 1. Make the cyan HG full speed (I reserve the term "fast" for
> JSW II, Geoff-mode, JSW128 Hacklevel 9(?) and JSW64).
> 2. Make the magenta VG slower.
> 3. I would suggest allowing the player to go round again from under
> the portal, as you can in Expert Mode, but the obvious solution
> would entail removing Fire from either (7,1) or (10,4), neither of
> which I'm happy about.
>
> > There is a strange atmosphere to this room because it appears
> > tropical with the sand and plants, yet it has ice platforms.
> > Oh, why is it called 'Pudding'? I couldn't really think of a better
> > name due to the overall lack of theme, but it looks pretty, and
> > comes last (kind of).
>
> Don't undersell it! I always thought of "Pudding" as having some
> kind of tropical ice-cream atmosphere (maybe white ice-cream on
> fruit crumble), and the room-title is just perfect IMO.

Ok :)

> [19] "On Our Way "Hmoe" (SIC)": In Easy Mode, I suggest replacing
> the lower conveyor with Water, which preserves the essence of the
> Fire-cell jump without the need for frame-perfect timing.

I thought I did that. Oops!

> > I could have made the time limit much shorter but as this is the
> > last room, I didn't like the idea of only getting a few points for
> > completing it - Hence the full bar of time to give you a nice
> > bonus.
>
> The satisfaction in completing the final room is at seeing the
> swordfish (which still appears in the wrong place BTW - see Message
> 4527) rather than caring how many points I get. In fact the less air
> there is left, the more exciting it is to complete a room!

I suppose I could make it shorter in Expert Mode/Version.

> Isn't it annoying that, with the MM/JSW community having adopted the
> Greek four-element terminology, "air" now has two completely
> different meanings in MM and JSW64?

It's usually easy to spot the difference because of the context, but
we have plenty of other options for cell terminology. I always liked
Geoff's but now I can't remember it, aside from Plasma for Fire.

> > btw, I realise the file is quite large what with the map, but I'll
> > be deleting it in a week or sooner.
>
> Along with "manic_person.sna"?

Yeah. I might include the Club release in the final version, just for
completeness.

Thanks again for all the suggestions! I'll put you down as the beta
tester because effectively that's what you did.

Sendy


Chestfires roasting on an open nut!

 

 

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