Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
      using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines

 

 

	Previous message		Next message
	Previous in thread

 

 

Message: 5398

Author: darth_melkor

Date: 04/01/2006

Subject: Re: "Manic Scribbler" – Daniel's review

 

In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, Daniel wrote:

I played "Manic Scribbler" on the last day of 2005 and I am
extremely impressed by it. While I am still half-way through it, I
can already say: Congratulations, Darth Melkor, it's a great game
IMO! It should become a classic of vicious design :-), since its
difficulty level is paralleled (or surpassed, in some cases) only
by Andrew Broad's games :-) .

Wow! Thank you very much for your generous praise, even though I do
not merit it. I am merely a conduit for the dark side of the Force.

I am very flattered that you mention Manic Scribbler in the
same 'breath' as Andrew Broad's games. I could never match Andrew's
brilliantly inspired ideas for games and rooms, his talent for
creating visually attractive and atmospheric rooms, or his
programming abilities.

I spent practically the whole last day of the year playing "MS",
into the wee hours in the New Year. I wanted to relax after hard
work before the release of Sendy's and mine "Mind Control", and I
thought I'd have a go at a new MM game (I had planned to playtest
Sendy's "Manic Person", but then I thought it was a more serious
and responsible task, and decided on "MS").

"Your arrogance blinds you, Master Yoda. Now you will experience the
full power of the dark side."

And instead of relaxing, I had to struggle and curse, and then get
euphoric after successfully passing each room, and then get
frustrated again five minutes into playing the next room :-) .

The game is very clever in terms of cellular construction, IMO (to
quote an expression used by Andrew several weeks ago). It requires
the player to think very carefully in what order to try to collect
the items, and if you make a mistake, you cannot correct it, you
have to start playing the room from scratch.

I was amazed at how some of the rooms turned out, given that they're
just random cell placements massaged into playable form with my
knowledge of quirky features. Only the items - and in some cases,
the portal - are strategically placed.

I believe the scribble approach to MM room design lends itself to
rooms where the correct route is crucial and non-obvious (the
crumbling cells also help enormously in this aspect). When I play
other authors' MM games, the route tends to be quite obvious from
the way the room is designed.

It also requires some very tight, probably pixel-perfect jumping,
and a very good knowledge of the quirky features, which it exploits
both mercilessly and beautifully :-) .

It is very kind of you to say so. I believe this is true with
respect to the cells, but not the guardians since I didn't edit
their paths - although the guardians do present a challenge far
greater than in the original Manic Miner.

The game does not introduce any new graphics, as far as I can tell,
and does not change the movement of the guardians from the original
MM. It does introduce a novelty as far as music is concerned,
though.

Editing guardians, graphics and colours isn't my thing. I just
wanted to concentrate on the cell placements to produce a game with
no effort in these other aspects. I did think about scribbling some
random graphics with random colours in the spirit of Manic
Scribbler, but I thought it would just make the game look hideous
whilst contributing nothing to the technical gameplay.

A very superficial review of the rooms I have played so far would
be:

- 00 "Massacre! Massacre! MASSACRE!!!!" – a very nice opening.
Although not very difficult, it already gives you a flavour of what
lies ahead.

I'm just amazed that anyone would make the effort to comment on the
individual rooms! I created this room with no serious intentions of
making the transition from player to author, but once I had saved
and played it, I felt I had a duty to make a game of it!

This room is very straightforward in comparison to the other 19, as
I was just mucking around to begin with. I did go back later to
incorporate some quirky features once I got into my stride.

- 01 ".I feel so A.D.D." – it took me a very long time to figure
out how to get the central item. It's probably quite obvious if
you know the quirky features, but I kept looking at it from a
wrong direction!

The thing I remember about this room is having to cut the penguins'
feet off because of the block graphics bug that affects the Water 2
cell in the path of the lower penguin.

- 03 "Food fight" – similarly to the original "MM", this room
seemed easier than the preceding ones. It has some delightful
quirky features though!

Thank you. I do believe the item in the portal is a first.

- 04 "Cellular diarrhoea" – I didn't get diarrhoea, but I was close
to it :-) . Extremely well-designed challenge, IMO.

Thanks again. This is one of the rooms I'm particularly proud of,
and the title seemed to sum up the scribble approach very
poetically! ;-)

- 06 "Scatological screen" – this room seemed a little easier, but
had its puzzles as well.

There are two different ways of doing this room IIRC. I was amazed
to discover that I could jump back up to the bottom of the screen
despite the Air cells you'd think would prevent this. I believe this
is another first.

- 07 "Isaiah 36:12" – without a Bible at hand to consult, I am not
sure what the name wants to say, but I have a vague suspicion it
may be a reference to "Pulp Fiction" rather than the Bible :-) .

Not having seen Pulp Fiction, this reference is lost on me.

A very cleverly-designed room, in which I first learned how to
negotiate various parts of the route, until I got the whole route
right. And I managed to topple the Kong Beast too! :-)

Well done!

- 08 "Mopping up my stools & vomit" – yeah, nearly... This was a
very similar story to "I predict a riot" in the sense that it
looked /relatively/ easy, and then I got stuck hopelessly. I
practically gave up, and only when I came back an hour later and
had a fresh look, I discovered where I had made the mistake.

It's actually one of the easiest rooms in the game IMO.

As a tip to those who will follow in my footsteps and torture
themselves with "MS", I can say: it IS possible to pass below the
lower horizontal guardian (the slow-moving one), but it is useless.
I wasted three quarters of an hour to learn this painful lesson :-
) .

I think that's one of the advantages of the scribble approach -
there's a lot of forbidden holy ground and places which are possible
but unnecessary to visit, and the random cell placements often
obscure the true path.

- 09 "1 Samuel 28:7" – even without a Bible to consult, I knew this
was a reference to the witch of Endor (and a bow to the
original "MM"), because I remembered Darth Melkor's very
professional-sounding recent explanation of the meaning of
"Endorian Forest" :-) . Again, a very cleverly-designed room,
requiring good thinking and some tight jumps.

Thank you for your generous praise. This would have to be the second
hardest room in the game - and the tightest in terms of guardians,
given the unusual jumps needed to get past the yellow Ewok.

That's as far I have got up till now. I look forward to playing the
second half of the game, even though I know it will be many, many
hours before I get to the end.

Manic Scribbler is flattered to be worthy of your time.

As a piece of general advice to those of you who will play "MS", I
would say:

- analyse each room very carefully before you start playing it, to
figure out what route to take;

I myself prefer to just dive in and learn from my mistakes. For me
at least, it's too mentally taxing to attempt to analyse such
complicated rooms in my head.

- if you get stuck and think there's no way to go ahead, look back
at your route in the room and analyse it carefully; it is likely
that the problem is not where you are now, but /before/;

Yes - save a snapshot, then lose a life to see where all the
crumbling cells were.

- if you think it's impossible to complete a room (at least of the
first ten ones, I couldn't guarantee for the rest), take some rest
from it, and then go back and look at it with fresh eyes, and have
faith;

I would say frequent breaks from Manic Scribbler are essential if
you wish to preserve your sanity! ;-)

- if you get too frustrated with "MS", go and play "MM: Neighbours
- Allana Truman" or "Ma jolie" :-) .

Actually, my personal sensation is that "MS" is somewhat easier
than "MM: N – AT" (hard version), more difficult than "MM: The
Hobbit" (hard version) and /much/ more difficult than "MM: The
Buddha of Suburbia". I cannot compare it to "Ma jolie", since I
have only got to the third room so far – BTW, thanks for the tip
Andrew, I have read it and I'll try to apply it soon.

I am a much better player now than when I played Ma jolie, so I'd
have to play it again before I could compare its difficulty against
Manic Scribbler. I'd be pretty amazed if Manic Scribbler were indeed
tougher than Andrew's consciously designed challenges in Ma jolie.

So, congratulations once again, Darth Melkor, and I hope you will
design more vicious games!

I have no plans to make any more games... but Manic Scribbler wasn't
planned in any way either! ;-) I do believe it was valuable to
introduce the MM community to the scribble approach to room design,
but there would be little added value in me churning out a Manic
Scribbler 2, etc. I'd be happy to sit back and watch the real MM
authors make judicious use of this approach, allied to their
creative talents which I myself don't possess.

 

 

	Previous message	Back to the Yahoo! Archive home page	Next message
	Previous in thread