Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
Archive of the
Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy Yahoo! Group
messages
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Message: 5406
Author: soa1000
Date: 06/01/2006
Subject: Re: Daniel's replies and comments adressed to many people
--- In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel"
> Personally, I am not particularly in favour of this idea, because I
As a keen dadaist, I find the idea of seemingly nonsensical numbers
> believe in the separation of the creator's side and the user's side
> of JSW games. In other words, while technical room numbers are
> important for designers, I don't think they should have any
> importance for players, the more so that they may be haphazard -
> e.g. you start in room #67 it's really room #1 for you, but it's
> #67 from the technical point of view, then you move to room #2 for
> you, which is #17 technically, then to "your" room #3 which is #86
> technically, etc. it's confusing and doesn't have any meaning.
attached to every room deeply compelling. I've always been keen on
things which seem to short-circuit logical thinking and invite free
interpretation. The aborted JSW Apocalypse featured a lot of
nonsensical room titles like "Smoking/No Tuxedo" and "In The Year 33"
which were drawn from mistranslations, surrealist paintings, rock
lyrics and spontaneous gibberish
It's a shame Apocalypse isn't going ahead really. It was quite an
innovative concept at least amongst known games - two games in one,
which you could move between via a central screen where you're Willy
whilst walking right, and Technician Ted whilst walking left. The
Willy half was abstract chaos. The Ted half of the game had you
exploring a pyramid, and was the fractionally more complete half of
the game. And all that stuff about completing a trilogy with Time Hole
and Soul Miner? Hah! The trilogy concept didn't extend beyond the
readme file, wherein JSW himself interrupts the scene-setting
paragraph to complain that all I ever do is drop him into poorly
thought-out sci-fi concepts and he will have no part of it
> What I would be more interested in would be a patch to substitute
Well the clock does do *something* - the game ends at 1 AM, though
> the clock (which is useless anyway and which Leslie Marwick already
> eliminated in "Spaceman Willy" back in 1985!) with a counter of
> rooms visited so far (possibly against the total number of rooms)
> like there was in JSWII.
until the emergence of JSW128 games I think this was an entirely
academic concern - I don't suppose anyone was able to spend that long
just wandering around 64 rooms
> I absolutely think that creating a MM/JSW glossary is a great and
Oh please lord no, academic art is never a good thing. Have you ever
> very needed idea, Andrew! A structured, "officialised" terminology
> shared by all members of MM/JSW community would certainly raise the
> profile of MM/JSW and contribute to its becoming a truly academic or
> scientific discipline :-) .
seen academic painting of the 19th century? Ugly and sterile stuff
> "JSW
One of these days I'm going to sit down and work out how, if at all,
> universe"
the released JSW games can be worked into a single, cohesive narrative
> 7. To Soa1000:
You're welcome
>
> I think I never thanked you "publicly" for sending me your wonderful
> archive of the Club messages. Thanks A LOT! I will start using it
> some time this year, hopefully, when I get down to preparing the
> Chronology of JSW/MM-for-the-Spectrum development history :-) .
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