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Message: 5491
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 12/02/2006
Subject: JSW64:BBC - Andrew's second playtest / JSW II
==============================
JSW64{V}: BBC Jet Set Willy II
==============================
I playtested this today, and I must admit that I'm very impressed
(notwithstanding the numerous critical bugs detailed below).
When I heard that this game only had 80 rooms, I imagined it would
be just the standard 60 JSW rooms plus 20 others (in fact it's just
79 rooms - 74 if you don't count the unreachable "Hvnh clugolthec
jdc" rooms [75-79]).
But in fact there are only 8 rooms from JSW I ("The Bathroom"
[18], "Master Bedroom" [30], "The Wine Cellar" [67], "The Front
Door" [68], "The Security Guard" [69], "The Drive" [70], "Under the
Drive" [71] and "The Off Licence" [72]).
The majority of the new rooms from Spectrum JSW II are included,
with minor differences (most notably to the colour-schemes) - a
total of 64 rooms. The missing rooms in this category are "Library",
"Study", "Hero Worship", "]", "Without A Limb", "Cartography Room",
"Eggoids", "The Hole with No Name", "Secret passage", "Deserted
Isle", "cheat" and "Oh $#!+!The Central Cavern!".
And there are two brand new rooms: "Fallout Shelter" [65] and "Ethel
the Aardvark" [66].
The geography of this game is just beautiful (notwithstanding the
unpassable rooms in the current revision of the JSW64 backport). You
can go off and explore one cluster of rooms and arrive back where
you started - the happy medium between tediously linear and
frustratingly branching - and there are some nice Promised Lands
near the start. Look out for "Belfry" and "Rocket Room" in
unexpected places!
Every JSW-author should play this game to get a feel of beautiful
geography.
-----
Lifts
-----
The following rooms have lifts that are not stand-onable, with the
following consequences:
[3] "Alienate" (no problem)
[5] "Main Lift" (I think the lift starts too high - that it's going
to kill you on entry)
[9] "Someone Else" (makes "Maria in Space" [10] unreachable and the
game not item-completable)
[15] "Main Lift" (makes "Main Lift" [5] unreachable and the game not
item-completable)
[17] "Main Lift" (makes "Main Lift" [15] unreachable and the game
not item-completable)
[63] "Dumb Waiter" (makes the game not item-completable)
Perhaps these could be provisionally implemented as the things-like-
lifts in m.z80 (guardian-type #58)?
----------------------
Room-specific comments
----------------------
As detailed below, the BBC -> JSW64 conversion has bugs relating to:
* all conveyors in a room going in the same direction;
* arrows' start-columns;
* arrows crashing into white-ink cells or guardians;
* collisions between horizontal and vertical guardians;
* lack of fast horizontal guardians;
* lack of diagonal guardians;
* lack of teleports;
* no avoidance of infinite-death scenarios.
[1] "Beam me Down Spotty": the teleporters required here are not
quite John Elliott teleporters and not quite portals, but we could
do with portals as a temporary solution.
[4] "Ship's Computer": infinite death is very likely at the top-
right if you did not stand far enough back before jumping into this
room - a possibility that doesn't exist in the BBC version.
_____The different game-mechanics prevent you from crossing this
room from right to left directly; fortunately it is safe to go down
and bypass this problem.
[6] "Phaser Power": the arrow start-column bug (in the BBC -> JSW64
algorithm) means that one is unlikely to hang around long enough to
see the arrows, and when the first arrow does appear, it collides
with the ramp and kills you!
_____In the BBC version there's a diagonal bird and a bird that
doesn't move, but in the JSW64 version there's an invisible (black-
ink) VG, and the second bird moves!
[8] "Foot Room": I look forward to seeing the patch-vector (although
the BBC version is less impressive than Spectrum JSW II - instead of
leaving a trail, the foot just stops too high to jump over and too
low to walk under).
[11] "Banned": kills you on entry, due to an arrow colliding with a
white-ink Earth-cell. This makes the game not item-completable,
and "Flower Power Source" [12] not reachable.
[13] "Star Drive": later brick version? ;-) The conveyors in this
room all go right, making it impossible to collect the items or to
escape. I guess this is a bug in the BBC -> JSW64 algorithm.
[16] "Photon Tube": an arrow collides with a white-ink Earth cell,
killing you, although you still have time to collect the items
without sacrificing a life.
[17] "Main Lift": kills you on entry, due to an arrow colliding with
a white-ink Earth-cell.
[18] "The Bathroom": an arrow collides with the ramp, killing you,
although it's possible to pass this room before this happens.
[19] "Docking Bay": the infinite-death scenario when you walk in
from the right is particularly unfair if you're on your way back
from the cluster of rooms to the right. In the BBC version it's not
infinite death - you're allowed to jump.
[21] "Aye 'Appen": we were not amused with the infinite-death
scenario when we walked in from "Starship" [20]. In the BBC version,
you have time to walk back. In both versions you have to jump
into "Aye 'Appen".
[22] "The Trouble with Tribbles is": that you can't go back down
through this room! We could do with some hand-placed Air-cells as a
temporary solution, or even invalid-arrow pairs for the rows in the
lower half of the playing-area.
_____You can use the walk-through-Earth-cells-at-head-height feature
to move from the left edge of the screen to the right, circumventing
the intended challenge.
[25] "Incredible": kills you on entry. The horizontal bird collides
with the yellow photon; the diagonal bird (which has been translated
as a horizontal guardian according to JSWED) collides with the
horizontal bird and with the magenta pterodactyl.
[26] "Hole": should be fast horizontal guardians.
[27] "In the Ground": the Fire-cell at head-height can't be jumped
over, so it should be implemented as a guardian instead.
_____It's possible to jump through the outer ramp and walk through
those Earth-cells at head-height (this loophole isn't of much
consequence, but I like to point out these things).
_____The bird should be fast.
[28] "Loony Jet Set": the two lower VGs go off the bottom of the
screen. In the BBC version they actually go down into the room-
title, but in Spectrum JSW it just kills you - making this room
unpassable.
[29] "Beam me up Spotty": the top conveyor is supposed to go left,
not right - that, together with the lack of a teleport, traps you
into having to reset the game (or reload a snapshot).
[31] "Rocket Room": you're trapped after collecting the
items, making "Docking Bay" [19] (and the other space-themed rooms)
unreachable. It would be nice to have a portal as a temporary
solution.
[36] "Sewer Entrance": the horizontal guardian should be fast. A bug
in the BBC->JSW64 algorithm?
[39] "Downstairs": the item collides with the vertical guardian (and
would collide with the ramp), killing you. It is not possible to
collect the items before this happens.
[41] "Willy's Lookout": it really is a devil of an unfair infinite-
death scenario when you walk in at the bottom-right and fall to your
death in "Wonga's Spillage Tray" [49]. At least in the BBC version
it's not infinite death.
[43] "Potty Pot Plant": both conveyors are right-conveyors (ditto
re. "Willy's Lookout" [41] and "Sky Blue Pink" [42]), so the lower
conveyor traps you against the wall, making the rooms below
unreachable.
_____The arrow starts in the wrong column (a bug in the BBC -> JSW64
algorithm?), causing you to be killed immediately, although it's not
an infinite-death scenario because you can walk left to get out of
it, as though there were a Fire-cell in column 31.
_____Infinite death if you fall down the hole on the right!
[44] "Rigor Mortis": the horizontal guardians should not be
animated - in the BBC version they just stand still and face left
(technically right because the sprite-page is back-to-front).
[45] "Crypt": infinite death on entry, due to the arrow colliding
with an Earth-cell in column 31.
[46] "Decapitare": the guillotine is impossible to jump over or
under from left to right, making the game not item-completable.
[48] "Highway to Hell": the item is not collectible. We could do
with some hand-placed Air-cells as a temporary solution, or even
invalid-arrow pairs for the rows in the lower half of the playing-
area.
[52] "The Zoo": why do the Air-cells at (2,31) and (3,31) not
translate to JSW64? Are they not in fact Air-cells?
http://cl4.org/comp/jsw2bbc/the_zoo.png
[53] "Pit Gear On": if you collect the leftmost item, you get stuck
on a left-conveyor! Some of the conveyors in this room should be
right-conveyors.
_____Infinite death if you fall down into "In T'rat Hole" [54] (but
not if you jump down against the wall in column 0).
[54] "In T'rat Hole": you can walk through the gap on the left, and
end up at the right of this room, circumventing the intended
challenge.
[55] "Down T' Pit": the two horizontal guardians collide, killing
you and making the game not item-completable.
[61] "Butler's Pantry": in this game's geography, this is a prime
example of a Promised Land. Nice colour-scheme too.
_____The white butler eventually collides with the green butler. It
is possible to collect all the items and go left before this
happens, but only just.
[63] "Dumb Waiter": the hole at the bottom takes you down during the
toilet-run, making you fall to infinite death in "The Security
Guard" [69]!
[64] "Garden": Fire-cells at head-height cannot be jumped over in
JSW64, therefore the game is not item-completable. When I converted
this room to JSW I format for Party Willy, I got around this problem
by implementing the nasties as guardians rather than Fire-cells.
[65] "Fallout Shelter": a new room to Spectrum-users, and an awesome
patch-vector! Why is it sometimes the horizontal guardian that gives
way, and sometimes the vertical guardian?
[67] "The Wine Cellar": unlike in the BBC version, it's possible to
exit this room to the left, using the walk-through-Earth-cells-at-
head-height feature. This takes you to the top-right of "The Wine
Cellar", allowing a shortcut to the item in "Trip Switch" [40] (not
that this is helpful, as you're then cut off from the middle items
in "The Wine Cellar").
_____Also, the yellow butler collects two items for you.
[72] "The Off Licence": the new Fire-cell graphic looks really
cool! :-)
===============
Spectrum JSW II
===============
In 1993, I was planning to convert Spectrum JSW II to the MM and
JSW I formats, just as I /did/ convert between MM and JSW I (the
results of which can be seen in my Party Willy box-set, and Java-
programs for doing so can be found in the beta-version of SPECSAISIE
in the Files section).
MM:JSW II was going to be a seven-volume MM game, presenting the 126
rooms in the order in which they appear in attract-mode (there are
eight rooms that don't appear in attract-mode). The remaining 14
rooms in Volume 7 were going to do for David Bowie's Black Tie White
Noise album what I did do for The Buddha Of Suburbia.
JSW I:JSW II was going to be a three-volume 48K JSW I game:
* Volume 1 was going to be the 60 standard JSW rooms, edited to be
as close as possible to how they appear in JSW II.
* Volume 2 was going to be all the new rooms from JSW II that aren't
set in space, with link-rooms written by me.
* Volume 3 (aka Manic Major) was going to be all the space-themed
rooms from JSW II.
I don't know why I haven't previewed it on my website, as I might
still do it in the distant future.
Now that we have JSW64, it could be so much better than it would
have been, although I'd still have to consider a JSW128 version if I
wanted a single-volume game covering all 134 rooms (no JSW64 variant
allows more than 128 rooms). Unless I wrote some clever patch-
vectors to merge the three "Well" rooms into one, and to load
another four rooms from memory usually used for sprites...
I might do a 'faithful' conversion and a 'fixed' one, as playing BBC
JSW II has reminded me of several design-flaws, such as the unfair
infinite-death scenarios mentioned above, and items that can be
jumped up for from below - which can now be protected by crumbling
cells at the same coordinates.
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
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