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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 5548
Author: dm_boozefreek
Date: 22/02/2006
Subject: To Igor about UMM (This post is big)
Igor firstly I have thoroughly enjoyed UMM so far, I've gotten as far
as "The Abandoned Uranium Workings" but disaster struck. By now you
know I don't save for preserving my last room I only save if I have
to leave the computer for some time. I had some errands to run
yesterday afternoon so I saved it the game crashed at the exact
moment I saved. The spectrum screen filled with colours and then it
reset itself, I was greeted by the white screen with the Sinclair
message on it. When I tried loading my .Sna back in the same thing
happened. So today I have to start again (it wouldn't have bothered
me but I had about 7 or 8 lives left I've worked out all the quirks
that kept catching me out the other day and now I can get to the
Uranium workings quite easily), I predict I will finish the game
soon. I noticed one thing about the uranium workings (I don't know if
it's intentional) but when you enter if you haven't timed your jump
right your head hits an earth block causing you to fall resulting in
an IDS. With the emulator crashing I have not been able to go further
at present, with me working nights I didn't have time to start again
as I had to go to bed soon after. Obviously By this stage I have
rescued Esmer and I'm impressed with the theme of you having to guide
her through the mine, and by the way you have executed it. I can't
wait to finish the game, if your start up and cut scenes are this
special the ending must be something to really look forward to. Also
yes you did a good job with Esmer she looks like a right little minx
haha!
After reading through the other posts about UMM you may have solved
one of my potential problems, I haven't actually got round to
building the room yet but one of the rooms in "The Man Who Sold the
World" is planned to have a screen about mid-way through the game
when Willy Junior is chased by a shady character (which he will
confront at a later point in the game I've said enough). Your
analysis to Sendy about the chasing rock may have actually solved my
problem before it became a problem so a thanks in advance hahaha!!! I
want to add scenes to all games from "The Dark Quadrology" your new
found methods could save me valuable screens as I haven't
experimented much with stoppers and triggers, and in the past the
traditional means of making scenes seemed to be tacking screens
together with teleporters. This is fine for 2 or 3 screens but using
many slows the game down and in my own experience (take Bizarre for
instance) looks a little jerky and can be a little inaccurate.
Rooms and features I like and anything I've found are as so:
LIVING QUARTERS
Very nice screens, but in the night and day variations it is possible
to quirky jump off the far right ramp in both screens into the right
hand building. This does not effect the game in any way though so
it's nothing to worry about.
THE DIGGINGS MAIN HALL
The bucket didn't get me either :)
THE UPPER DIG SITE
A very nice looking room and I like the crane but it seems very easy
to jump through the large guard with fragile written on it. This
doesn't effect the gameplay though and after doing it once I never
did it again. I should have known to check my jumping in the first
place.
FUSION CONDITIONS and HEAVY ENVIRONMENT COOLAGE SYSTEM
The multi-coloured sprites I like em' I'm just curious did you use
multiple guards to make them or did you fiddle with the hex editor
and/or the "!" switch?
THE COOLANT TANK
Not a technical masterpiece at first, but when you weigh up the way
the room looks with the way it behaves it becomes apparent that a lt
of time went into this room. Once you work out the quirks it becomes
obvious. The arrows can be brutally unforgiving if you don't know
what to look for the 3rd one got me a couple of times. For some
strange reason I always find jumping an arrow on the same level as
another so close together seems harder to judge. The thing that
killed me in this room at first was the low air supply. Whilst trying
to work the quirks out I looked around without pausing the game and
when I worked them out I was at the exit about to leave and my air
ran out. I like this room.
THE VENTILATION
I like the block graphics and the way you've layed them out very nice
looking. This room took me a little while to get right. Just
positioning really. I won't go into detail I'll just say an ILB type
thing. I must admit though at first I looked around for alternative
things.
THE COLD ROOM
Astounding! I love it! There's some effects in here that made me
think has he patched? But then I weighed up some logic from the
previous rooms (and the fact you said you didn't) and things started
to make sense. I like the graphics in this room, very vivid block
colours which I think works well in JSW. But you use block colour
with minor detail, just enough to make the brights really stand out.
I also encountered the problem Sendy had with the final bubble after
the transformation (If I'm giving too much away here I'm very sorry)
But it is avoidable after a little experimentation. A brilliant room
I love every aspect of it, WELL DONE!!!
OLD HONEUM STORAGE
Everything that sendy said will cover what I also felt.
WACKY AMOEBATRONS
I like the parts of the room you don't play best if you know what I
mean (would go into detail but I won't might ruin somebody elses
enjoyment).
REVENGE OF AMOEBATRONS
Nice looking and trickier than it looks too. Which in my opinion can
be the best type of room in JSW show the player an easy route then
when you play it, it's surprisingly trickier than it looks. I choose
to call these rooms "obvious but tricky" I also like that in the long
run you could have made this room and the one before it in 128k
(maybe 48k too) to a lesser extent using JSWEDs almost generic
capibilties (Obviously to have the same effect but not look).
RESERVOIR STATION
I can't comment too much on this room but it is quite clever how
you've made it. I like the graphics and the layout especially, but
once again I can't comment on the features too heavily for the danger
of ruining the surprise for somebody else. But for this room and the
2 before it I like that you used the Bug-Byte amoebatrons instead of
the Software Projects Amoebatrons, personally I think those ones were
a bit crap. I also think they were a stab at bug byte (I think the
same thing about the heads in the ballroom screens in JSW 1 as they
were so obviously the Bug-Byte logo).
EXTENDIBLE ACCESS BRIDGE
Nice room nice touches, Like the bridge, Will say no more :)
THE ETHEREAL DRIVE
I was going to put a room with similar features into "You-Robot!".
Once again I think I should keep quiet about the details of the
features. But this room is in my opinion Beautiful and Evil at the
same time. Thesimilar idea I had in mind obviously bared no
resemblence graphically it's the guards I was planning similar things
for. I would tell you the effect I was intending but this would give
away the effect of the room so lets just say, my idea resembled 2
rooms from JSW2.
THE SHAFT
Adrenaline rush ahoy! Well done :)
ABANDONED HALLS
Beautiful and tricky once maybe twice, but I like the look more than
anything else. Once again I don't want to ruin it for anyone.
At the end of the day Igor I think your game is fucking EXCELLENT and
I love some of the so many intricate little things you've done.
You've achieved things here that must have taken mad amounts of hours
to get right I admire your game-style your graphics and your clever
use of what's available once again (I think I said something like
that around about the time of ZX Heroes). Personally a lot of authors
will have to do something special to match this on graphics and
gameplay I myself bow my head. The games I'm working on are vastly
detailed compared to my past efforts, and I've actually started
taking really careful attention to room detail and vicious traps,
quirks and layout as I personally think my games are too easy. But at
present if they'd been finished I'd be ashamed to release them after
playing this. It makes "Maria on Tour" look like "DRUNKEN POLICEMAN"
in comparison. Not that I'm really panicking "Maria on Tour" was a
digest level entry for JSW 64 really just to get to grips with it (in
fact it started it's life as a mish-mash of reject rooms from my
other games).
Well huge post hope it quenches your thirst for knowledge :)
I intend to finish UMM by dinnertime today (weither it happens or not
is a different story).
Cheers
DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!
(oh don't worry about the caps if you really don't want to type them)
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