Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 5604
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 27/02/2006
Subject: Quirky features / Broadsoft's MM/JSW Trainer
It is upsetting to me to see that the wider Spectrum-community
doesn't seem to fully appreciate the brilliance of quirky features.
If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its
aspects - not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi. If you
wish to become a complete and wise player/author, you must embrace a
larger view of the game-mechanics.
* Quirky features are a pathway to many abilities some consider to
be unnatural. They may not "translate into real-world metaphors",
but that's the magic of MM/JSW.
* Quirky features are not bugs (at worst they are unintended
loopholes). A bug is an error that makes a game not possible to
complete, or even causes the Spectrum to crash.
* Any serious MM/JSW player needs knowledge of quirky features to
progress, and to see all possibilities. Quirky features are best
learned through experience and lateral thinking, rather than
trying to memorise a list in advance.
* A MM/JSW author needs thorough knowledge of quirky features to
find all the loopholes in his/her game, as well as being able to
exploit them deliberately.
* An author's knowledge of quirky features can often save a room
from lack of inspiration. That's the beauty of MM/JSW.
* The MM/JSW scene needs trainer-games to teach quirky features (or
perhaps one JSW64 game that covers MM features as well as JSW
features). I'd be writing it now if I didn't have so many other
things on my plate...
* I know my Quirky Features web-page needs improving and extending,
but the last time I tried to do that, it disappeared into a black
hole. I was going to replace the ASCII text-diagrams with lots of
screenshots - cropped to show the quirky features in their minimal
forms. But it's not worth doing that until I've written the
trainer-game (which will have uniform cell-graphics).
* I removed all quirky features from the easy variants of MM:Hobbit
and JSW:LOTR, but the criticism was that they were /too/ easy.
* For the easy variants of _Ma jolie_ and MM:N-AT, I removed the
features that made each room frustratingly difficult for me,
without removing the fun quirky features. I suppose I could have
made hard, medium and easy variants of these games, but I don't
like having too many variants.
In fact, now that I see how serious the quirky-features debate is, I
might well make MM/JSW Trainer the next game I will write. And to
show my commitment to this project, I have promoted it from Other
Future Projects to its own page on my website:
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/download/trainer.html
MM/JSW Trainer will be one of my main priorities for March.
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/features.html
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