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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 5638
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 01/03/2006
Subject: Re: Quirky features and "bugs" - Daniel's views
Daniel wrote:
>It would NOT have been justified to consider them bugs, because the
> As far as I understand the situation, those features of the game
> engine were unintended by Matthew Smith, and they were not
> consciously applied by him in the original games; they were not
> necessary to complete the games. So back in those days, as Drunken
> Master has said, it may have been justified to consider them bugs
> (even though they did NOT cause any problems with the game or
> affect the gameplay, either).
original JSW contains no loopholes except that you can jump a gap of
2x4 Air-cells in "The Attic" (thus avoiding the Chinese dragon), and
go up from "Watch Tower" and "Rescue Esmerelda" to reappear at
unexpected places on the map.
Indeed, "The Wine Cellar" actually /relies/ on being able to pass
through Earth-cells at head-height - otherwise you wouldn't be able
to jump onto the ledges on the left!
In 1999, I hypothesised that Matthew Smith had deliberately removed
the test for an Earth-cell to the left of Willy's upper half in
order to fix "The Wine Cellar", but when I emailed him about it, he
just said "the movement of Miner Willy is supposed to be symetrical.
If it isn't I slipped up."
> Another example: Andrew includes "stopping under a wall by holdingWell, I include these features in my Quirky Features web-page (and
> jump, while on a conveyor, e.g. to avoid vertical guardians" as
> one of the quirky features. Then he gives the example of its use
> in the original MM. So is this a quirky feature or not? Andrew
> also includes the question of "jumping through ramps: when
> precisely you can jump through the ramp, and when it catches you".
> These are features that were used consciously by Matthew Smith
> in the original JSW.
will include them in MM/JSW Trainer) just for completeness, even
though they don't meet the dictionary-definition of /quirky/:
"characterised by peculiar or unexpected traits".
I'm not sure whether Matthew Smith intended the player to be able to
stop on a conveyor by jumping up against an overhead Earth-cell and
then holding the opposite direction. This ability is /useful/
for "The Final Barrier" and "Tree Root" - but it is not necessary if
you time it correctly in the first place.
> So Andrew Broad's just-announced idea of creating a "trainer game"I intend to do all that except the RZX walkthrough (the chances of
> is a great and very needed project. It will be a great tool,
> because it will allow /everyone/ to become /initiated/ in the
> world of "advanced" JSW. And then nobody can complain they
> couldn't complete (another) game, because they didn't know how it
> worked. Go ahead, Andrew, make it one of your priorities! Perhaps
> you could also accompany the game with illustrative screenshots
> and an RZX walkthrough, so that no room for doubt is left for
> anyone. Plus update and expand your document "Quirky Features in
> MM/JSW" so that nobody can say they cannot learn about those
> things :-) .
me ever getting into RZX are approximately zero, given the limited
time in my life).
As for "illustrative screenshots", MM/JSW Trainer should be self-
explanatory enough not to need them (subject to the 32-character
limit for room-titles). But I plan to replace the text-diagrams on
my Quirky Features page with screenshots that are cropped to show
the features in their minimal forms (the cells' PAPER-colours will
alternate between black and blue in a chessboard-pattern throughout
the whole game, to facilitate counting the number of Air-cells).
> So I would say that the rule of an "advanced" JSW gameI'm thinking of using the name _Advanced MM/JSW Trainer_ to
> (again: "advanced" does not mean "better", it just describes those
> games which consciously exploit quirky features)
highlight the emphasis on quirky features.
> is: the author has made it as challenging as possible.As challenging as possible? Can you imagine Darth Melkor releasing a
special edition of Manic Scribbler where everything was invisible
and had white PAPER; maybe a JSW64 {V/W} version with 108 additional
rooms including the Scribbler treatment for Manic Miner 4, MM:TBOS,
MM:Hobbit, Ma jolie and MM:N-AT? Ouch!
> This goes back to the "expectation theory" presented above. IThere's a difference between next-to-impossible and actually
> think that it would be fair to say that the general expectation of
> most players is that games SHOULD NOT BE IMPOSSIBLY DIFFICULT,
> because then they miss their purpose what's the point of
> torturing yourself trying the same next-to-impossible manoeuvre
> hundreds of times? And yet, even having said that, I have to
> recognise that there may be a small group of people the "crazy"
> ones, perhaps for whom this kind of "torture" is exactly what
> they want from a game.
impossible to complete. Unfortunately many gamma-released MM/JSW
games fall into the latter category (including the original JSW
without the Official Software Projects POKEs).
My expectation is that I will be able to complete a 64-room JSW game
in under three hours of real time (my preference is for games of
this size - fit neatly into a Sunday afternoon). Unfortunately I
have to live in the real world - not an ideal world which will stop
and wait for me while I finish the task at hand, like in the William
Sleator novel _Singularity_! :-)
> Matthew Westcott wrote in "comp.sys.sinclair":Skimming stones is a beautiful example of a real-life quirky
>>
>> It may just be a bundle of pixels, but those pixels translate
>> into real world metaphors - jumping over deadly spikes, riding on
>> conveyor belts, collecting treasure. There is no real world
>> metaphor for an Innocent-Looking Block, so if you build puzzles
>> based on them, you're breaking a fundamental rule of game design.
>
> It is probably stupid to enter into this kind of argument, but
> just for the heck of it: I wouldn't agree with you, Matt. In real
> life a lot of things depend on the /angle/ at which you do things,
> and the best example is probably skimming stones (when they bounce
> off the water). You choose a wrong angle you don't get any
> results.
feature! :-)
Another example is the tennis-player Mansour Bahrami, who is a
genius with trick-shots (e.g. hitting balls behind his back, serving
with the back of his hand, retrieving smashes whilst sitting on a
chair, hitting multiple balls with a single stroke, jumping over the
net during a rally, &c.). He probably knows as many trick-shots as I
do quirky features (even if some of them are illegal by the rules of
tennis).
[Daniel's reply to dunny291073]
> - In case of MM/JSW remakes which I have called "advanced"I disagree that the games with quirky features /require/ prior
> meaning "using QF in a conscious way which makes it necessary to
> make use of QF in order to complete the game", I think that we
> both agree that these games require:
> - prior knowledge (of QF or "bugs", as you would say);
> - the ability to apply this knowledge in practice;
> - all the other skills necessary in any MM/JSW game.
knowledge. I started with no prior knowledge of quirky features; I
discovered just about everything I know on the subject through a
thorough exploration of all the possibilities offered by the control-
method (I distinctly remember the first time I ever jumped through
an ILB, when I wrote "The Nuclear Reactor" for Jet Set Dizzy in
1992).
Prior knowledge is a useful shortcut for many MM/JSW players, but a
willingness for thorough playtesting is a much more satisfying way
to gain knowledge of all the ins and outs of the game-mechanics.
> And as for your argument it's like a Spectrum 48K owner sayingI felt a bit this way between 1996 and 2003, when the best emulator
> to John Elliott: "Why did you design those new 128K JSW game
> engines? I cannot load the new games into my hardware any more.
> Am I being penalised or what?"
I could get was MacSpectacle 1.8.2, in which the JSW128 games just
crashed after the title-screen. I had to (and did) type them into my
real Spectrum +2 in order to play them.
Then in April 2003 my +2 died, I replaced it with a PC, installed
the vastly superior (to MacSpectacle) RealSpectrum, and found that
some clouds do have silver linings.
--
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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