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Message: 5639

Author: andrewbroad

Date: 01/03/2006

Subject: Re: Quirky features and "bugs" - Dunny's views

 

dunny291073 wrote:

>
> The fact that you have to run through four or five screens each
> time you get a game over (said game-over is because you've not
> stumbled upon the right solution) is insane. Any feature of the
> engine should be an extension of the control method, not an
> exploit of it's failure to catch all possible situations that it
> may find itself in.

If by "extension of the control method" you mean additional to Left,
Right, Jump and Pause, I would say that the comfortable limit is
five keys.

In a certain platform-game whose distribution is now denied, there
were six controls: Left, Right, Up, Down, Jump and Fire. The Up and
Down controls were for climbing ladders, and I would have much
preferred to have one key for both Up and Jump.

> So the first thing you lot do when a new MM/JSW game is released
> is reach for the snapshot button? Or the POKEs sheet?
>

[Re. snapshots]

> And for those of us that like to load the games into the original
> hardware... Oh dear, we're penalised are we?

This is a fair point I suppose, as I myself used to type MM/JSW
games into my real Spectrum because MacSpectacle was no substitute.

But since I turned to the dark side, I must admit I've become
particularly addicted to two of RealSpectrum's controls:
Alt+ScreenLock to save a snapshot in the PC's memory, and ScreenLock
to load it back (not to mention holding ` to speed things up for a
while).

These instant snapshots really do add a new and very welcome
dimension to Spectrum-gaming IMHO.

Regarding POKEs, I have only ever used infinite lives for serious
attempts to complete a MM/JSW game. I use teleportation (WRITETYPER
or POKE 33824) for exploration-purposes only - never to cheat my way
from A to B unless I'm convinced that it's otherwise impossible to
collect an item or to escape.

For me in the emulation-age, it's all about getting the maximum
experience out of a game - everything it has to offer. I don't play
games (with a serious attempt to complete them) using cheats that
would diminish that experience, such as the teleportation I
mentioned above, or removing guardians, making Willy invincible, &c.

> Your argument is flawed. Although the Television Set was made
> possible by the existence of Quantum Physics, I do not need an
> intimate knowledge of that branch of physics to be able to turn it
> on and watch my favourite TV programs. Similarly for any
> antibiotics, painkillers etc. I do not need an in-depth knowledge
> of pharmacology to be able to take them, nor to know what they do.

Nor do you need to study a disassembly of MM/JSW to play a game that
exploits quirky features (although it /is/ fascinating to study the
disassemblies in my experience).

You just need to know "what will happen if I do this?", and "what
are the possible moves from this situation?" The latter requires
lateral thinking, which IMO is a very valuable skill to encourage.

> No, this would be crap because you'd expect an arrow only to be
> stopped by something before it hits you. If it passes into your
> cell, but you happen to be standing in a particular cell, and it
> fails to kill you then that is a BUG. An arrow passing through you
> without hurting is generally considered bad form in game design.

I don't see why. There's even a real-world metaphor for hiding from
arrows: if you're standing on the battlements of a besieged castle,
with an army firing arrows at you from below, then they're going to
collide with you through the air but not through the solid blocks!

> One may EXPECT that a game will not punish you through lack of
> knowledge. One may EXPECT that the game might reward you for
> aplying higher knowledge, such as revealing a secret room (with
> maybe an extra life in it) but it certainly should not stop you
> from playing just because you haven't read Andrew's document on
> some obscure site on the internet.

Ignorance is no defence. As with so many things in life, the game-
mechanics are a system of rules (rules which are now documented,
albeit poorly by my own admission). And we all have a responsibility
to learn the rules if we do not wish to be punished.

> Relying on the quirks does not force you to think, it forces you
> to gain inside knowledge.

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Melkor the Wise?

I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you.

It's a Sith legend.

Darth Melkor was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise
that he could use the Force to influence JSWED to create cells.

He had such a knowledge of quirky features that he could detain
players for hours a room while they strained their brains to think
of the solution, often reducing them - for all their inside
knowledge and ability to save snapshots - to nervous wrecks.

> Again, RELYING ON QUIRKS TO MAKE THE GAME HARDER IS BAD GAME
> DESIGN, AND IS PURE LAZINESS ON THE PART OF THE AUTHOR.

But not as lazy as an unwillingness to learn quirky features!

Admittedly it doesn't take much effort to put a single quirky
feature in a room - considering the added value it gives - but
there's certainly nothing lazy about devising an intricate web of
quirky features, followed by thorough playtesting.

> I can complete JSW (with attic bugfixes) and MM, and JSW2 on the
> original hardware. I have done so. And now, I'm not a good player
> because I don't know as many of the engine bugs as you do?

MM/JSW is not stuck in a 1984 time-warp; it's a developing field
which - if one wishes to be a complete player - must be kept up with!

> Is that exactly what you wanted to say there? Can you, with all
> your "expert" and "advanced" knowledge, perform a similar task?

I completed the original MM and JSW on a real Spectrum, with no
cheats - not even infinite lives or WRITETYPER. I also completed
several of the rewrites on my real Spectrum, with just infinite
lives, including all my own games up to Goodnite Luddite (which took
me four hours in real time) and Ma jolie (six hours).

I must confess that I have yet to ever complete JSW II - and I
certainly couldn't do it without cheating because some rooms, such
as "The Garden", are just so unfair.

Nor would I have attempted to complete a JSW128 game on my real
Spectrum (before it died), because they're just too big to risk
losing everything if you can't save snapshots.

And I must admit that I would never attempt to complete Manic
Scribbler on a real Spectrum, either - not good for mental health!
;-)

> They are not puzzles. Puzzles have a logical, if obscured,
> solution. Many of the quirks (arrows through water, impervious
> blocks that you can jump through) are illogical, and the refuge
> of the incompetent game designer. It screams out that the person
> making this game doesn't understand how to construct puzzles
> effectively, and relies entirely on "expert" knowledge to get
> through them.

Quirky features are perfectly logical when you accept that they have
their own logic. They behave consistently with the rules of MM/JSW
game-mechanics (no random elements here), and can be reasoned about
in a clear manner.

If you refuse to use quirky features, then you're severely limiting
your options for constructing puzzles.

> One of the rooms in UMM requires precise timing to get through.
> This is an excellent example of good design - you don't need
> knowledge to do it, you need intelligence to work it out, and
> dexterity to execute it.

Without knowing the room to which you refer, I would say that most
players would rely on trial-and-error, and only basic intelligence,
to get the timing right (basic intelligence as in observing guardian-
boundaries, or remembering whether you were too early or too late in
an unsuccessful attempt - the room in my mind is "The Forgotten
Abbey").

> No, it's not an attack on Mr Broad.

Dr.

> And a PhD gives someone the magical ability to better at text
> files than someone else? Better presentation skills? Crikey, you
> have a really warped sense of what education is about. Unless he
> has a doctorate in JSW or MM, then his abilities at the games are
> likely no greater or lesser than anyone else you're likely to meet
> around here.
>
> Let's leave professional, but totally unrelated qualifications out
> of this, or I'll bring my Nursing qualifications in as proof that
> I'm good at JSW too.

My qualifications are in Computer Science, and in the process of
getting them, I developed skills which help me tremendously in my
contributions to the MM/JSW community.

My knowledge of data-representation and computer-architecture stands
me in good stead for the technical side of MM/JSW, and I doubt very
much that I would be as good a machine-code programmer as I am today
without my BSc (I have written several patches for MM/JSW). Or as
good a Java-programmer (SPECSAISIE) if it wasn't for those degrees.

Doing a PhD taught me to think laterally - a valuable skill for
discovering quirky features, for example. And improved my technical-
writing skills, to the benefit of the documents on my website.

And I gained another important skill which I plan to use for the
benefit of the MM/JSW community, but I'm going to keep it under my
hat until it's too late for anyone to beat me to implementing my
ambitious idea... 8-)

--
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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