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Message: 5694
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 09/03/2006
Subject: JSWED 2.3.1: Andrew's comments (Chapters 7 to 10)
This follows on from Message 5692.
This message revisits Chapters 7 to 10 for JSWED v2.3.1 (but using a
printout of the jswed.pdf from v2.3.0), and all the things related
to these chapters that I've been storing up to say since November
2005. It does not repeat the suggestions I already made in Messages
4974 and 4989.
########################################
Part I: Jet Set Willy (JSW48 and JSW128)
########################################
7 The Guardian editor
=====================--
7.1 On Guardian Classes
-----------------------
The mistake in this section of the manual that I reported in Message
4974 is corrected in my printout of the v2.2.9 manual, but has come
back up the S-bend in the v2.3.0 manual!
Makes me wonder how many other corrections may have been lost. Got
to be ultracareful when working on parallel versions!
-------------------
7.2 Editor overview
-------------------
> When a guardian is being edited, the top half of the screen...guardian-class
It's very important that JSW48/128 authors have a clear distinction
between guardian-classes and guardian-instances, which is why I
never use the term "guardian" on its own in relation to these game-
engines.
After editing a guardian-class, the room-editor has to be refreshed
to see the changes you just previewed in the guardian-class editor.
Editing diagonal guardians is the most confusing experience I've
encountered in JSWED. The start-position seems to keep changing at
random, causing the DG to walk off the edges of the screen, and it's
not obvious whether it's supposed to be a HG patched to move
vertically or a VG patched to move horizontally.
L/R?
----
This control should not appear for vertical guardians; all it does
is toggle Bit 7 of Guardian-class Offset 0, which is unused for VGs.
In my previous JSWED learning-cycle, I thought that this control was
for selecting whether the VG goes up or down initially, when in fact
you have to give "right of Y" a -ve value to go up initially or +ve
for down - the manual needs to explain this (or else JSWED needs to
present the vertical step as an unsigned value, with a separate U/D
control that actually works in the way that the user expects - or
behave as the MM editor does when editing VGs: editing U/D toggles
the sign of the velocity and vice versa!).
Wrap
----
JSWED seems to handle wraparound guardians correctly in
Geoff-mode 2, but in Geoff-mode 1 they just appear as diagonal
guardians (without the Wrap checkbox).
------------------
7.3 Guardian types
------------------
> flashing versions of all except the arrow and the rope.colour-cycling
---------------------
7.8 Geoff Mode bounds
---------------------
All sorts of random things occur when editing the bounds of a HG,
such as it turning into a DG!
And JSWED v2.3.1 just crashed after I edited the bounds and clicked
OK.
=============
8 Good Advice
=============
3. You might want to change "background" to "Air" for consistency
with the rest of the document.
4. "cell type" -> "cell-class"
> 9. Objects on top of other cell types (floors, walls, etc.)Items in non-Air cells cannot be collected by Willy (except items in
> cannot be collected by Willy.
Crumbly cells, which can be collected after the cell has crumbled).
11. The sentence "Learn to recognise all the quirky features, and
you'll be able to spot any unintended loopholes in games" should be
tacked onto the end of the debate on quirky features, or maybe
inserted after it as a new Note 12.
For it's very annoying to jump through an ILB or whatever, only to
find yourself in an infinite-death scenario that the author clearly
didn't intend.
####################
Part II: Manic Miner
####################
9 Editing Games
===============
JSWED has a bug whereby sometimes bidirectional HGs are displayed in
the room-view as unidirectional (left-facing sprites only) - notably
in "The Endorian Forest" [9] and "The Sixteenth Cavern" [15].
It would be nice to see the air-supply below the room-title at all
times - in all screens with a room-view.
JSWED should have a way of telling you which way the conveyor-cells
in a MM room go (and, indeed, in a JSW room), since you may wish to
place a conveyor-animation without altering the direction.
--------
9.1 Game
--------
In MM128, nothing happens when you click in the checkbox for
"Specials by room".
-------------------
9.4 The Room Editor
-------------------
Pressing Shift to place two or more items at the same coordinates
needs to work here too.
Before you have selected the cell-class that left-clicking will
place in the cellular layout, it appears that it starts at colour-
attribute 0 - not good if you start by trying to place Air-cells in
a room where Air has any colour-attribute other than 0!
Indeed, if you started by editing a room where Air had colour-
attribute 64 (bright black), you might not realise your mistake
until playtesting - and how would JSWED then help you to separate
the 0-cells (which look identical to Air but behave as Water) from
the 64-cells?
(Safe answer: change Air's colour-attribute to anything not used by
another cell-class in the room (to avoid attribute-capture), then
set the 0-cells to Air, then change Air's colour-attribute back to
64)
And if you move to another room and just start left-clicking the
cellular layout, it uses the colour-attribute of the last cell-class
you had selected in the previous room you edited (I suspect that the
above bug is actually a special case of this one).
9.4.4 Room options
------------------
General: I prefer the term /air-supply/ to "air remaining", in terms
of avoiding possible confusion with Air-cells.
Shapes: Cell-graphics would be a better term. I always thought
"Shapes" was a synonym of pixel-pattern/bitmap, implying that colour-
attributes are excluded.
------------------
9.5 Guardians page
------------------
For games with the "Specials by room" patch, I would like to see the
Specials panel here {instead of/as well as} on the Portals screen.
-----------------
9.6 Portal editor
-----------------
> If the portal is flashing Willy can go to the next level whether-> items. Keys are things you press!
> or not he has collected all the keys.
For games which don't have the "Specials by room" patch, attempting
to click in the Specials panel should pop up a message rather than
having no effect at all.
======================
10 The Guardian editor
======================
No further comments on Chapter 10.
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
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