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Message: 5762
Author: dm_boozefreek
Date: 28/03/2006
Subject: Re: DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!'s games - Daniel's review
--- In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel"
>
played
> In the process of playing all of the gamma-released MM and JSW
> games, I have recently played several games by DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!,
> namely, all of his JSW48 and JSW64 games plus "Bizarre". I still
> have to play his other JSW128 games (the Down and Out trilogy).
>
> I would like to share my general impressions, and also mention some
> things I noticed in the spirit of constructive criticism.
>
> I have played, to completion or as-near-completion-as-possible:
>
> - The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! (JSW48)
> - The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! SE (JSW64)
> - Fantasy World Willy (JSW48)
> - The F.I.T. (2 JSW48 games and 1 Geoff-mode1)
> - Maria on Tour (JSW64)
> - Bizarre (JSW128)
>
> In the case of the last two games, this was the second time I
> them (the first time was soon after the release).
same
>
> In the past I have commented on DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!'s games in
> messages # 5045 and 5123 (reviews of "Maria on Tour"), 5182 (review
> of "Bizarre"), 4751 and 4760 (considerations about the
> classification of the "F.I.T." and "The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!").
>
> As a sort of disclaimer before any other comments, I have to say
> that I am not particularly fond of games which are visibly remakes
> of the original JSW in the sense that a number of rooms are the
> or only slightly edited rooms from the original. Also, my personal
mAsTeR!!!'s
> preference is for games which are "traditional-looking" platform
> games, which I would say is not exactly the case with
> e.g. "Bizarre". In spite of this, playing all of DrUnKeN
> games was a very enjoyable experience, indeed :-) , and it has
I aim to please LOL
> definitely widened my JSW horizons.
>
> Among things I particularly like about DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!'s games I
> should mention:
>
> - I highly appreciate the atmosphere created in them, and the sense
> of humour. DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! is very consistent in this, and his
> crazy ideas have made me LOL more than once :-) .
> The interesting thing is that one's subjective perception of the
> games may be different depending on when you play them (under what
> personal circumstances). The F.I.T. for example will seem
> particularly good if you play it on a day when the whole world and
> everything you can think of seems "fucking" or "fucked". One of
> those days, you know...
>
Muntersons
>
> - Some graphics are truly outstanding. I particularly like:
>
> a) Various games: the moon (in different variations) - which has
> apparently become DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!'s trademark :-) ;
>
> b) "DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! SE": the worms (in the sky castle), the huge
> insect in "The last of me!", all of the sprites in "Munty
> basement" and the crabs (also used in "Maria on Tour");
I can't take credit for the single sprite guards in this room, they
originated from Lee Tatlocks "Willy Vs The Vampire Lord".
>
Asmodieus
> c) "Fantasy World Willy": the orchestra in "The Mosh Pit",
> (or "the priest who was not a God squader"), the church in the
Thanks but personally I think these are starting to look a little
> graveyard and the sauna;
dated now.
>
I was pretty intoxicated when I drew "Eddie". The inspiration believe
> d) "Fucked Internet Remake": Eddie the Psychotic Cherry;
it or not was the label from a bottle of Morrisons own brand
Cherryade.
>
"The Garden of Edam"? if so let me say I wish I'd saved that room for
> e) "Fucked Internet Resurection": the sexual intercourse (in "Where
> security fuck the mallrats"), the garden, the huge Kari Krisnikova
> and "the dweller of the cellar";
a better game. The Cellar dweller was meant for a different game but
I don't know if I actually re-used it?
>
Once again i can't take credit for the Maria sprite it's a straight
> f) "Maria on Tour": Maria's sprite, the fire, Bad Mr Frosty, the
> picture in Megatron, the crabs, the forest bugs (?) and the moles;
copy of Erix 1s' Maria from "Maria vs Some Bastards" (apart from the
space suit, Swimming, and Miner Maria, but even so the space suit and
the Miner Maria are still modifications of Erix 1s' Maria). I can't
really take full credit for the moles as they are modified versions
of Monty (from the various Monty Mole games).
> g) "Bizarre": the trees (and their faces), the cabin, the burning
the
> candle, "the man with a fresh soul", the train engine, the fire,
> huge monster in "Sewer Creeps" and Technician Ted.
The tree faces I like, but I could have animated them better. I can't
take full credit for the fire, once again they're modified Erix 1
sprites (I have insane troble animating fire and this sprite saved me
a lot of time). The monster in sewer creeps was never actually
finished, I lost interest in the game before I added the finer
details.
>
easy,
> - The games are apparently consistent with DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!'s rule
> of "no cheating" and "no infinite lives POKE". They are pretty
> and with some effort could probably be finished without cheating,
I try not to make my games rock hard, but I may make an emulator
> indeed. It's nice, actually, because the gameplay is smooth.
exclusive game in the future full of evil quirks and toenail snapping
jumps.
>
Well thanks I'm still convinced this game is my stinker, good ideas
>
> - "Bizarre" is a game which reminds me of movies usually
> called "cinema of the road" (I'm not 100% sure what the expression
> normally used in English is; a prime example of this genre is "Easy
> Rider"). It's a really nice idea, and I must say that when I played
> it for the second time, I enjoyed it even more than the first time,
> despite the fact (or maybe: thanks to it) that I knew what was
> coming.
badly executed and rushed just to get it away from me. The movie
influences for this game are Evil Dead 1 and 2, Akira, and I forget
the rest if there are any.
>
here's
>
> - It is nice to see a new Geoff-mode1 game ("Fucked Internet
> Resurection").
>
>
> Some constructive criticism - design problems I noticed:
>
> a) "The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!" original edition
>
> I know you realize, DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!, that the game is impossible
> to complete without cheating (I completed it using the Writetyper
> POKE and some other POKEs, such as the superjump). I also know that
> you removed most of the problems in the SE. Just in case you wanted
> one day to release a completable fix of the original edition,
> what I noticed:
Really? I thought I'd got rid of that?
>
> - There is an invisible item in "They smashed the stairs" (28). I
> guess this is a remnant from the original JSW. The item may be
> collected by jumping vertically up on the right side of the column
> after inserting e.g. POKE 35358,0.
>
after
> - AFAICT there is no way to get back to the main playing field
> going down in "They never even touched the wine" (49). You are then
Sad thing is I thought I'd sorted this before I released it, but I
> trapped between this room and the three adjacent rooms to the right.
>
only noticed it myself while I was making the SE.
> The above bugs are critical. Other non-critical problems include:
never noticed that one.
>
> - In "Take it to the bridge" (36) you can jump through the Earth-
> cell which is the lower stair on the left side. You can then fall
> down, exiting the room - you appear falling in "I see something up
> ahead" (30) and experience an infinite death scenario (IDS).
>
Or that one.
> - In "West Wing Roof" (56) you can exit the room to the left, which
> results in an IDS in "Don't worry it'll be over soon!" (01).
> - In "Those bastards blew my boat up!" (59) you can also exit the
Or that one.
> room to the left. You appear on top of the wall in "They built this
> wall for you man" (60) and are likely to experience an IDS if you
> walk to the right into "Grab as much as you can and run!" (00) (you
> can avoid the IDS by jumping).
>
I had a rough idea about this one.
> - You can exit to the right in "They even pissed in the pool" (31),
> which results in an IDS in "I see something up ahead" (30).
>
That's another one I thought I'd got rid of before I released it?
> - There is a nasty IDS when climbing up the rope in "The gits never
> clean the fridge" (25) into the room above.
>
okay,
>
> b) "The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!" SE
>
> Most of the problems found in the original edition have been
> eliminated and the game is possible to complete; in fact, without
> losing a single life.
>
> Minor issues, which may be problems for people who try to exploit
> every possibility offered by the quirky features, are:
>
> - the problem with being able to go down in "Take it to the bridge"
> (36); the only one remaining from the original edition AIAICT;
>
> - the possibility to jump through an innocent-looking block (ILB)
> in "Downstairs slightly?" (70) (the one in-between the lowest items
> on the left). You reappear on top of the same room and you are
> but it's not very elegant..
sitting.
>
> - the possibility to jump through an ILB in "Munty Muntersons
> basement" (71) (the Earth-cell above the leftmost of the lowest
> items). You reappear on top of the same room and experience an IDS
> colliding with the leftmost vertical guardian.
>
> Other minor issues:
>
> - In "Because Willy bought a microwave" (24) you can collect the
> item by jumping from the left onto the ledge on which it is
> This spares you jumping across the platforms in this and in the
lost
> adjacent room.
>
> - The name of the room "There's a plane in my ceiling" (42) has
> sense, because there is no more aeroplane sprite there. A person
what
> playing the SE only would not understand why the room is called
> it's called.
Call it a surreal remnant of the original, I can't even remember
removing the plane LOL. I'm sure I left it there ahahaha.
>
when
>
> c) "Fantasy World Willy"
>
> AFAICT the game is bed-completable (I played it using some POKEs,
> but not out of necessity but to speed up the process). However,
> Willy makes his toilet-run, in "You'd think by now that people"
(03)
> he collides with the cyan vertical guardian (which is the second
one
> from the left) and dies. This is a shame, because it looks like the
long
> toilet-run might involve four other rooms, so it might be quite
> for a JSW48 game.
this was intentional you're supposed to hold right so you stop,
although now I can see how this can affect the gameplay for people
who don't know about this.
>
Once again this is another one that I thought wasn't there.
> d) "The Fucked Internet Remix"
>
> The game still has the Attic bug, which makes it impossible to
> finish without cheating. I have managed to finish it using the
> Writetyper cheat (never entering "The Attic").
>
I noticed this one, but it was too late I'd already released the game
> e) "The Fucked Internet Remake"
>
> The game is bed-completable. During the toilet-run, after
> entering "The Stylish Bathroom", Willy gets stuck against the
> horizontal platform on the left side of the room, which makes the
> game non-toilet-completable.
>
Can this not also be remedied by stopping Willy?
>
> f) "The Fucked Internet Resurection"
>
> The game is bed-completable. During the toilet-run, after
> entering "A Landing for A Novelty",Willy catches up with and
> collides with the red horizontal guardian, which makes the game non-
> toilet-completable.
>
message
> g) "Maria on Tour"
>
> The are no real problems in the game, which is toilet-completable
> and possible to finish without losing a single life.
>
> A very minor issue for me continues to be (I mentioned it in
> # 5123) the fact the after you gain your twelfth life, you don't
see
> it any more, because only 11 Marias are shown on the screen. If you
starts
> keep gaining lives afterwards, you won't know how many you have
> (unless you keep count), because you don't see them, until you have
> more than 16 lives, after which the first Maria from the left
> flickering (because it's displayed twice).
I hate this game now, I may fix it again if I can bring myself to
>
> Also, a very minor imperfection is that you can take a shortcut to
> the item in "Olde Style kitchen" (10), by jumping onto the leftmost
> platform in "West of Olde Style kitchen" (11), as mentioned before
> by Sendy and Andrew.
>
>
> h) "Bizarre"
>
> The game is toilet-completable, but you have to sacrifice one life.
> It happens in the room "Romantic Hallucinations" (73). DrUnKeN
> mAsTeR!!! has corrected the problem with the lower rightmost item
> which I mentioned in message # 5182. However, after collecting all
> of the items (you are in the lower part of the room), you have no
> way to get back up into the upper half of the room. So you are
> trapped, and losing a life is the only way out.
poison JSWED with it again. But for the meantime call it selective
martyrdom.
>
in
> The possible IDS when exiting "Get me out of here I'm a......."
> (93) into "The Obligatory Milk Bottle" (94) persists. I have
> temporarily uploaded a snapshot called "BizProb.z80" to my folder
> the Files section again, in order to show DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! what I
I'll do it, but I may not fix it for a long time if at all.
> mean. Just open the snapshot and jump to the left.
>
Box",
> There is one other problem I didn't notice during my first
> playtesting. In the first room of the sequence "The Old Signal
> when you enter if from "Up the fucked up viaduct", you can jump
from
> the stairs so that you land with the lower part of Willy's body
this game just continues to haunt me.
> INSIDE the rails (the white horizontal line). In such case, you can
> then just walk to the left and exit the room (you pass the brick
> wall by walking through wall blocks at head-height right-to-left).
> After you have exited the room to the left, you appear on the right-
> hand side of the same room, and you are trapped.
>
a
>
> i) Spelling
>
> There are some spelling problems in the room-names. The most common
> one is with things like "Muntersons" instead
> of "Munterson's", "worlds" instead of "world's", etc.Other
> misspelled words in whose case it doesn't look like it was done on
> purpose include: "labotamy" (> "lobotomy"), "desocrated"
> (> "desecrated"), "seranada" (> "serenada") and "favourate"
> (> "favourite").
>
> I wouldn't really mention this phenomenon, because it doesn't seem
> problem in games of "drunken" nature (and I'm not using this
(> "Resurrection"),
> expression in a negative sense at all! :-) ). However, it also
> concerns the title "Fucked Internet Resurection"
> which might be improved, IMHO - unless it has been misspelled on
I can't believe some of these typos, they're ridiculous. But I'm sure
> purpose, of course.
I'd corrected them....oh well.
> In view of all of the above I have a question to DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!
released:
> concerning possible releases of fixed versions of his games. In my
> humble opinion, it would be nice, DrUnKeN mAsTeR, if you re-
>
Maybe, I think I mentioned a possible SE of this. But not for a while.
> - "Fantasy World Willy" with the ending problem fixed, to make the
> game toilet-completable.
>
I may tidy the whole trilogy one day. I did however explain that
> - "The Fucked Internet Remix" with the Attic bug fixed, and the
> colour-code protection removed.
>
> - "The Fucked Internet Remake" with the ending problem fixed, to
> make the game toilet-completable.
>
> - "The Fucked Internet Resurection" with the ending problem fixed,
> to make the game toilet-completable (and possibly the spelling of
> the title corrected).
these games were pretty much rush jobs. FIR took less than 24 hours
to make. FIR2 I think took 3.5 days. FIR3 being the longest, I thini
it took somewhere between 3 weeks to 3 months. not 100% sure though
all the answers to these things are in the readmes.
>
Probably never but maybe one day if I can bring myself to do it.
> - "Bizarre" with the "Romantic Hallucinations" problem fixed, to
> make the game completable without losing a single life.
>
Probably not, but by rights when I discovered the bugs in the
> - possibly the original "The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!" fixed to become
> toilet-completable, but I don't feel very strongly about it, since
> the SE makes up for it.
original when I was making the SE, I maybe should have fixed the
original for the boxset.
>
near
> So my question is: DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!, is there any chance you might
> decide to do the above-mentioned fixes and to release them in a
> future?
Possibly, but don't hold your breath.
>
am
> Preparing all of these releases should not take you more than a
> couple of hours, taking into account that you can test the toilet-
> runs by applying the runtime POKE 34271,1 which makes Maria
> disappear (as Andrew mentioned in his messages).
>
> The question is particularly important to me, because right now I
> preparing the list (and files) of games to be sent to Steve Brown
of
> The TZX Vault for conversion and inclusion in the archives. So I
Thanks for the kind words and also for the critcism/advice. I hope
> would be very happy to be able to send him completable versions of
> your games to be preserved as such for posterity :-) .
>
> Well, this is all for now. Congratulations, DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!, on
> the games I have played so far, and I look forward very much to
> playing your remaining JSW128 games - the Down and Out trilogy, and
> your future games!
you enjoy "The Down and Out Trilogy" when you get round to it.
>
no probs if I can help somebody out I'll give it a shot.
>
> Daniel
>
>
> P.S. DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!, thanks for your explanation concerning the
> teleport in JSW48 :-) .
>
title
> P.S. 2 A note to Dr. Broad: Andrew, since the author is consistent
> in the usage of a mixture of lower and upper case for his game
> (The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!), perhaps you could reflect it on your list
Cheers
> as well?
>
DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!
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