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Message: 5992

Author: Daniel

Date: 19/12/2006

Subject: Various things to various people from Daniel

 

1. To Neil

Thank you for your two kind messages about "Jet Set Emily – Final
Edition". I hope I did not disappoint you too much with the IDS which
Andrew discovered and which had escaped my attention. I hope it will
turn out for good, because if there are other important comments
about the game which I can incorporate, the ultimate bug-fixed file
will be an improved product :-) .


2. To Andrew Broad

Andrew Broad wrote:

> Due to real-life commitments and tennis-distractions of unforeseen
> magnitude, my MM/JSW activities have been severely curtailed, and I
> have almost 500 unread emails!

That's a HUGE amount! Do they all concern MM/JSW? How is the
processing going?

Congratulations on your Flash Manic Miner records :-) . I can see
that jogo76 has just taken the lead again. Does it mean you already
know how you will spend your free time during the holiday season? :-)
And who is jogo76 anyway? Is he (she?) a Group member?


3. To Dasse and Andrew

Dasse wrote (in response to Andrew Broad's detailed explanation of
Static vs Dynamic POKEs):

> I could say "Andrew! you need a JOB!!" .... but you are so weird in
> a wonderful way that its not right.. love you man!

I don't know whether it's a permanent feature of the modern world,
but a lot of areas seem to require an extremely high degree of
specialisation. If you want to deliver products of finest quality,
you need to really specialise in your field. Andrew has the advantage
of being able to actually work with Z80 and modify the JSW game
engine whenever he feels the need to. It is an important asset while
creating new games.

What amazes me most is the degree to which one might want to
specialise. I've been into MM/JSW very intensely for the last two-and-
a-half years, devoting most of my spare time to it. I would love to
play other games, such as Boulder Dash, which evidently is very
exciting to some of the Group members, and hundreds of other
fantastic games out there (Spectrum and non-Spectrum), but I can't do
it, because if I dedicate time to them, I will have no time for JSW.
I have never even tried to design a MM or JSW64 game yet, and I know
that if I take up this challenge, it will take me a long time to
first learn to work with them in JSWED (even though JSWED is
intuitive and user-friendly), and then to learn all the tricks that
make a game interesting. So designing /MM and JSW games/ for the
Spectrum sometimes seems too large a field to me. Designing MM games
only could be just enough if you want to produce top-quality results.

And having said all that, the really wonderful thing is that you
don't really need to specialise so much, or work with Z80, or be a
professional artist, or take things so seriously in order to produce
a nice, enjoyable MM or JSW game. And a true JSW lover loves all
created games anyway. So come on, folks, load JSWED (and other tools)
into your machines and show us some brand-new, freshly-authored takes
on these charming 8-bit worlds... :-)


4. To Mark Wills

Welcome to the Group! :-) It is very nice to see new faces (so to
speak) and to know that there are still other people out there who
are interested in redesigning MM and JSW games for old platforms.

Mark Wills wrote:

> I plan to write the 'game engine' from scratch (hopefully
> with some help from a friend in Denmark)

Isn't the international character of MM/JSW development really great?


5. To Mark Wills and Sendy

I had a quick look at your personal website, Mark, and since I see
you are an seasoned programmer, including Z80, an idea occurred to me
which is purely a spontaneous thought. Sendy (Alex Cornhill) has
created a game called "Role Reversal". It is very close to being
ready for release, but there is one problem: Sendy needs "a special
loading routine (...), which would let you choose an 'alternate'
version set either in Winter or at night-time". Please see message #
4936 for Sendy's explanation of the problem, and # 4939 for Andrew's
suggestion for a solution. In fact, the loader seems to have been the
only tthing that was holding the gamma-release back at that time (and
also now, I imagine). So my idea was (since I am unable to do it
myself due to the lack of technical knowledge): Mark, would you
consider making this contribution to the MM/JSW community and writing
the loader was Sendy? – if she is interested, of course, but I can't
see any reason why she shouldn't be, especially that she
mentioned "Role Reversal" "clogging her pipe (damn that hurts!)" :-
) . It sounds like it would be a piece of cake for you, and it would
allow Sendy to finally finish up this project which has been in the
beta stage for ages, and us all – to enjoy a new, wonderful gamma
release.


6. To DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!

It is probably a matter of great interest to everyone to know whether
you have been able to take your JSW folder across the ocean, and so
whether there will be any advance in your projects in the near future
or whether we will have to wait for several months, if not a year.
So, how did it go?

DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! wrote:

> Anyway as of friday night\Saturday morning I will now officially be
> an ex-pat

Does it mean that your future games can be considered a US
contribution to MM/JSW scene? :-)

DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! wrote:

> Tonight or tommorow night it's gonna be a curry or a low grade high
> street pizza shop pizza.

"It started with a curry" ??? :-)


7. To Igor Makovsky

I look forward very much indeed to your fifth game! And I am very
glad about it for two reasons: that there will be a new game created,
and that you are back on the JSW scene (is it "official" now?). The
scene has not been the same since your departure earlier this year :-
( (also due to the decreased activity of some other normally very
active members, admittedly).


8. To Dan Richardson

Again, just to give you some additional encouragement, it would be
great to see "Demons" finished and gamma-released! Think about all
the effort you put into the game in the past, and how relatively
little effort you still need to invest in order to deliver a
finished, gleaming product – and thus make a lasting, "material"
contribution to the Spectrum JSW scene :-) .


9. To Herve Ast

Herve wrote:

> I already began two new projects on my computer:

> Project number 3: "Welcome to Willy's Fun Park!" and
> Project number 6: "Willy in the Islands of the Mystery Part I"

I look forward very much to these, Herve :-) . I have re-played "JSW:
Escape of the Snails" recently and I am now into "JSW in Paris" and
it's been a great joy, indeed!


10. To Sendy

Sendy wrote:

> I hope things are going to pick up in the MM/JSW scene and 2007 is
> the 'year of the Willy' or something o_O

So do I! And how about "Manic Person"? Will it be the last release of
2006, or will it initiate the "Year of the Willy"? :-)


11. To Everyone

Happy Holiday Season to Everybody, and, in particular, Merry
Christmas to those who celebrate it! (how politically correct... :-) )

Keep editing and playing!


Daniel

 

 

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