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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 6006
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 26/12/2006
Subject: Re: Willy's Flashback / The WRITETYPER cheat
[Re. Jet Visy's _Willy's Flashback_]
Daniel wrote:
>Whenever I playtest a game and find it to be not item-completable, I
> Secondly, I circumvented the problem (and recorded an alternative
> ending of the walkthrough, downloadable from the RZX Archive - it's
> in the same ZIP file) by activating the Writetyper cheat just
> before finishing the game and then using it during the toilet-run.
>
> My question to the members of the JSW community is: Can this be
> considered a "rightful" way of completing a game? And in general,
> can using Writetyper (e.g. to collect items otherwise impossible to
> collect) be considered a "rightful" way of completing a game? My
> intuitive answer would be that it should be possible to complete
> any game /without/ using the cheat, but, on the other hand, it is
> hard-wired into the original game engine, so you could argue to the
> contrary.
would never consider myself to have completed it "rightfully" if I
had teleported (other than by using a teleporter that the author had
placed).
The best I can do is to edit the game, making the smallest change
that makes it item-completable (sometimes I have a choice of ways to
edit it, and I have to use my best judgement). I then use SPECSAISIE
Compare to determine the poke(s) that make the change(s), apply the
poke(s) to my saved-position snapshot, contact the author if
possible, and publish the poke(s) on my "Bugs in Specific JSW Games"
web-page <http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/bugsi.html>
If further pokes are necessary to make the game Maria-completable,
then I publish them as such. I do not, however, publish pokes to make
a game bed-completable (e.g. Willy's New Hat) or toilet-completable
(e.g. Spaceman Willy) /if/ it is clear that the author intended a
different kind of ending.
Personally, I think that the Fire-conveyor that blocks the toilet-
run of _Willy's Flashback_ is a glitch that ought to be fixed, though
I appreciate that this would require editing "Security Monitor" [33]
in a way that might seem inelegant to jet_visy outside of the toilet-
run (the best I can suggest, without patching the game-engine, is an
invisible ramp, or moving the toilet - it's even possible to have the
toilet detect Willy at a different position to which it is drawn!).
And since jet_visy himself wrote...
> The conveyor is supposed to be deadly, and thus I consider this...I can only respect this as the author's intention and, I guess,
> the true ending of the (rather mediocre) game.
not publish pokes to make _Willy's Flashback_ toilet-completable when
I get around to playtesting it in the 2040s! ;-) (owing to increased
tennis-distractions, I don't have time for any serious playtesting
until at least February 2007).
Daniel wrote:
>1. There is an unreachable, invisible item in "First Landing" [28].
> And a related question: is it possible to complete the original
> JSW /without/ the official Software Projects POKEs BUT /using/ the
> Writetyper cheat?
Theoretically, you could use WRITETYPER to teleport into "First
Landing" and collect the item; in RealSpectrum it's not possible
because the PC hijacks the combination of keys '3', '4', '5' and '9'
before the emulator sees them. :-(
2. You cannot climb the right-hand side of "The Banyan Tree" [30]
because there's an Earth-cell in the way.
Yes, you can just teleport into the right half of "A bit of tree"
[36] using '3', '6' and '9'.
3. There is a faulty arrow in "The Attic" [41] which corrupts other
rooms in the game (the Attic-Bug).
There are no items in "The Attic", but the game is not Maria-
completable without passing through it at least once (from right to
left). So you could use WRITETYPER to escape after collecting the
items in the rooms to the right of The Attic, without ever entering
The Attic.
4. The rightmost Fire-cell in "Conservatory Roof" [43] prevents you
from collecting the rightmost item.
No use of WRITETYPER allows you to collect an item which is wedged
between a Fire-cell and the right edge of the screen!
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/bugsi.html
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