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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 6086
Author: Daniel
Date: 09/03/2007
Subject: Some thoughts from Daniel, to Sendy and others
1. Sendy wrote:
> Glad to see some activity in the club. I kinda miss the Good OldI am also very glad to see a new burst of activity, and especially
> Days - everyone seems busier these days. That's life I guess...
some of the old-timers editing JSW again - especially Sendy, the
Drunken Master and Igor - and Herve as well (not exactly an "old-
timer", but a very distinguished author already, I would say :-) ).
Too bad Andrew's priorities have changed and the fans, with their
hopes fading, will have to wait for new eras in his life... We will,
Andrew, we will :-) .
The magic of Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner for the Spectrum will
exist as long (and only as long, I am afraid) as there are people who
feel it, take delight in it (by both playing and designing, or at
least either thing) and want to dedicate their time to it. When our
feelings for JSW/MM fade, and no new JSW/MM-lovers emerge, the little
fellow and his enchanting world will be dead...
I hope this moment is still a LONG time away, though. Sendy once
said, if I remember correctly, that she would continue to create JSW
games even if she were the last person to do it. Sometimes I feel in
the same way. There are also times when I need some rest - at the
beginning of this year I had a 6-week-long period of doing nothing
JSW or MM-related, and I was thinking hard whether I wanted to go
back to it with the same intensity as before. But then I just started
missing JSW, and I loaded "Willy to the Rescue!" into ZX Spin to
record an RZX walkthrough, and then the magic of the game just
captured me again :-) .
So now I am very happy to see other people being actively back as
well, because, apart from the magic of the game itself, it is the
Group activity which motivates me and gives me joy :-) .
2. Sendy wrote:
> 1) I have an unused room. I'd like to find out which guardian slots,Whenever I work on a game, I keep a list of all guardian-classes used
> if any, are available. I'd like this room to be something special.
in the game, so I know which ones are free.
If I were to tackle a game which is work in progress (not mine), in
this day and age which for me is still the before-the-SPECSAISIE era
( :-( ) , I would just load it into JSWED and, going room by room,
take note of all of the guardian-classes used, and then I would know
which ones haven't been used yet.
It is a tedious job, but it is not really a nightmare for a JSW48
game.
I can do it for you, Sendy, if you haven't got SPECSAISIE installed
but need a solution :-) . Just send me the game file.
3. A note to Andrew
If I understand correctly (without having used it yet), SPECSAISIE
shows the unused guardian-classes in decimal (in your example, e.g.,
Guardian-Class 124, Guardian-Class 125, Guardian-Class 126, etc.).
Would it not be more convenient if it showed them in hexadecimal,
because that's the way you see them in JSWED, isn't it?
4. Sendy wrote:
> 2) Can someone help me tack the loading screen onto it? I've kindaI have never done it before, but it's something I would like to be
> given up on the Summer/Winter selection screen, unless someone steps
> up soon. I could make them separate files, I suppose.
able to do (also for my future projects, like "Willy's New Mansion
SE"). After Andrew's explanations, I think I could try it. Let me
know if you want me to have a go at it :-) .
Do you have the loading screen ready? Or does it need designing as
well?
I could also try to help you with the selection screen, even though
it seems even more of a technical challenge to me. In the past I
tried to encourage Erix1 and one of the new Club members (can't
remember his name right now) to help you, since they obviously have
the technical knowledge necessary, but apparently there has been no
response. So I could try to do it myself, but without any guarantee
of success :-) .
And I would say - this is just my personal opinion - if you can't do
it yourself, and should I not be able to help you, and should no one
else volunteer to do the job soon - just release two separate files.
Don't hold the gamma-release for ever, waiting for someone who may
never appear, because one day you may lose interest in JSW (I hope it
doesn't happen, of course :-) ), or be distracted by other things, or
inhibited by real-life obligations, etc., and you will never release
a game which is so close to release, which would be an extreme pity
for everyone still interested in the subject.
The same goes for "Manic Person", of course, currently the most-
demanded not-gamma-released game on the scene :-) .
5. Andrew wrote:
> The second line of MYJSW.BAT concatenates LOADER.TAP, SCREEN.TAPWhat is the program "cat" and where can it be downloaded from?
> and JSWED_2.TAP to form the final product, MYJSW.TAP. It requires
> that the program "cat" has been installed.
6. Sendy wrote:
> I'm also working on a quick game just to warm myself up.Good luck with that! One of the characteristic features of the
present busy days seems to be a proliferation of mini-games. It's a
pity that they are not big projects, but still - every single JSW
game and room is welcome, IMO :-) .
7. Drunken Master wrote:
> Hello again people, just to let you know my little JSW relatedI look forward to it! :-)
> surprise may be ready within' the next 4 days.
8. Herve wrote:
> Concerning my JSW games projects: after five months withoutGreat news, can't wait to see it, Herve!
> creating, I start again this week the creation of my future
> game "Willy in the Islands of Mystery: part 1"
9. Good luck to Everyone Else with their projects, it would be great
to see new authors emerging, too!
Daniel
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