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Message: 6136

Author: andrewbroad

Date: 23/04/2007

Subject: Re: "Party Willy" - Daniel's comments

 

Daniel wrote:

>
> On continuation I would like to comment on some points found in
> these documents. This is mainly in case Andrew should want to
> re-release the text files one day, after converting the
> terminology used therein to the currently-used standards (i.e.
> use "Fire-cells" instead of "static nasties", "Earth-cells"
> instead of "wall-blocks", etc.).

While I do plan to update the terminology on my website, I have
decided not to do so for the text-files.

My text-files are historical documents rather than up-to-date Web-
pages, and it's still reasonable to use "wall-blocks" and "static
nasties" as synonyms of Earth-cells and Fire-cells - I don't think
anybody's going to misunderstand my text-files on the basis of old
terminology, though it may help if my MM/JSW glossary (when
published) includes the old terms as synonyms.

Besides, if I update the terminology for Party Willy, I'll have to
update it for every text-file in every MM/JSW product I've released,
and that's just plain tedious! ;-)

----------------------
A. The Technical Notes
----------------------

> The text file says:
>
> "To implement a 24-hour clock, as documented in my 2002 game
> _Goodnite Luddite_. Part 1 ends the game at 12:00, Part 2 and
> PW128 at 24:00. These deadlines are *very* generous - I managed
> to complete both Part 1 and Part 2 in just over four JSW-hours
> each, and PW128 in just over six JSW-hours!"
>
> Speaking about the generous deadlines, you might want to mention,
> Andrew, that the best known, documented completion time for
> Part 1 is 1 hour 44 min. JSW-time, for Part 2 - 2 hours 21 min.
> JSW-time and for PW128 - 4 hours 12 min. JSW-time :-) .

The purpose of my text-files is not to record the best known JSW
toilet-times or MM scores (upon first completion of the final
cavern). I suggest you use the Database-section of this Group if you
wish to do that.

---------------------------
B. Room-descriptions Part 1
---------------------------

> 1. R ROOM 16: "The Gaping Pit of Infinite Death"

......*..*............*..*......
................................
................................
................................
$...............................
................................
................................
..|.............................
................................
|---|....................../|--|
|..-|......................-|--|
|-..|......................-|--|
|..-|......................-|--|
|-..|......................-|--|
|..-|......................-|--|
|-..|......................-|..|

> "* You can jump through the ILB from the room to the left [15].
> It's safe to go down inside the wall."
>
> You can also access the "shaft" on the left side of the room by
> jumping through the shaft wall from the rope at the correct
> moment; then you don't have to use the ILB at all. See my RZX
> walkthrough to know exactly what I mean.

An annoying loophole, and one of which I was probably unaware until
you mentioned it, but it's not necessary to mention this in
ROOMS_PART1.TXT. I'd prefer that the players entered the shaft
through the ILB, as I intended. :-)

> 2. ROOM 30: "The Forest"
>
> "An attractive sylvian screen (...)"
>
> => sylvan or silvan [spelling; incidentally, I enjoy your rich
> vocabulary, Andrew, I have learned a number of words and
> expressions from you, and I find them easy to remember, because
> JSW is such an emotional subject for me :-) ]

Sometimes I like to be solecistic in my MM/JSW products. For example,
the room "Semi-Perilous Light" [18] in _Ma jolie_ I thought about
calling "The Luminious Beam", because that's how Björk pronounces it
in "All Neon Like"! :-)

But since I can't remember why I chose to spell it "sylvian" - I
certainly hadn't heard of a Sylvian fissure before I just opened my
dictionary - I have changed it to "sylvan" (not to be confused with
the Sylvan in "Sylvan's Hideout" [27]).

> 3. ROOM 49: "The Return of the Brothers Grimm"

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||.$||||.$||||.$||||.$||||.$||||
|....||....||....||....||....||.
|....||....||....||....||....||.
................................
................................
|\-----------------------------$
||\............................|
|||\...........................|
||||\......--------------------|
|||||\.........................|
||||||\......|.................|
|||||||\........>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>|
||||||||\......................|
|||||||||\....................||
|||||||||||||||*||||*|||*||**|||

> "* The rest of the room is a matter of smart timing and good
> jumping."
>
> You can jump onto the second long platform (where the white
> guardian is moving) from the ramp. In such case, there is little
> more jumping to be done, and timing is not an issue.

Oh drat: I put the ramp in the wrong place - so stupid! :smash:

Here is the original room from Manic Miner 4:

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||.$||||.$||||.$||||.$||||.$||||
|....||....||....||....||....||.
|....||....||....||....||....||.
................................
................................
*+..+++*
||.............................|
|||............................|
||||.......--------------------|
|||||..........................|
||||||.......>.................|
|||||||.........>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>|
||||||||.......................|
|||||||||.....................||
---------------!----!---!--!!---
_______The Brothers Grimm

For the Special Edition, I have simply displaced the ramp one cell to
the left, like so:

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||.$||||.$||||.$||||.$||||.$||||
|....||....||....||....||....||.
|....||....||....||....||....||.
................................
................................
\------------------------------$
|\.............................|
||\............................|
|||\.......--------------------|
||||\..........................|
|||||\.......|.................|
||||||\.........>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>|
|||||||\.......................|
||||||||\.....................||
|||||||||||||||*||||*|||*||**|||

> 4. ROOM 52: "Backwoods"

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
..............................||
..............................||

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..||

...........................|..||
...........................|..||
..............................||
.........**......*..*...*..../||
-------------..------------|||||
..-.-.-....................|$...
..-.-.-....................|....
..-.-.-................||..|....
..-.-.-......||........--..|....
..-.-.-......--....||..--..|....
..-.-.-......--....--..--..|....
-----------------..--..--..|||||

> "* When entering at the middle-left, stand at the far left and
> jump straight up over the first arrow, and again straight up over
> the penguin. Then jump right over the penguin and stand in one
> character-space to the left of the double static nasty until the
> coast is clear to jump over it."
>
> I applied a different solution, which is more efficient and even
> easier, perhaps. After entering at the middle left, you walk to
> the right and jump to the right over the arrow and the penguin
> simultaneously. Then you step backwards, you jump over the second
> arrow, and you are free to jump over the double Fire-cells (the
> coast is clear).

Your solution has been noted, reworded into the version of English I
was using in 2004, and incorporated into ROOMS_PART1.TXT with due
credit.

> 5. ROOM 53: "The Cave"

||-||||||\.................|||||
||-.......\................|..||
||-........\...............|..||
||-.........\......*.......|..||
||-----------......||......|$.||
||-........--....<<........|..||
||-........--........--....|..||
---........--..............|..||
---........--.................||
|||||*||*||*|*|*|*|.........-.||
||||||||||||||||||||||.......-||
......................||......||
........................|..|||||
...........................|||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

> "* When entering from the left hole in "Backwoods" [52], jump
> straight up on the conveyor, and wait facing left until the
> yellow VG has passed, then jump into the ladder so that you can
> get under it."
>
> It is possible to do the manoeuvre in one single movement, right
> after entering from above, without jumping straight up and
> waiting for the yellow VG to pass.

Noted, written in my own words and incorporated.

> 6. ROOM 54: "Esmerelda's Bedroom"

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|.....*..*..*......*..*..*..$..|
|........*..*......*..*..$.....|
|...........*......*..$........|
|..............................|
|..............................|
|..................<<<<<<<<<<<<|
|-----*--*--\......------------|
|||||||||||||\.................|
||||||||||||||\................|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||..|

> "* On entering this room at the bottom-left, (...)"
>
> It is possible - in fact, marginally more efficient - to enter
> this room at the bottom right, after a well-timed jump from the
> conveyor in "Matthew Didn't Bother to Code It" (through the
> overhead Earth-cell). In such case, later on you can collect the
> two items in "Matthew Didn't Bother to Code It" without entering
> "Esmerelda's Bedroom".

I have added a Fire-cell at head-height (plus an aesthetic Fire-cell
below it) to prevent the player from collecting the items when
entering at the bottom-right, and to add to the challenge of exiting
the room after entering at the bottom-left.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|..*..*..*..*......*..*..*..*..|
|.....*..*..*......*..*..*..$..|
|........*..*......*..*..$.....|
|...........*......*..$........|
|..............................|
|..............................|
|..................<<<<<<<<<<<<|
|-----*--*--\......------------|
|||||||||||||\...*.............|
||||||||||||||\..*.............|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||..|

The annoying thing is that the yellow monk's start-position causes it
to collide with said Fire-cell, so I had to shift it two cells to the
right, and the same with the magenta Maria. This keeps them in phase
with each other, but unfortunately changes their phase with respect
to the vertical guardians above.

> 7. Language comment
>
> In a couple of cases the language used in the room descriptions
> seems to be unnecessarily offensive. Room 43 ("The Landing Pad")
> comes to my mind ("The wall-blocks at the top are to save from an
> IDS any idiots who try to jump up off the top of the screen")

OMG, did I really write that? :-o

It looks much worse out of context, and it's not supposed to be taken
seriously (that's why I added the ";-)" smiley), but I've reworded it
to make you happy.

> as well as Room 52 ("Backwoods") ("You'd have to be pretty stupid
> to fall more than four characters off the bottom of the screen
> anyway ;-)").

Ditto.

> While they make me imagine while the examiners of your PhD
> thesis, Andrew, thought that "The tone of the footnotes is in
> general condescending" ( :-) ),

I assure you that the first submission of my PhD thesis did not
contain anything as candid as that!

I just thought it prudent to have footnotes such as "'Data' is the
plural of 'datum', and this thesis will always use it as such", in
case the examiners - as my supervisor did - tried to make me
change "data are" to "data is". Instead, they just made me remove the
footnotes.

> I think that some people - lay JSW players - might feel offended.
> Not knowing the details of JSW game-mechanics, or even the
> general rules of the game, does NOT make you an idiot or a stupid
> person, IMO.

Well, even a lay JSW-player should know that infinite death is
customary if you fall more than four cell-rows off the bottom of a
screen (unless there's a rope to save you, or the game uses POKE
36477,1 to let you fall without dying).

> On the other hand, lay JSW players will probably not even try to
> read your text files carefully, so there...

I expect that a good deal more players read your message than
bothered to plough through my lengthy text-files! ;-)
I appreciate that you made the effort to do so.

---------------------------
C. Room-descriptions Part 2
---------------------------

> 1. ROOM 0: "Through The Wall"

|.$............................|
|..............................|
|..............................|
|..............................|
|...*...*.....................-|
|-------------------...........|
|.......................|.....||
|...............................
|--------....<<<<<<<............
|...............................
|...............................
|.......|...............-.......
|......|.|..................../|
|.....|....................../.|
.............*..*..*......../..|
|------------------------------|

> "* This room contains an invalid-arrow pair (pixel-row 0), which
> produces the black blob onto which you must jump in order to
> progress to the upper part of the screen."
>
> You can also drop onto the black blob from above (rather than jump
> onto it from below) after entering this room for the first time
> from the room above ("The Land of Wind and Ghosts"), which is a
> more efficient route, IMO. So it is only partly true that you
> "must" jump onto the blob in order to progress.

I was aware of that when I wrote the game: it's the price to pay for
such a non-linear game that it's harder to constrain the player to
pass all my intended challenges.

The invalid arrow could therefore be viewed more as a shortcut for
players who wish to go up from this room than as a challenge
that /must/ be passed in order to complete the game. I have therefore
replaced "must" with "can" in ROOMS_PART2.TXT.

> 2. ROOM 15: "The Castle"

................................ ................................
................................ ................................
........................-.-.-... ........................../|.|.|
........................-----... ........................./.|||||
........................-|-|-... ......................../..|*|*|
........................-------- ||*|--|*|*|--|*|*|--|*|*|--|||||
........................-------- ||||..|||||..|||||..|||||..||---
...........................-|-|- ||*|..|*|*|..-*|*|..|*|*|..||...
...........................----- ......-----...----..-----..$|...
........................../----- ............................|...
........................./.-|-|- -----||-----||-----||-----|||...
......................../..----- .....||.....||.....||.....|||...
......................./...----- .....--.....--.....--.....-||...
......................<<<<<-|-|- ...........................--...
...........................----- ..........................|.---*
--------------*----- ||*|||||*|*||||*|*|||||*||||||||
__________The Moat______________ ___________The Castle___________

> "* The hidden entrance to "bedroom role reversal games" [18]:
> Stand above the "s" of "Items", facing left with your legs apart,
> and jump left. This takes you slap through the bottom of
> "The Moat" [45]! This is because the wall in "The Moat" acts like
> an ILB, even though it is blocked - a feature first exploited in
> Goodnite Luddite (Broadsoft, 2002)."
>
> I am not 100% sure, but I think that the same feature can be found
> in Nick Aldridge's 2001 game "JSW Stupid". You can jump from the
> upper-middle level of the room "links odour erects" [58] onto the
> middle level of "Best of three" [11]. This manoeuvre is not
> necessary, but it allows you - together with collecting the upper-
> left item in "Best of three" with a quirky jump through an
> overhead Earth-cell - to marginally improve your performance.
> Please see my RZX walkthrough of "JSW Stupid" hosted on the RZX
> Archive to see exactly what I mean.

It's true - in fact that's where I first discovered this quirky
feature! I have added to ROOMS_PART2.TXT a reference to JSW Stupid,
following Goodnite Luddite which was the first JSW game to /exploit/
it TTBOMK.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ................................
................................ ................................
................................ ................................
................................ ................................
-------------------------------- ................................
................................ ---|||||..||..||..||............
...............--............... |..|....||..**..**..**..........
...............--............... |..|..................||........
-------------------------------- ||||............................
................................ ................................
................................ ................................
-------------------------------- ---------...........------------
................................ .........-----------............
...............--............... ................................
...............--............... ......*...*...*...*...*...**
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
links odour erects______________ Best of three

(JSWED v2.3.1 does not recognise "stupid.z80" as a JSW48 game - it
offers only the hex-editor.)

> 3. ROOM 30: "Where is Matthew Smith?"

........*.........*|............
..................||$...........
................../||...........
.................//|//..........
............../////|/////.......
.............|../..|../..|......
.../.../...../../...../../......
/...../....../......../../>>>>>>
...................|............
................|..|............
.............|..|..|..|..|......
.............|..|..|..|..|....|.
|..|||//|||||||*||*|*||*|||||..|
/..|||//................|||||../
/..|||//...............$|||||$./
||||||//////||///||////|||||||..

> "* It is not possible to cross this room from left to right, nor
> from right to left. The quickest way to get across is to go up two
> rooms to "Under the Womb" [42], where you can go back down twice
> to get to the left side of this room, or go right to the top of
> "This game may contain an insect" [43] to make your way down to
> the right side of this room."
>
> NOT TRUE. It IS possible to cross the room BOTH from left to right
> AND from right to left. Please see the file "crossing_matthew.rzx"
> which I have just uploaded to my folder in the Files section of
> the Group.

Well I never! It's not often that I say a manoeuvre is impossible
when it is in fact possible - especially in my own games!

I think it's an improvement that "Where is Matthew Smith?" can be
crossed directly rather than having to take a tedious detour, so
I have added your solutions to ROOMS_PART2.TXT (with due credit),
replacing my idiotic suggestions of upward detours.

> 4. ROOM 31: "Willy is obviously Jesus! ;-)"
>
> "* To get the upper-right item in "Where is Matthew Smith?" [30],
> stand on the rope such that there are seven pixels of rope below
> your feet when the rope is in its central position. As the rope
> approaches its left-boundary, jump left when the top of your hat
> is aligned with the bottom of the isolated floor-blocks. Then jump
> left of the screen from the very left edge of the screen with your
> legs apart, so as to jump the six-character gap."
>
> It is also possible to get that item by jumping up from inside the
> Banyan tree in "Where is Matthew Smith?". Please see the end of
> the file "crossing_matthew.rzx" or my RZX walkthrough of "Party
> Willy" for this solution.

This was an unintended loophole, and at the expense of making the
room look a little less attractive, I have closed it by setting the
cell at (7,22) to Air:

........*.........*|............
..................||$...........
................../||...........
.................//|//..........
............../////|/////.......
.............|../..|../..|......
.../.../...../../...../../......
/...../....../.........../>>>>>>
...................|............
................|..|............
.............|..|..|..|..|......
.............|..|..|..|..|....|.
|..|||//|||||||*||*|*||*|||||..|
/..|||//................|||||../
/..|||//...............$|||||$./
||||||//////||///||////|||||||..
____Where is Matthew Smith?

This loophole also allowed the player to cross the room from left to
right in a much easier way than the route shown in
"crossing_matthew.rzx". Not any more.

(How angry do you think Matthew would get if we crossed him? ;-) )

I can't believe I was such a stupid idiot not only to declare the
room impossible to cross, but even when there was a loophole that
made it too easy to cross! ;-)

> 5. ROOM 32: "Halfway up the West Wall"

.................|**||*.......||
.................|--||........||
.................|--||.../....||
...$....$....$...|--||../|....||
...*....*....*...|--|../||......
|||||..|||..|||..|--../|||-.....
|||||..|||..|||..|-../|.......||
---------------..|../||.......||
---------------.-|..||||||.-..||
.........$*......|..|||||.....||
..........|.....-|..||....-...||
.........-|......|..||.......-||
...*..|$*.|...|.-|..||........||
....-.....|..-...|..||...-....||
..........|......|..||........||
--*....-..|..*..-|**||-|...*..||

> "* On entering at the top-left, curl up into the left edge of the
> screen, facing right with three pixels of sawdust showing. When
> the lower lip of the eye is aligned with the top of the static
> nasties, jump right, walk right one step, jump right again, and
> wait at the edge of the wall with the saw at its lowest. (...)"
>
> It is possible to do it right after entering the room, in one
> fluent movement - but only a fully-trained JSW player, with the
> Force as his ally, will accomplish this feat :-) .

Watching The Empire Strikes Back then, who's been? :-)

Covered by my description, your solution is. Say you have to wait, it
does not. To avoid implying that to wait you must, added "(which may
be immediately if you are time-frame perfect)", I have.

> Well, this is all I want to say at this time. Once again, thanks a
> lot, Andrew, for this great game, and I wish these days you would
> have more time for JSW, so that you could please us with new,
> weird and mind-bogglingly-difficult creations! :-)

Well, hopefully the SE will boggle your minds a little bit more! :-)

Finally, I'd just like to say how much I appreciate Daniel's
constructive criticism. I've had a lot of fun creating the Special
Edition over the last couple of days, and it gave me the excuse to do
what I wasn't clever enough to do in 2004: laterally invert the
toilet-run for MirrorJSW/ylliW teS teJ! :-)

--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/download/

 

 

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