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Message: 6357
Author: Daniel
Date: 07/01/2008
Subject: "JSW64 MM: James Bond" - Daniel's final comments
1.
I hereby certify that Andrew Broad's "JSW64 MM: James Bond" v.1.0
can be completed without any technical problems. If you are
interested, please see my RZX walkthrough of the game hosted by the
RZX Archive (http://www.rzxarchive.co.uk/j.php#jsw64mmjamesbond),
but you'd better not watch it if you want to have a try yourself -
which I highly recommend, because "James Bond" is a delightful
challenge :-) .
2.
--- In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, andrewbroad
stuck in room 16 "GoldenEye"):
> But I see that it is necessary to give you a clue.
(snip)
> It's so simple you wouldn't believe it. That is why you fail.
Thanks for the tip, Andrew! After perhaps more than two hours of
helpless jumping attempts, it took me about two minutes to discover
the solution when I started meditating on your words (in front of
the screen). Its simplicity was the reason for my delusion, indeed!
I will refrain from considering myself an idiot on this account, but
I will admit you are a design genius :-) .
The rope in this room provides a double quirky challenge, then. The
one you face when you start playing this room should be considered a
classic, I believe. Has it ever been applied before? Have you
included rope challenges of this kind in Advanced MM/JSW Trainer?
(the legendary "Broadian Rope Trick" :-) ) and in the pertinent
documentation?
3.
Daniel wrote:
> I have also considered using the strange feature appearing at the
Andrew wrote:
> left edge of the screen, due to which you can make JB walk to the
> right in mid-air along (above) the upper left platform.
> Wow, I don't believe I've seen this feature in "GoldenEye" before!
Yep, it's a great quirky feature, because you can actually walk in
mid-air as far as the edge of the platform (I tried it in an edited
game file with the black guardian removed). But as soon as you jump
(straight up or to the side), you fall down to the normal level, and
cannot recover you "altitude" any more, unless you go back to the
left edge of the screen.
If applied one row lower, this feature could be used to create a
beautiful challenge, I believe. The player would have to discover it
in order to be able to walk in mid-air to jump (one-way only) over a
guardian he couldn't normally jump over. Beautiful, isn't it?
I am not sure whether this feature has been discussed or documented
before. I think I have seen it in "Manic Scribbler". If I remember
correctly, you have to use it on the lower left of "Isaiah 36:12"
(7), but it's not as spectacular there, because you don't walk in
mid-air. I have no idea what causes it, but it's very interesting.
4.
The quirky feature in "Casino Royale", which allows you to collect
the two upper rightmost items - that's a novelty, too, isn't it? Can
we count, at some point, on a description of how / why it works,
Andrew?
I suppose there are other QF which appear in "James Bond" for the
first time ever. Shall we see a list / description of them at some
point? Will you add them to Advanced MM/JSW Trainer and the related
documentation?
5.
When you restart the game after completing "Casino Royale", you have
186 items collected, and you continue to collect items. What happens
when you have collected 256 items (somewhere in the middle of the
second run through the game, I imagine)?
Of course this question concerns all JSW64-MM games, it's not "JB"-
specific, is it?
6.
I looked hard and wide for possible loopholes in the game and I
thought I would fail. However, "This organisation does not tolerate
failure." So there is one thing I found which, judging by the design
and other elements of the room, may be a way to outmanoeuvre the
author's "vicious" intentions for the player :-) .
It is in the room "The World Is Not Enough" (18). It *might* have
been the author's intention to force the player to solve the upper
part of the room first, then climb down with a jump through an ILB
(the yellow block under which the rightmost of the three central
items used to be) and then face the challenge of the fast-moving
cyan horizontal guardian and the black guardian above it in order to
get to the lower part of the screen. However, this is not necessary,
since after collecting the right topmost item (as the last one in
the upper part of the screen) you can simply jump up, at the right
moment, and find yourself at the bottom of the screen where the
yellow HG is moving.
Were you aware of this, Andrew, or is it a simple thing ("so simple
you wouldn't believe it" :-) ) which eluded your playtesting?
7.
Once again, Andrew, thanks for this great game, congratulations
especially on all the novelties and the atmosphere of the game (BTW,
the title screen looks great, too), and I look forward to future
editions of "JB" :-) .
Daniel
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