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Message: 6419

Author: andrewbroad

Date: 17/04/2008

Subject: Re: Elvin The Elf / rEdIvIvUs

 

On 11th July 2007, Daniel wrote:

>
> I have just come across two recent games which I think are worth
> mentioning on Dr. Andrew Broad's list of MM/JSW games, in
> the "Other Games of MM/JSW Interest" category. These are:
>
> 1. "Elvin The Elf"
>
> A 2006 game by Colin Woodcock and Jack Woodcock,

The loading-screen lists Jack first; I guess WOS uses alphabetical
ordering.

> created with Platform Game Designer and bearing signs of a strong
> influence of "Manic Miner" (collecting items, flashing portals
> before passing to the next screen, the lower part of the screen,
> etc.).

In my alpha-copy, I've given Elvin The Elf its own entry in Others:

* Elvin The Elf [Colin Woodcock and Jack Woodcock, 2006]
Another MM-style game written using Platform Game Designer.

> 2. "rEdIvIvUs"
>
> A 2006 game by Mark Sprue of Cronosoft, also created using Platform
> Game Designer and also bearing signs of "Manic Miner"'s influence.
> In fact, originally it appeared as a hidden bonus game with
> "Mpthrilla: The Metal Miner" - which is already on Andrew's list -
> and has just been released (on 6 July 2007) as individual game
> (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/whatsnew.html).

In my alpha-copy, I have added rEdIvIvUs to the entry for MPThrilla
as follows:

* MPThrilla: The Metal Miner [Michal Vrbnák (de Vandemar Croup),
Cronosoft, 2006]
A Manic Miner clone written using Platform Game Designer, and
featuring a hidden bonus-game by Mark Sprue called rEdIvIvUs after
the main game on "Mpthrilla - hard.tzx".

> In fact, it seems to me that both games have a similar bug
> which makes the title screen disappear too quickly and leaves the
> bottom of the screen corrupted - but maybe this is because I loaded
> them in 128K instead of 48K mode or something like this.

I have RealSpectrum starting in 48K mode by default, and I get this
too. You can see the title-screen by loading the game at normal speed
(when writing loaders for the emulator-age, it's best to insert a
pause before clearing the loading-screen).

It seems that the game does not entirely overwrite the "Press any key
to start the game" message - a bug in PGD?

> In any case, it is great to know that there are people out there
> designing platform games for ZX Spectrum, influenced by MM and JSW
> :-) . But when you have a go at the games made using Platform Game
> Designer, you REALLY appreciate the pixel-based collision detection
> algorithms of "our" games...

Yes: there's no substitute for the exquisite game-mechanics of the
original MM/JSW engines, where you know exactly where you stand (in
both the figurative and the literal sense).

As you can see, I'm making slow progress with my MM/JSW backlog - not
yet at the rate that will be required to upload my List of MM/JSW
Games before 25th May to avoid another many-month delay. I hope I'll
be able to increase this rate once my current wave of tennis-
distractions has abated, and also now that I appear to have passed a
number of close-together major hurdles in the MM/JSW backlog.

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

 

 

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