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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 6484
Author: Daniel
Date: 21/10/2008
Subject: Re: Ma jolie Game-engine bug
1.
--- In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, andrewbroad
> It is documented in my Manic Miner Room-Format (Offsets 0 to 511:
(big snip)
> Screen-Layout) that jumping off the top of the screen, or falling
> off the bottom, corrupts the screen-layout of Room 7 in the Bug
> Byte engine, or the guardians in Room 8 in the Software-Projects
> engine.
> Only Room 7 of a Bug-Byte-based MM game is affected, as previously
Is Room 7 (or the guardians in Room 8 in the Software Projects
> stated.
engine) affected also when the bug occurs in one of the later rooms?
If the answer is yes, it could lead to the creation of an interesting
concept in terms of Manic Miner games' completability. A game could
be "ever-completable" - you can go through the set of 20 rooms
indefinitely, or "once-completable" - you go through the 20 rooms,
but in room, say, 13 the jumping-off-the-top-of-the-screen bug
occurs, due to which when you get to room 7 (or 8 in Software
Projects version) again, when you tackle the rooms for the second
time, you cannot progress any further.
2.
Daniel wrote:
> > Now, a suggestion for an utterly-sophisticated game designer:
--- In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, andrewbroad
> > design a game in which, if you solve room A in the traditionalway,
> > two rooms later (in room C) you encounter an obstacle which makes
> > the game impossible to complete. However, if you complete room A
> > causing the jumping-off-the-top-of-the-screen bug, the obstacle in
> > room C is there no longer, because the bug has made it disappear
> > :-) .
> That would be way unfair, especially as the changes caused by the
Strictly speaking, it doesn't really matter whether they are
> bug are permanent!
permanent or not, because (e.g. in case of "Ma jolie") since you
cannot go back to the room where you jumped off the top of the screen
and the bug occurred (room 5) from the room where it stopped you from
continuing (room 7), you have to reload the game anyway. The same
would happen (inversely, i.e. you couldn't go back to use an
alternative approach so as to later benefit from the bug's positive
effects) in the proposed game design.
--- In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, andrewbroad
> Such challenges would be better achieved using patch-vectors, such
It would serve no purpose in Manic Miner, since you have to collect
> as the one in Geoff Eddy's _Willy Takes a Trip_ (IIRC),
> where collecting all the items in one room causes a wall to
> disappear in another.
all the items in one room anyway in order to progress to the next one.
And if the trick were something not particularly obvious which didn't
have to do with collecting items, then it would be as unfair as the
necessity to jump off the top of the screen. Only something very
obvious could be justified as fair ("why didn't you flip that switch
on?"), especially if the player knew that he/she was facing this kind
of challenge in the game.
It would be an interesting extension of the concept of switches in
JSW64, though, wouldn't it? A switch which causes something to
happen, but not in the same room, but another one. This could
increase the level of difficulty considerably, because if you
couldn't progress in one room, you would know that perhaps you have
failed to do something in another room, but you wouldn't know which
one - you wouldn't know where you failed.
And concerning the unfair challenges, I think that an otherwise great
game with a very unfair challenge is "Monty on the Run". I may be
wrong, but as far as I remember from my gaming days on a real
Spectrum (Timex, actually) over 20 years ago, I used to reach a spot
beyond which I could never progress. I have always had a strong
suspicion that this was because at the start of the game I didn't
choose the right items as Monty's equipment. Am I right in thinking
that in "Monty on the Run" the initial choice of the artefacts
affects the progress well into the game?
3.
--- In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, andrewbroad
> I believe most players would have to go all the way round again,
(big snip)
> and I'm happy to let them believe that, (snip)
> I'm not sure I like the look of this, and I'll have to meditate on
LINKING THIS WITH:
> it before I decide whether to close this loophole or let the player
> who discovers it feel clever.
Andrew's comment concerning room 01 ("Water Under The Bridge") of his
game "Party Willy" (in the document "ROOMS_PART1.TXT")
> The bridge has been elevated, separating the static-nasty blocks
[The jump for the item is unnecessary - indeed a waste of time, since
> from the conveyor, and is now a Promised Land - although I have
> made it possible to jump up for the item in order to make people
> feel clever about themselves.
you have to pass through the Promised Land later on anyway; you may
feel clever about yourself when you jump up for the item, but in fact
you are not]
CONCLUSION:
Am I right in detecting a slightly condescending attitude to the
player here? An air of undue superiority, perhaps? An omnipotent,
omniscient author who magnanimously allows the player to have his/her
little moments of objectively unjustified joy?
4.
--- In manicminerandjetsetwilly@yahoogroups.com, andrewbroad
> I'm optimistic that I will be able to redress the balance between
In favour of MM/JSW, I sincerely hope. The MM/JSW community needs a
> tennis and MM/JSW in 2009.
bigger share of your free time, Andrew!
Daniel
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