matthew smith ;)
Dassedare

People adore movie and music stars, and book writers etc and some of the stars are like gods for some fans.. but for me the real star is Matthew Smith..
I think its kind of funny that matthew once again vanish into the "video game myth"
It would be really awsome if he planning on a new game and just pops up one day as "before" ;) but naah.. don´t think so but I hope everything is fine with him wherever he is now! :D

long live matt-from-earth!

23yrold3yrold

Funnily, that "Jet Set Willy" was in that music video RP posted a while ago. I guess Matty was some sort of god back in the day or something? That's his game IIRC, right?

X-G

So was Manic Miner... yes, Matthew wrote Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner, legendary games. So he's a god of old, yeah. :)

Richard Phipps

He is a God.. ;D

Seriously, Jet Set Willy was one of my favourite games. :) He also has many many fans.

None of us will ever be that famous...

Dassedare

Yeah those games are fantastic and still are! :)
there is a mm & jsw club at yahoo:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manicminerandjetsetwilly/

weee!

Bruce Perry
Quote:

He also has many many fans.

Really? More than Funklord? He said he had twelve fans in his largest system.

So Our Lord is "Matt from Earth", is he? You aren't in league with the Angel, perchance? :)

Richard Phipps

It's a shame he doesn't seem to do games any more. (Besides a speedhack entry).

I'd love to see some new stuff from Matt. :)

Dassedare

weeee! speedhack entry? can it be downloaded from somewhere?
btw our god seems to have vanished from the member area too :/ cries minertears

Elias

You should have been in #allegro last year.. We had the high privilege of having him as a regular there until he vanished.

That's the last I know of him saying there (Ceniza (who was driven off #allegro by now) sent me his logs) - MattyMatt is Matthew Smith:

[12:07:59] <MattyMatt> i'm a road warrior
[12:08:09] <@MikeDX> so you are on cable now eh? 
[12:08:10] <@MikeDX> :)
[12:08:29] <MattyMatt> someone else's cable
[12:11:25] <@Tomasu> OMG Wellcome back!
[12:12:24] <MattyMatt> not back for good, just while my friend is away
[12:14:48] <MattyMatt> i don't even have a desk for my PC atm. i have to sit on the floor
[12:34:05] <@MattyMatt> lo Bob :)
[12:34:13] <@Bob--> what happened to you?
[12:34:16] <@Bob--> :)
[12:34:40] <@MattyMatt> i'm moving
[12:34:48] <@MattyMatt> the grass looked greener 
...
[13:08:41] <@MattyMatt> LrdMtrod, yes

That was some time in March I think. And he may have gotten back another time, not sure though. Some people were using his nick in the meantime.. or does someone have newer logs? Anyway, he's gone, so no point in coming to #allegro right now :P

Dassedare

thats a cool log :)

"the grass looked greener"

on the other side? ;)
.. maybe he moved to the states, I recall I saw that somewhere..
but that´s the "cool" way of matty.. he´s mystic coz you never know where you have him.. hehe..

Bruce Perry

No, he's been in since then.

Apr 25 12:36:49 <MattyMatt> i just popped in to say hello and declare my continued existence :)

Apr 25 12:37:47 <MattyMatt> i'm back in Wallasey. gawd I forgot how sucky this place is
Apr 25 12:38:36 <MattyMatt> i shoulda just visited for chrimbo then run back to Yorks.

Apr 25 12:45:59 <entheh> now, apparently, you are a multimillionaire living in a commune in Amsterdam, and you have changed your name to "Matty from Earth"
Apr 25 12:46:06 <entheh> according to Cat
Apr 25 12:46:36 <MattyMatt> hah, don't believe what you read in the papers

Dassedare

weeee! thats even better news! :)
hehe.. it feels like we are a new kind of sherlock holmes.. but we dont solve killings, we search for lost programmers.. :P

Matthew Leverton

It sounds more like obsessive stalking to me...

Richard Phipps

Now now Matthew. Don't let Diana stalking you influence your thoughts.. ;)

Dassedare

Yeah sort of.. but there are an explanation behind it.. he made (for me) the two best arcadegames in history, MM & JSW + he is a GOD..

now its sleepy time.. zzzz..

Matthew Leverton

RP: That's mutual. >:(

Thomas Fjellstrom

RP: Nah, I think Matthew is naturally paranoid and cynical.

Matthew Leverton

TF: >:(

X-G

Oi, paranoia and cynicism are things to be proud of! Right, Matt? Matt?

Richard Phipps

They are not so secret lovers. It's clear to see!!

AngelChild

MattyMatt is cool... hrm. Where did all that Matt-from-earth stuff come from, anyway?

Thomas Fjellstrom
Quote:

TF: >:(

I thought you liked being paranoid and cynical :o

Richard Phipps

Maybe it's all an act.

Thomas Fjellstrom

I used to think so... But I dunno.

23yrold3yrold
Quote:

They are not so secret lovers. It's clear to see!!

Indeed. ;)

Adol

So he said it himself. ::)
Well, there goes the mystery :P

Peter Hull

Thanks for reminding me why I don't post on GameDev :P It's funny to see Matthew spamming someone else's board though hehe.

On the Matt Smith thing - it's hard to understand, now, the amount of fuss that Jet Set Willy caused. Pages were devoted to it in the Spectrum magazines for months. Every screen has a name, and people were poring over these names to figure out what the hidden meaning was. One example was "We must perform a Quirkafleeg" which was traced to a fairly obscure comic by Gilbert Shelton, called "The Adventures of Fat Freddy's Cat #5." A quirkafleeg is a dance to be performed in the presence of dead furry animals. For some reason, that fact has stuck in my mind for 20 years :-/

Even for the time, the game was not technically amazing, but just incredibly well put together, with the feeling that there was always something to be discovered. The game even had a bug in it, which meant that it was difficult, if not impossible, to finish. Predictably, the fans thought it was a feature for ages, until the publishers confessed!

Pete

[edit] He's right about Wallasey, though
[edit2] btw I hated JSW, I was more of a Sabre Wulf guy....

spellcaster
Pete said:

On the Matt Smith thing - it's hard to understand, now, the amount of fuss that Jet Set Willy caused.
Even for the time, the game was not technically amazing, but just incredibly well put together, with the feeling that there was always something to be discovered.

Seems like you answered your own question ;)
Or let me put it this way: The game is "fun, fun, fun".

Dassedare

Matthew Smith went a legend for me coz with Manic Miner he really started this hysteria of breeding platform games. "Miner 2049ér" (that game Matty got inspiration from), was also a platformer but had absolute not that magic which leads a such revolution like MM did.. (sorry for my strange english.. I am from Mars..)
MM had fluid animation not seen in any other platformgame of its time and really clever design for each level (the first one really hard for beginners).. just that kind of thing made it really a cult.

JSW was made under pressure from the boss coz of the enormous success from MM. Software Projects wanted this game out on the market on demand.
Matty didn´t like this "work-under-stress" so JSW went out in the market with bugs etc.. so its a wonder it really came out :)

X-G

Actually IMO both of the games fail in one fatal, drastic point: They have plenty of instant death moments. Any game where touching an enemy means instant death is IMO a failed one, because they invariably lead to nothing but hours and hours of frustration.

Richard Phipps

You're forgetting that both these games are 20 years old or more. This was normal in the games of the time.

X-G

That's no excuse. It's still a sucky feature - all that means is that all games sucked 20 years ago. :P

Richard Phipps

;D..

23yrold3yrold
Quote:

Actually IMO both of the games fail in one fatal, drastic point: They have plenty of instant death moments. Any game where touching an enemy means instant death is IMO a failed one, because they invariably lead to nothing but hours and hours of frustration.

Eh. Some of my favorite old NES games have "instant death". :)

X-G

Name then, some really good games where touching an enemy invariably leads to you losing a life and having to restart the level. SMB does not count; if you are even moderately skilled you make sure to have a mushroom or two on ya at all times. :P

23yrold3yrold

Mushrooms are not in abundant supply on all levels. :)

What about the Adventures of Lolo series then? Or pretty much any shooter of the time? ;) Hudson's Adventure Island?

X-G

Have you ever played Manic Miner? It consists of jumping a lot over moving things and small plants. No matter what you touch, it's start all over again. You have absolutely no air control whatsoever - once you press jump, nothing's gonna change the way you're heading. Mess up by as little as a pixel and you're dead and have to start all over again. Your margins of error are infinitesimal. It's easily the most frustrating game of all time. :P

Again, just because lots of games did it doesn't mean it's a good feature; it just means lots of games sucked. :P

23yrold3yrold
Quote:

You have absolutely no air control whatsoever - once you press jump, nothing's gonna change the way you're heading.

Same goes for earlier Castlevania games, and those jumps can easily lead to instant death (either spikes and bottomless pits, or hitting an enemy that causes you to get knocked into a said pits/spikes). :) No biggie. Castlevania III is still one of my favorite games.

It's not a good or bad feature; it's just a feature. I doesn't necessarily mean the game sucks. It could just mean the player sucks. ;)

X-G

I suggest you try the game out for yourself. Then tell me that instant death thing is not frustrating. :P

Richard Phipps

And now you have games with complete air control, loads of energy and save points and continues.. So the challenge shifts onto puzzles or time limits.

:)

EDIT: Has that emulator not got a 100% speed option? Ran at 300%+ on slow speed on my pc.

I also much prefer Jet Set Willy to Manic Miner. :)

23yrold3yrold

No, the challenge just doesn't exist. See my post elsewhere on pansy gamers. ;)

Quote:

I suggest you try the game out for yourself. Then tell me that instant death thing is not frustrating.

Kinda cool, but the game moves a little too quick. Is that just for me? EDIT: Seems to be running at over 300% speed. :P It'd be fun at a sane speed.

X-G

Quote:

So the challenge shifts onto puzzles or time limits.

As it should be.

Richard Phipps

Perhaps it should be a balance between timing, puzzles, time limits, etc..?

If enemies weren't any real threat I think I'd get bored.

X-G

Well, if it ever got to that point I would have to agree. But currently I think the mix is a lot healthier than it was 20 years ago when twitch was the required trait for being successful at games...

Richard Phipps

I agree it's more healthier now. But it also seems that platform games are trying to become a mix of all different genres now. It seems that people are getting bored with these kind of games to me.

X-G

Hybrid games are popular now, and some of them are actually quite nice; I quite like, for instance, the Castlevania and Metroid games for the GBA.

I prophecise though that there will be a platformer comeback at one point... these things tend to come and go in waves...

Richard Phipps

Are there any good 2D or 3D platformers for the PC that you recommend?

X-G

Due to the fact that platformers are best played with a gamepad, such games have been scarce on the PC where such is not guaranteed to exist. Most if not all of the good platformers are for consoles.

The good ones that do exist for PC are mainly console ports, like the new Prince of Persia game or Legacy of Kain: Defiance...

Richard Phipps

Hmm.. Although what I expected, that's a pity.

I would have expected to see more 2D Allegro console style games actually. It seems ideal for those kind of games, yet I can only think of a couple of good platformers using Allegro.

23yrold3yrold

Heh; platformers and shooters are my favorite genres and the ones I'd like to make. :) Too bad they take so long to make. :P

PS: I think X-G may have missed my edit in my last post ...

X-G

I'm trying to make something now... now, I need to build a tile editor, which is annoying. >:(

23, got source for MapSlapper anywhere?

http://olympus.olf.sgsnet.se:8000/argent-running.gif

EDIT: Yes, I did miss your edit. But trust me, it's NOT easier or more fun at its original speed; if anything it's 200% as frustrating. It's MUCH more fun at 200% or 300%.

Richard Phipps

Quote:

Too bad they take so long to make.

Tell me about it... :o
I should have done a tetris game! :D

EDIT: The emulator needs to play manic miner at 100% for it to be playable. 300% is just too fast. Jet Set Willy is a different kind of game. More open ended and less linear. I still love it! :)

Although these kind of games are difficult, at the end of the day it is entirely the players fault if he mistimes a jump. :D

23yrold3yrold

Nice animation, X-G. :) What happened to that blob puzzle game? ???

Quote:

23, got source for MapSlapper anywhere?

Yes, but it uses Win32/Allegro. If that's not a problem, here's the old thread (I assume the link there still works ;D). It shouldn't take a body long to alter the program to suit their needs ...

Quote:

I should have done a tetris game!

I need to finish and spruce up my Panel Panic game some day (the Tetris Attack clone). And add customizable skins. Maybe I'll do it in OpenGL. :)

X-G

Quote:

What happened to that blob puzzle game?

Lack of motivation, loss of interest, distraction, et cetera. Mostly lack of motivation though. I will probably go back to it at one point. It happens.

Quote:

Yes, but it uses Win32/Allegro

And I use..? ;)

23yrold3yrold

Thought you might be running Linux. :)

Heh; I recall that "Fetishists of map making" line now from "Hey hey 16k". Even had Manic Miner in the background during that line. ;D

X-G

Yep! ;)

I'm running Windows at the moment. Maybe at some point I'll write a more portable map editor but there's no rush... while on the subject, does anyone know if you can integrate Allegro with GTK+ easily?

EDIT: Oh, and here's some tiles:

http://olympus.olf.sgsnet.se:8000/tilemockup.png

Richard Phipps

Nice gfx! You do those? :)

Jet Set Willy was even worse Chris. 80 Rooms arranged in a vague house like structure. (Not linear like Manic Miner). It was fun just trying to get to see every room, never mind collect all the items. ;D

X-G

Yep, all original graphics...

23yrold3yrold

Heh; those background columns look just like tiles from my last TMS IotD. :) I think I stole them from Metroid: Zero Missions, but I forget. :)

Look great, anyway.

Richard Phipps

I wish I could do gfx like that. I end up being stuck for inspiration..

Yep, they do look great. I hope you put them to good use in a game. :)

X-G

Quote:

Metroid: Zero Missions, but I forget.

You did. Because I did too. ;)

Dassedare

Hehe... its fun to read all this

X-G you said something about that you cant control the character in the air.. and yes that´s the point of making a game lot more harder.
you must plan, and do pixelperfect jumps.. and that is just soooo wonderful and I have finished manic miner lots of times and still play it at least one time per week.. just coz I love it so much..
instant death in MM? in JSW its kind of boring if you jump into a certain fatal object from another screen.. but in MM? dont think its possible..

X-G

Quote:

you must plan, and do pixelperfect jumps

Exactly. The problem is the only way to find out which pixel you need to jump at is trial and error, error here meaning instant death which in turn means you'll have to play each level about 50-60 times before you pass it, only to be thrown right into an even harder level that takes 20 extra tries to figure out every exact damn pixel where you need to jump.

spellcaster

As long as the character does't jump a different distance each level, this is hard to believe.

X-G

It is possible to get a hang of it, but you will still make mistakes; and since you only have 3, and no way to get more extra lives, you will be replaying from the beginning a lot. A LOT.

Seriously, a game being hard isn't the same as a game being frustrating.

DanTheKat
Quote:

for instance, the Castlevania and Metroid games for the GBA.

Yes. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is a great game, but I figure 23yrold would hate it because it's so darn easy.

Dassedare

In both MM and JSW you can make a safety-jump (meanwhile you are in the air you turn in left or right direction and when you land again you bounce away kind of safe) ;)

a hard game long much longer and of course its frustrated but that´s the point..hehe.. we can´t all love the same game ;)

EDIT: you can get extra lifes in MM, but dont remember how much points you must get first..

X-G

Quote:

of course its frustrated but that´s the point

Again, if you can't make a game hard without simultaneously making it frustrating, you've failed miserably. :P

Richard Phipps

I think it's more a case that our perceptions of games and how they should work have changed (evolved?). Twenty years ago this kind of gameplay was normal and accepted. Now it wouldn't go down very well to people used to continues and more forgiving gameplay mechanics.

I don't think we could say either is right or wrong. But instead that each refelects a different approach to platform gameplay.

X-G

(I am well aware that this is an extreme example, but it illustrates my point - please don't make more of it than is necessary): By that logic slavery was neither right nor wrong, because it was normal and accepted X number of years ago. :P

Richard Phipps

Quote:

(I am well aware that this is an extreme example, but it illustrates my point - please don't make more of it than is necessary

I'm sorry? I don't understand what you mean by this. What are you refering to Peter?

X-G

What I'm saying is, whether a phenomenon (be it slavery or frustratingly hard games) is a good thing or not is completely irrelevant to whether people consider it normal and accepted or not. Hence, your logic above that it can't be said to have been bad or not because it was accepted once is a non sequitur. :)

Richard Phipps

Wow! That sentence is really difficult to understand after a few bottles of Belgium Leffe Beer. :o

Sorry I've tried reading and rereading that several times and I can't follow your logic. I think I should go to bed. :P ;)

Matt Smith

Yay all! I am back online :)

X-G is right, JSW has a sucky instant death which can cost all your lives. This was fixed (by someone else, Derrick Rowson) in JSW 2 by having safe spots which you respawn at instead of just appearing where you came into the screen.

It's all obvious once someone else does it ;D

P.S. thanks for all the kind words :) (/me puts head in the juicer)

Dassedare

wohoo!! welcome back matty! well if instant death is something negative i must be insane then ;) coz I cant stop love those games.. haha..

Thomas Harte
Quote:

Name then, some really good games where touching an enemy invariably leads to you losing a life and having to restart the level.

Probotector?

Anyway, the point is that Miner Willy obeys the laws of physics in his jumps, and you already know the laws of physics intuitively. It isn't therefore a matter of learning the game. Also the implication that one touch completely destroys your game is false because of the level structure. Levels you know how to do can be completed in around about a minute, when you die on the levels on which you are stuck you start again at that level, probably at most two minutes prior in the gaming experience.

In any case, the whole flow of the game is towards correct navigation, so ordinarily when you die it is because you haven't solved the mystery of the level and you almost certainly want to start again. The whole game is predicated on excellent level design, so the challenge is pretty much Matt's deviousness versus yours - it isn't the objective management sort of thing that modern gamers are more used to where the fun comes from playing off numerous finite resources to achieve a difficult task. And, damnit, The Warehouse still beats me.

EDIT: P.s. Matt, the magazine 'Retro Gamer' (which I bought because my emulator was in it, please form no opinions from my reading material) seem quite desperate to get an interview with you - why not interview yourself and make a quick buck?

Richard Phipps

Hmmm.. All you needed was one byte to store the original room where the jump was started, that would have stopped the jumping from screen A to B and dying repeatedly bug.

Anyway glad to see you back. What are you upto software wise? :)

Dassedare

jumps over Eugene weeee! what screen was the most difficult you think? for me its the warehouse :)

Richard Phipps

In Jet Set Willy, the Banjan Tree. Was it possible to get past that tree?!

Thomas Harte

Is the Banyan Tree the one with the saw as you walk in on the right then three chambers with things moving up and down and holes in the wall for you stand in? If not then I consider which that is to be the hardest JSW room.

As for the Warehouse, I've never been past it sniff

The version of MM I know is the SAM one though, and it has an additional two sets of rooms (i.e. 60 in total), so I never had to focus that hard back in the day. And the new rooms are really very well designed so they're worth hunting down for MM fans, although I believe whoever ended up with ownership of pretty much all the SAM Coupe games zealously protects them from the internet, so good luck!

Richard Phipps

That's the Banyan tree room (correct spelling?). Is it actually possible to get through the three chambers? I never managed it, which makes me wonder if Matthew deliberately made it impossible.

Dassedare

The warehouse is hard but you can solve it ;)
check out my manic miner guide on my site:

http://www.jump.to/speccy

about the screen "the banyan tree" in JSW
Yes you can past through that screen but its TRICKY with big letters! ;)
you must first manage to jump over the microchip and stand between that one and the devil.
When the devil is on the way down you must jump EXACTLY over it and after that QUICKLY press left a little, and you should stand absolute harmless on the root ;)

the SAM-version is RARE.. have never seen a copy on eBAy.. 60 screens? wow!! I want that one..

Richard Phipps

Obviously you are a true master of the game! ;D

Dassedare

Hehe.. I am playing that wonderful game once a week.. at least! :)
trying to understand what every screen means and stuff.. coz I am not from england so it takes time.. :P

Thomas Harte
Quote:

the SAM-version is RARE.. have never seen a copy on eBAy..

Mine died years ago. Luckily I also had a cracked backup, stored in the normal filing system format which means both that I've been able to get it into my PC for emulator purposes and make backups. I'd try and find a link to an online version, but I don't think anyone has ever uploaded any commercial SAM Coupe games. Very close knit community.

The SAM uses a WD1770, so as with the Atari ST and the various Archimedes' with which it shares that chip there are numerous ways of encoding discs so that the native hardware simply can't copy them. So in fact I used to have cracked copies of pretty much every game I'd also legitimately bought. An especially necessary step when you were as careless with floppies as my younger self.

The best thing about the SAM version is that the programmers correctly recognised that Willy has a quiff, not a stupid mining hat. Another very good thing is the way the programmers have recognised that key quality of Manic Miner - rooms are not just data sets. They frequently have extra features that in a modern engine would mean scripting - e.g. switches that change the directions of conveyor belts or particular events that cause the enemies to change direction drastically, etc.

That's the sort of thing a lot of MM modifications don't seem to address.

Dassedare

QUOTE|< Mine died years ago. Luckily I also had a cracked backup, stored in the normal filing system format which means both that I've been able to get it into my PC for emulator purposes and make backups. I'd try and find a link to an online version, but I don't think anyone has ever uploaded any commercial SAM Coupe games. Very close knit community.

Okey, please send a mess if you find something :)

QUOTE|< The SAM uses a WD1770, so as with the Atari ST and the various Archimedes' with which it shares that chip there are numerous ways of encoding discs so that the native hardware simply can't copy them. So in fact I used to have cracked copies of pretty much every game I'd also legitimately bought. An especially necessary step when you were as careless with floppies as my younger self.

Ohh.. sounds bad.. but do you still have the original of MM left?

QUOTE|< The best thing about the SAM version is that the programmers correctly recognised that Willy has a quiff, not a stupid mining hat. Another very good thing is the way the programmers have recognised that key quality of Manic Miner - rooms are not just data sets. They frequently have extra features that in a modern engine would mean scripting - e.g. switches that change the directions of conveyor belts or particular events that cause the enemies to change direction drastically, etc.

What´s a "quiff" ? you mean a lose band with a lamp on it? :)
WOW.. really awsome features! gosh.. really want a SAM and a copy of MM!

QUOTE|< That's the sort of thing a lot of MM modifications don't seem to address.

yeah agree.. have you tried out all the JSW and MM versions at Andrew Broads site at Yahoo? :)

Thomas Harte
Quote:

Okey, please send a mess if you find something

I may be wrong. A google links me to ROM World, which purports to have most of the SAM games and PD I can think of, but also has 'adult' banner adverts and seems to require you to vote for things in order to get your downloads. I didn't persevere. If you feel like having a go, the URL is:

http://www.rom-world.com/dl.php?name=Sam_Coupe&letter=M

The emulator SIM Coupe is genuinely excellent in every way and will run anything you download. In fact I think SIM Coupe was a cycle perfect SAM emulator long before anyone released a cycle perfect Spectrum emulator, so therefore the only possible conclusion is that SAM Coupe owners are inherently better.

If you prefer legality and websites that work in your favour then http://www.sam-coupe.co.uk/ have the two level Manic Miner demo which includes the first level of Manic Miner then one of the new levels - its 'interesting feature' being a switch that halts a robot in its tracks.

Quote:

Ohh.. sounds bad.. but do you still have the original of MM left?

Maybe somewhere at my parent's house... I may not have kept it when it stopped working. I definitely still have Prince of Persia, Defenders of the Earth, Elite and yuck Vegetable Vacation - possibly the worst game ever written.

Quote:

have you tried out all the JSW and MM versions

No. Which makes me realise that for all I know the bonus SAM levels are just a 'best of' the Spectrum mods up to 1992 or whenever they released it.

Quote:

What´s a "quiff" ?

A haircut with quite short sides and back, but a big sort of tuft at the front. Famous quiff wearers include Morrissey (though not so much now that he's fat and balding), Alvin Stardust and I think Elvis at some point. And something inside me wants to say Tin Tin, but I can't picture him right now to be sure.

Richard Phipps

Quote:

The best thing about the SAM version is that the programmers correctly recognised that Willy has a quiff, not a stupid mining hat.

As a student of Law it would be remiss of you not to provide evidence to support your defence. ;D

(It looks like a mining cap to me..)

Dassedare

Hehe.. quiff, hat or helmet.. actually its hard to see on the main sprite (check my avatar).
It can be a quiff, or even just a lamp with a band around the head..hehe..
On front of (I think) all original inlays there are either just a foot or a leg of miner willy.. not a whole picture.. besides the GBA version but that one is new and not the original :)

Number Six

One one of the cassette covers it's shown as a miners hat though most versions had the mutant telephone poking it's tongue out!
I mean he'd be pretty dumb to go poking around in an old mine without a hardhat, and it is called Manic MINER!

Quote:

programmers correctly recognised that Willy has a quiff,

What on earth makes you think it's a quiff?? Is that what Matt said?

I mean Willy'd be pretty dumb to go poking around in an old mine without a hardhat, and it is called Manic MINER, and it does kinda look like a miners hat with a light on it, and I always thought it was a hardhat, and blah blah blah!

BTW has ANYONE ever managed to finish JSW without cheating?? I have never come even close, and nor has anyone I know.

Dassedare

QUOTE:> One one of the cassette covers it's shown as a miners hat though most versions had the mutant telephone poking it's tongue out!
I mean he'd be pretty dumb to go poking around in an old mine without a hardhat, and it is called Manic MINER!
I mean Willy'd be pretty dumb to go poking around in an old mine without a hardhat, and it is called Manic MINER, and it does kinda look like a miners hat with a light on it, and I always thought it was a hardhat, and blah blah blah!

Oh.. damn you´re right there! :) I feel ashamed as a minerplayer I am..

QUOTE: >BTW has ANYONE ever managed to finish JSW without cheating?? I have never come even close, and nor has anyone I know.

Nope you can´t solve it without those pokes though..
POKE 42183,11
POKE 56876,4
POKE 59901,82
POKE 60231,0

;)

Thomas Harte
Quote:

Is that what Matt said?

No, Matt said he left it deliberately vague.

Quote:

he'd be pretty dumb to go poking around in an old mine without a hardhat

Yeah, you're right. The story about Miner Willy discovering the remnants of a lost civilisation through their left behind mines & mining equipment somewhere below Surbiton suddenly loses all credibility if Willy doesn't put a hardhat on before entering the mine...

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One one of the cassette covers it's shown as a miners hat

But I'm sure this is some other conversion by some other programmer, who just got it wrong.

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As a student of Law it would be remiss of you not to provide evidence to support your defence.

Only if the burden rests on me. I can say person X did a particular thing (i.e. had a quiff and not a mining hat), and if it isn't true then the normal legal procedure is that the other person takes me to court for libel (as I've presented my claim through something other than a transitory medium) and has to prove that it would lower his estimation in the minds of right thinking members of society before I become liable for damages and start to think twice about saying the same things in future. As Miner Willy is fictional, my true statement is that 'Matthew Smith created a mining game character with a quiff rather than a hardhat', and as that wouldn't lower his estimation as required, I can say it perfectly legally!

Obviously things would be different if I were trying to rely on the fact that Willy had a quiff in order to support an argument relating to any other legal matter, but I'm not.

Anyway, some evidence if the latter were the case:

  • at the time, quiffs were cool

  • Miner Willy is pretty cool

  • supposing he used brilcreem to achieve it, it was probably harder than a hard hat

  • none of the caverns depicted in Manic Miner have any areas with a visible likelihood of collapsing

  • Miner Willy, once in the caverns must get through all 20 to return home, implying not a cold planned entry into the mines in order to collect artefacts but some sort of unplanned event from which he must recover - negating any possibly consideration of a hardhat on his front

  • Since in many screens the majority of the area is black it would therefore appear to be quite dark and if Willy has a hat with a light

  • If Willy has a hard hat, I would query why he is not protected from robots that impact with him from above, or else if the hard hat doesn't offer him protection from things moving from above I would suggest that he cannot therefore be said to have put it on deliberately for protection

Richard Phipps

Supposition and circumstantial evidence.. :P ;)

Dassedare

Thomas.. that was one of the most detailed replies I seen for while ;)
and yeah.. Willy might use LOTS of spraycans and cream in hair so he could build up that enormous quiff! :D

Number Six
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Yeah, you're right. The story about Miner Willy discovering the remnants of a lost civilisation through their left behind mines & mining equipment somewhere below Surbiton suddenly loses all credibility if Willy doesn't put a hardhat on before entering the mine...

Jeez! I wasn't being THAT serious! ::)

anyway

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  1. at the time, quiffs were cool

  2. Miner Willy is pretty cool

both true!

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  1. supposing he used brilcreem to achieve it, it was probably harder than a hard hat

hehe! OK you've definately got a point there :)

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  1. none of the caverns depicted in Manic Miner have any areas with a visible likelihood of collapsing

He didn't know that beforehand!

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  1. Miner Willy, once in the caverns must get through all 20 to return home, implying not a cold planned entry into the mines in order to collect artefacts but some sort of unplanned event from which he must recover - negating any possibly consideration of a hardhat on his front

Weeelll! Yeah I can see your point, assuming that he fell into the mines by accident, instead of realising he had bitten off more than he could chew after he was already in there and couldn't get back!

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  1. Since in many screens the majority of the area is black it would therefore appear to be quite dark and if Willy has a hat with a light

by extension of your own argument, if he has no light then how can he see anything at all?? :)

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If Willy has a hard hat, I would query why he is not protected from robots that impact with him from above, or else if the hard hat doesn't offer him protection from things moving from above I would suggest that he cannot therefore be said to have put it on deliberately for protection

well many of his enemies are monsters etc who arn't about to let a little bit of metal/plastic stop them from having lunch! and again he didn't know what to expect when he started out!!

errr! This is getting a bit far fetched for a simple 16k game over 20 years old isn't it? :)

Rash
X-G said:

Name then, some really good games where touching an enemy invariably leads to you losing a life and having to restart the level.

Commander Keen.

Fladimir da Gorf

Yeah, I never liked the keen clones with a health bar. That kind of spoiled the game...

Dassedare

Number Six wrote:

>> errr! This is getting a bit far fetched for a simple 16k game over 20 years old isn't it?

it was a 48k game! ;)
but its fun to renew miner willy´s adventures.. :D

Thomas Harte
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Supposition and circumstantial evidence..

But in a civil proceeding it doesn't matter how bad your evidence is on an objective standard because decisions are made on the balance of probabilities - so in the case of a disagreement such as this we should really be asking how well the two competing sets of evidence compare.

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by extension of your own argument, if he has no light then how can he see anything at all??

He can't in large portions of the screen - they're completely black (or red, or blue...)

To be honest, no game where the character can jump in front of platforms then land on them makes entire physical sense, so lets not deconstruct it too far. And yes, I appreciate the manner of reply this sudden about face is opening me up to.

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well many of his enemies are monsters etc who aren't about to let a little bit of metal/plastic stop them from having lunch!

But many of them aren't monsters, they're just telephones or Ostriches, and I've never known a telephone that wouldn't be stopped by a hardhat - even if it is an extraordinarily large one.

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it was a 48k game!

There was a BBC Micro version, so it was definitely possible in more like 20kb. There is also an Electron/BBC version of Jet Set Willy, so I'm thinking 16kb isn't so far fetched.

Dassedare
thomas harte said:

But many of them aren't monsters, they're just telephones or Ostriches, and I've never known a telephone that wouldn't be stopped by a hardhat - even if it is an extraordinarily large one.

Haha.. that would been fun to watch for real..

thomas harte said:

There was a BBC Micro version, so it was definitely possible in more like 20kb. There is also an Electron/BBC version of Jet Set Willy, so I'm thinking 16kb isn't so far fetched.

Oh darn I mean the Spectrum version, yeah the other ones I agree.. and I remember the C16/+4 version with .. i think it had three separate loaders :)

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