Moulding Willy

Posted by oddbob on January 4, 2007 · Lovingly Filed Under Development Log 
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Jet Set Willy Online

Wahey, finally starting to feel back to my normal self again after a rundown Xmas and looking forward to getting back into G-Force. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) I’ve a couple of things I need to do first. Providing the database doesn’t cave in on RR or some other such cataclysmic event occurs - we should be go for shifting RR over to a new blog based format, so I’ll be tied up this weekend making sure everything goes reasonably smoothly there.

There’s a fair few things we’ve got half finished or not integrated properly yet on the sidelines to add later, but I’d rather get the new site up and running, keep the old one going in the background for the time being and move content across in my own time than stress myself out with the thought of getting every single thing perfect and ready. For one thing, I know I’ll lose heart if I stress too much over it and it’ll take me twice as long to get stuff done. So, go we are this weekend.

In the meantime, as you might have noticed - Stu, Smila, Scott and myself put out Jet Set Willy Online with the Xmas Issue of Rodent, and without any real whoring its doing really well so far. I’m trying not to jump into too many folks games for now as, well, I’ve had a couple of months practice at it and a 1/4 of the map is my creation. So, it feels a little unfair diving headfirst when I know I can be where I need to be ahead of the rest and/or know where the object stashes are and the fastest route to them.

However, there has been a huge benefit to diving into the games which you don’t normally get when you put a game out. I can actually jump in and see how people play the game, where they head off, where they struggle and generally, whats right or wrong with the room design. Quite frankly, its ace. Normally you’re absolutely reliant on feedback from forums or beta testers for information. With JSWO, just dive into a game and hit the S key and flick through the other players watching how they play. Brilliant stuff.

Of course, I’ve come out with a checklist of flaws in the rooms, rooms that I can pass because I know the *exact* way they should be played but everyone else struggles with, rooms that are just plain broken or the odd dead end I’ve missed. To top it off, I can see bugs in real time. It really is a bit of a developers wet dream environment. (Or idea of hell if you end up with a list like ours)

Jet Set Willy Online

And its been out a little over a week now and with having had time for everything to come to the fore bug/fault wise - its time to sit down and go through the list of doom, forward the stuff on to Stu for the coding bits and bobs and Scott and myself have been back and forthing the rooms over the past day or so getting them fixed up.

My, there was a lot of edits in the end. One of my entire sections, which I thought looked absolutely lovely had no incentive whatsoever to visit it in a multiplayer game - it may as well have just been redundant space on the map. I’ve redesigned the entire segment. Bar 3 rooms, they’re all in the same place and entrances/exits pretty much lead through to the old locations but a couple of real duffers (mainly ones where I was amusing myself rather than designing a game) have been pulled and relocated.

Rope rooms have all had rooms placed above them, a bit of a dirty fix for a glitch - but easier than Stu raking through the code again. The bonus being we finally get to put April Showers in above the beach, in its rightful historic 61st room place. Hopefully, this should stop people from hiding in the text box now due to a glitch that only emerged on rope rooms with no room above.

The biggest problem with the game was how severely unbalanced it was in v1.5. The fastest route to all the objects was to head off to The Bumming Parlour as fast as your legs/wheelchair could carry you. With the new map - we’ve opened it up a whole lot more. Whichever direction you set off in, you have a reasonably equal chance of being able to collect the magical required amount of objects. The Tag game, my personal favourite - left you with only two directions that were viable to head off in. Starting in First Landing as you do in Tag, left would take you to The Banyan Tree - the notoriously most difficult room in JSW, not a wise choice, right takes you through to The Chapel - which may as well be a dead end. So its up or down to make your escape. No more! All 4 directions now have viable escape routes to stop yourself from becoming a pink Willy thanks to a bit of fiendish redesign from Scott.

Jet Set Willy OnlineI’ve had a hefty wander around the new map and it feels so much more complete as a game now, and a whole lot more balanced regardless of which game mode you’re attempting. I still think the Capture The Flag game is the weakest link in the game modewise, but then, I’ve never been a fan of Capture The Flag game mechanics anyway.

The big bummer though - the crash bug we thought we’d killed has resurfaced. Stu’s been through the code with a fine tooth comb and we’re still none the wiser as to whats killing it - our best guess is, its the network code itself that we’re using. Either way, its a serious pisser knowing that a near perfect game has this one irritating flaw in it.

There’s a lot more fixes and additions that have made their way into the next build already, and still some to do. Those who asked for a command line option will be glad to know that Stu’s wedged one in just for you.

My part for now, I think, bar testing is done for a bit. I’ll be dropping the final set of maps over to Smila and Stu to check over, see if there’s any changes they want to make then its time to drop the new RR on the (un)suspecting public and get back to cramming the time in for my own games. I’ve promised The Arsecast Host that no matter what G-Force will be out there for the next Arsecast. So, to the workmobile post haste!

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2 Responses to “Moulding Willy”

  1. Sokurah on January 6th, 2007 10:58 pm

    A good read, bob.

    ..I’m looking forward (among other things) to see whats been inserted above “Up on the Roof”.

    - speaking of that screen, and many others as well, can something be done about those slanted/semi 3d’ish walls?
    …it butt annoying that they aren’t solid.

  2. Richard Phipps on January 12th, 2007 9:51 pm

    Yes, a good read. Looking forward to more interesting blog items soon though. ;)

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