itch.io

Excellent, glad you’re enjoying it, are you in the discord? That’s where most of the community activity happens.

I have a lot of things planned, and some underway, for version 2, it's going to be exciting.

The Next version will be version 2.0, and is going to be a significant change across the board. So it will be a separate purchase, but I expect to have an upgrade pricing for those who have version 1.0.

At least, that's the current plan. Other alternatives include to enhance the core to allow different targets to be addons, and make those addons available to purchase.

Anyone pledging one of the tiers that includes a Kwyll license will of course get a 2.0/Next license.

Are you referring to the Spectrum Next kickstarter or the Kwyll kickstarter? 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/indigobeetle/kwyll-visual-game-creation-for-retro-computers

Don't forget, the game development doesn't have to end just because the jam has ended. The votes will be based on the status as submitted, but after the voting is done (1 week), you can come back and continue to work on the game, there doesn't have to be a version 2. I've done that with some of my past jam entries, come back and improved on them after the jam has ended.

Now that the inaugural K-Spec game jam is over, I'd like to thank everyone who contributed in any way. Thanks of course to everyone who submitted a game, it always gives me great encouragement to see people using Kwyll and hopefully getting some fun out of it. Congratulations to everyone who managed to complete a game and submit it, in spite of some issues with Kwyll along the way.

Thank you also to everyone who helped on the Discord server, whether you took part in the jam yourself or not.

Finally, if anyone who joined but never managed to submit a game is reading this. I'd really value your feedback especially if it was Kwyll that prevented you progressing to a game submission. Any roadblocks you hit along the way, anything you feel that Kwyll could do better to support newcomers in getting started. I'm aware there are some learning curves with Kwyll that I'll be trying to address as it develops, and any thoughts you can share about your individual experience will be invaluable in deciding what needs to change. Hopefully by the time we do K-Spec2, Kwyll might be in a better shape to enable more people to get further and submit something themselves.

Thanks again to everyone.  

Amazing achievement to do isometric in any form in Kwyll. Couldn't quite work out how to plant flowers, or what the different instruments on the screen meant. In particular what is the red counter in the middle? Great fun, and again, stunning achievement.

Looks great, love the little touches like the shell lagging slightly behind the body. Loved the snail trail mechanism. Crashed when I died. Definitely has promise for a very unique game.

Looks great, plays well, great fun. Love that you've managed to get ladders, platforms, lifts (sort of) and a complete control mechanism in. 

Great fun, very reminiscent of Speccy games back in the day. Love the graphics. But 1 life? Seriously?!?  That's harsh :-)

Plays nicely, very fast and frantic. Quite harsh that you go back to the start each time you die. 
BUG? When you die-die, i.e. lose all lives, there doesn't seem to be a way to restart.

I’d never heard of Mower Mayhem before, but no, not really. If anything it’s influenced by “Hover Bovver” by Jeff Minter.

I've uploaded an update to Kwyll that fixes a couple of obscure bugs in the tile map editor related to brushes. It is available from the usual place on the itch.io page.

I've uploaded a small fix and update to Kwyll, see the DevLog for details, everyone should switch to v0.1.5.5 when they can.

Sorry everyone, a minor bug has been reported, I've fixed it and released an update, v0.1.5.4. The issue was that the Set Instrument node didn't always show the correct instrument name in the logic editor. The node did "store" the correct value, so it will work when run in the simulator and exported, it's just a logic editor user interface issue, but it's fixed in v0.1.5.4, grab it from the itch.io page. The perils of working with beta software, I hope there won't be many such issues, but if they appear I'll endeavour to fix and release as quickly as I possibly can, so bear with me.

Remember, interpret the theme name "In the Garden", not necessarily the image, the image is just a bit of fun. Be creative. Have fun.

If anyone is thinking about taking part in the jam but isn’t sure about how to use Kwyll, the Jam specific version can be downloaded and used now, the time limited license code on the jam page is active so you can have a play before the jam starts.  https://indigobeetle.itch.io/kwyll 

Also, I've added a comprehensive getting started tutorial to the docs to show how to go from nothing to a basic game. https://docs.kwyll.com/user-guide/tutorials/first_game_gem_patrol.html

Fancy having a go at making your own Spectrum game in Kwyll? Now you can. The K-Spec1 jam includes a license for Kwyll to use during the jam so anyone can have a go. I'll be on hand to help people get up to speed quickly, and make your game idea come to life.

Kwyll is a visual game-creation tool for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k. It allows you to design graphics, build rooms, place objects, and create game logic using a node-based system. Kwyll handles the underlying Spectrum code, leaving you free to concentrate on making the game.

Kwyll currently creates games specifically for the ZX Spectrum 48k machines, so the limitations are part of the challenge, and part of the fun.

You will be working with:

• A wonderfully small screen
• A gloriously restricted colour palette
• Very (VERY) limited memory
• The possibility of attribute clash and all the fun that brings
• Sound effects that may alarm nearby pets
• More creative freedom than any of those limitations suggest.

https://itch.io/jam/k-spec1

Should I keep quiet about the name attributed to "Head On"? :D

Perhaps it would have been better if I changed my name, sorry :-)

Thanks  :-)

Thanks for the great review of Mined Out 2, and I'll forgive that you got my name wrong for the "Break Space Ace" award :-)

that would be a demand thing. Building additional platform support is  costly undertaking, I can only justify the expense if the market is big enough to warrant it.

hi,

The plan is to support not only other Spectrum models including the Next, but also other platforms of a similar type, such as the Amstrad CPC, BBC, C64, MSX, etc. possibly even platforms like the NES and Gameboy.

There are plans underway for a possible Kickstarter to fund this advanced development, see here for more..,

https://www.kwyll.com

Paul

Yes, on the first release I had left in my “test” mode, if you press D on the intro screen it showed the mines so that I could test it as it’s very hard, intentionally, to complete normally. Oops 🤪

The new release with the end game fix also turns off the test mode 😀

I have found the issue and uploaded a new version that is definitely now completable.

firstly, well done for reaching the end, secondly, deepest apologies, it appears you have discovered a bug that I will look into and get a fix out asap.

Wonderful, so glad you're enjoying it, it's good to know the old games can still be entertaining.

they are, unfortunately, I wrote this post some time ago, but neglected to publish it until I noticed today that it hadn’t been published. The files are the latest version.

Thanks for the great feedback, so glad you're enjoying Kwyll, it's all about enabling, if you have fun making games with Kwyll for your favourite platforms of yesteryear, then that's mission accomplished.  😎

Welcome, join the discord if you haven't already, that's the best place to get help.

The latest release, v0.1.3.2 includes an experimental Linux ARM-64 version, it is untested, please let me know if it works.

Hi,

I will investigate the possibility of an ARM-64 Linux version for the next release, but I have no way to test this, so it'll be an experiment until it's validated by someone with suitable hardware to test it on.

Paul 

consider it done

Love this magazine, thanks for all your hard work and dedication to the platform. 

While I absolutely applaud your decision to offer it for free, do you have a means to support the production? A donation option, KoFi, Patreon or something like that?

1. Not currently, 128k support including AY sound is planned.
2. It is possible to create games with a significant number of rooms, but due to the memory limitations at the moment, it requires some extra work. You cannot just draw the tile map for each room, there wouldn’t be sufficient space for that. But you can use the logic to dynamically draw tile maps, allowing rooms to be procedurally constructed as is often typical of Spectrum games with lots of rooms. Happy to elaborate, or there’s a slightly out of date set of video tutorials on YouTube that demonstrates how to create an Atic Atac like game.
3. Not really, although the logic is very flexible, it’s not really setup for that sort of game, not without jumping through hoops.
4. Yes, any combination of width and height in increments of 8 up to 32x32.

Happy to answer any other questions, perhaps pop into the Discord and ask.

Thank you for your support. Of course, other platforms are in the plans for Kwyll, it has been designed and engineered to support other platforms to a degree, so the order of which platforms get supported is down to interest and my ability to support that platform. I'll add Game Gear to the list.

Thanks, it was really just a quickly put together example, with more time Kwyll can do more.

The project file is available for Patreon and Ko-Fi subscribers right now and will be widely available for everyone soon. There’s also a “making of” video on my YouTube channel.

kwyll 37 - The Making of "Santa's Lost & Found"

Yeah, the z-fighting is because it uses the actual Driller datafile to create the areas, and Freescape used a different method for sorting than Z-Buffer because there isn't enough memory or CPU power to do a proper Z-Buffer on a Spectrum, so a Z-Buffer implementation is going to struggle, I could look into ways to fix that, possibly.

I've just updated mine to 1.03 and it still works fine, so I'm not sure what is going on with yours. I've tried with and without the 48.rom, with and without extended colours, can't think of any other setting to try to see what might be causing it. Have you tried a factory reset?

EDIT: PS. make sure to try the latest version from here, so we're testing exactly the same version.

I've just tried it on mine using the Retro Games Ltd. ROM and it works fine. I'll try with the original ROM, can't see why it would be an issue.

Edit: Seems to work fine with the Sinclair 48.rom too. Although I'm running with v1.0.0-electron firmware, so probably should update at some point.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.