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Many thanks! BCNU

Hello,

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Aw, boo! Now that I know about it (thanks!), it was rather a fun hidden extra to have… But sadly I’ve updated and not kept the original version.

Here's something weird. The very first time I tried playing this game, and once again since, on starting the game I could see every mine on every screen (so there was no challenge and I could just walk past them). Every one of them appeared as a solid red character square, rather than being invisible.

Yet when I start the game again now, all the mines are invisible as expected. I presume I must have pressed something accidentally on those two occasions when I saw the visible mines, and activated some sort of cheat mode or debugging code. The question is… how did I do it? What did I press to turn this mode on? Certainly, it ruins the game in terms of the challenge, but it's also interesting in terms of letting you see a lot further ahead!

This was all on the original release, not the recent bug-fix… but I'm guessing it's a deliberate hidden feature rather than a bug, so hopefully it's still there to be rediscovered.

I’d like there to be a Spectrum Next version too, with Amiga-quality graphics.

Well done for getting there in the end! How did you do it, out of interest? I did try myself with your previous file in the EightyOne emulator, but it wouldn’t work in that either. Mind you, perhaps the file was faulty...

Hi,

There's a weird problem with the new version B .tap download, but only in the Fuse emulator. I've tested this on a Mac, and it applies to both versions of Fuse, i.e. Fuse and FuseX (which is an alternative build of Fuse with slightly different features).

Basically, the emulator won't load the game from the .tap file; it loops round through the tape and ends up crashing. Very weird; version A was fine.

NB This appears to be an emulator problem, because the game DOES load OK in other emulators. I tried it in both ZXSP and Clock Signal, and it loaded fine in both of those. Indeed, I saved a .z80 snapshot out of ZXSP and that then worked fine when loaded into Fuse (as expected). So it's something about the .tap file rather than the game, as you'd expect.

Nevertheless, Fuse is one of the most popular emulators out there, and lots of people will use it as their primary emulator (I do), so it'd be nice if a fix were possible. I've never seen another .tap file behave this way on Fuse, so it's pretty strange.

One other small suggestion… now that you have a nice loading screen, it'd be good if there were a pause at the end of loading so that people using emulators with 'instant load' behaviour could actually see it! You might consider waiting for a keypress, or for a few seconds at least, before clearing the screen and beginning the game. Then people could take a snapshot that includes this artwork on initial load.

There’s got to be more to it than that. I too have a Mac, and I’ve tried several ZX81 emulators in which this file doesn’t work. But a .p file is a .p file; it should work in everything, not just in some emulators and not others. I’ll look further into this if I get time later today.

Oh dear; I'm afraid your new .p file doesn't seem to load either. I've tried it in ZXSP, Clock Signal and SZ81, and in all cases it just locks them up. I'm afraid that none of the Mac-based emulators may be capable of actually saving software from an emulated ZX81. It may be necessary for you to use something like EightyOne for Windows, running it under a Windows virtual machine or WINE solution (such as CrossOver).

Ah, I see. I use ZXSP too, and it has lots of good features including ZX81 support (obviously), but I don't think it actually saves ZX81 snapshots. It wouldn't reload your .z80 file, anyway. I'm afraid I'm not sure what ZX81 emulators on the Mac do support outputting .p and .tzx files; most of them only seem to support loading, not saving. At a guess, ZEsarUX probably does; it supports just about everything… it's just rather complex to use.

What's the .z80 file from? This won't work with most emulators. It needs to be a .p file or .tzx tape image for most ZX81 emulators

Yes, please support the ZX Spectrum Next!

Fantastic! Very nicely done! And I love the Watership Down references.

Excellent! Thanks very much for your efforts; three separate alternatives, each with appropriate instructions, is very thorough! :-)

As for your point about detecting CS + Cursor keys in BASIC… I think it should be straightforward enough (and works fine in emulators). I've just looked at the listing, and I'm interested to see that in the Interface II version you're testing for G=IN 61438, whereas in the other two versions you're testing for INKEY$="5", "6", "7" and "8" (or q, a, o, p). I'm not sure why you have that distinction between IN and INKEY$ in the different versions.

Anyway, regardless of that, the shifted cursor keys (and the dedicated cursor keys on + keyboards) just produce the ASCII codes for cursor movement, i.e. Left = 8, Right = 9, Down = 10, Up = 11. So the amendments to the Cursor version of your listing – where you have LET G$=INKEY$ – in lines 2–5 would be:

• IF G$="5" OR CODE G$=8 THEN … REM left
• IF G$="6" OR CODE G$=10 THEN … REM down
• IF G$="7" OR CODE G$=11 THEN … REM up
• IF G$="8" OR CODE G$=9 THEN … REM right

I've made those changes to a snapshot of my copy here, for testing purposes, and I can confirm that it works fine (tested in an emulator). The game now responds properly to the cursor keys with and without shift, so it should also work properly with the arrow keys on a + keyboard if you added these four small changes.

Anyway, that's my last remaining suggestion. :-) Many thanks again for your work.

Thank you!

I have no doubt that this is due to the presence there of Paradise Cafe, unfortunately. Stupid censorship.

Great! I always really liked Mined-Out!, and a slightly optimised version is welcome.

A couple of things, though, which I've noticed after a brief initial look:

1. There's actually a couple of typos (or poor wording choices, at least) on the first page of instructions, which you could usefully take the opportunity to correct:

(a) "HE LAYS DORMANT" should be "HE LIES DORMANT". That's just atrocious grammar.

(b) "YOU BEGIN AT EACH LEVEL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN" contains one "AT" too many! Please delete the first. ('You begin each level…')

2. You've changed the controls from the cursor keys (5, 6, 7, 8) to Interface II joystick keys (6, 7, 8, 9). I can see why you've done this (Interface II is a common joystick standard), but it has two unfortunate consequences:

(a) It makes page 2 of the instructions incorrect. In the first line, you've changed the "MOVE USING KEYS..." reference to say "6,7,8 & 9" instead of the previous numbers 5–8; fine. But on the second line it says "[ SEE ARROWS ABOVE THESE KEYS ]" – and that's now not only redundant, but wrong. Only three of the new keys (6, 7 and 8) have arrows above them (on the rubber-key models that show them), and they now show the wrong directions. It only makes sense to include this second line of text, obviously, if the original cursor keys are being used, so if you insist on this change, you need to delete this second line of text.

(b) Some people – and this includes me, I'm afraid! – will really, REALLY hate this change! Speaking for myself, I've never been a fan of joysticks and almost never use them on the Spectrum. I MUCH prefer the keyboard. And I taught myself to use the cursor keys as game direction keys decades ago, back in about 1982/3! Using 5–8 feels very natural to me – but using the Sinclair joystick controls instead is hopeless and sends me in the wrong direction all the time (as the order of the directions has changed as well as the keys). This literally completely ruins the game for me and will get me blown up regularly.

Also remember that the Cursor joystick interface (also Protek, which is the same) is a long-established standard – longer established than Sinclair Interface II. And remember too that from the Spectrum+ onwards, Spectrums have dedicated arrow keys on their keyboard that are equivalent to pressing those numeric cursor keys with Shift held down. It'd be very useful to be able to use those keys here, and your change renders that impossible.

If you really want to improve the keyboard controls in Mined-Out Faster, then I'd strongly suggest that you do the following:

• Revert to the original 5–8 cursor keys;
• Ensure that they also work as expected with and without Caps Shift held down, so that both the number keys (original rubber keyboards) and the dedicated arrow keys (+ keyboards) work as expected;
• Additionally support keys Q, A, O and P as directions, as this is the natural default choice for most Spectrum games.

If you really want to push the boat out you could add support for the Kempston joystick, which is the most widely established joystick standard of all. Or you could allow the user to redefine the keys, or let them choose between Cursor and Interface II joystick standards. But please leave the cursor keys default as it is; long-term players of this game are used to those keys, and that's as good a reason as any not to change them.

I hope that's useful feedback.

Thank you!

On the Options screen (press 3 from the main menu) you have some confused information: it says "KEY 0 DRAW LEFT" (that's zero) and "KEY O CLEAR SCREEN" (that's letter O). Those keys are the wrong way round!

Aha! Thanks for the explanation.

Regarding the music update… it looks as though you've updated the devlog but forgotten to update the .tap file itself…!

What a fab surprise for New Year’s Day! Thank you for your efforts with this fine game; this kind of enhancement is just the sort of thing I like to see on the Next.

By the way… 64 languages now. That's a good computing number! :-)

Hehe! Thanks!

Saluton!

Excellent work – many thanks!

Hi,

Thanks for that very positive response! You've done something pretty remarkable with all this language work, and I know you can't support all languages out there (62 is an incredible first start…) – but, as you acknowledge, Latin is a particularly important one. I'm glad to hear that it now has top priority!

One other suggestion is that you might include some instructions about how to play the basic game! Your docs are all about the language aspects – which is obviously what makes this release particularly interesting, but it's not immediately obvious what the objective of the game actually is, if you come to it without having seen it before! Some simple instructions would probably be helpful.

As for the various Star Trek languages… I don't think you can really be sure that the Klingons, Vulcans and Romulans never had Spectrum games. After all, Star Trek is set far in our future, when computers primarily talk to you rather than having simple bitmapped displays, but rumour has it that the operating systems of the computers installed on even the earliest Federation starships came bundled with at least one Spectrum emulator – and Memory Alpha has a complete archive of all known 8-bit software ever written, for all systems. Both the Romulans and the Klingons plundered that archive through espionage in its earliest days, whilst the Vulcans had legitimate access, and it's fair to assume that word of the Spectrum spread rapidly across the entire Alpha Quadrant as the other races rearched the origins of humanity's technology. Quite what they thought about our early computers isn't known; but how could they not be impressed?

In fact, if you watch the early part of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when the Enterprise bridge is in chaos and the computers have crashed, you can clearly hear Spectrum loading sounds. It's clear proof that an errant ensign was trying to sneak a quick game of Jet-Set Willy just before the crisis began.

Thank you! I think the larger 128K version might be a nice thing to do, if you have the motivation. I found this game surprisingly playable despite its simplicity.

Amazing!

However, the most remarkable omission from this vast list of languages is the most essential one of all. Which language, though now 'dead' as a spoken language, is fundamentally important because it's the root for so many other languages? Latin, of course! So, why no Latin version of this game, when several translations are even of fictional languages (Klingon, Romulan…) that no-one speaks at all!?

I'd suggest that if you add any other languages at all, Latin MUST be a top priority. It'd also be good to see Esperanto included.

This is good fun! :-)
As for the 128K version mentioned in the demo, is that still coming? The full release seems to be 48K only. (Nothing wrong with that, but maybe there could be 128K AY music?)

Since you ask, I'm using a 27" iMac of the final generation before Apple stopped doing 5K iMacs. And yes, there's a teeny-tiny difference in clarity if you lean into the screen and stick your nose 1cm away from it. But at any normal reading distance that isn't designed to destroy your eyesight, the difference on such a retina display is basically not visible. However, the smaller file size makes the file appreciably quicker and smoother to render (even on a fast modern machine) as well as being more economical on disk space. And yes, that's a minor issue on a multi-terabyte computer, but why not be efficient if you can be? I always try to optimise the PDFs I create myself as much as possible, because wasted storage soon adds up, and smaller PDFs just perform better anyway. So I stand by what I said.

GREAT to see this on the Playdate! Will it be coming to Catalogue like your other Playdate games?

Thanks for the explanation. I can in fact see a slight difference in the boldness of the text in at least one place, though the difference is very slight. Whether it's worth the very much larger file sizes and slightly slower page-rendering performance is debatable! I can understand your wanting to make the standard consistent across issues, though in my view there are real advantages in keeping the file size smaller, and I think I'll retain the old PDFs myself, especially given that there are no corrections in the new larger versions.

Greatly appreciate the Spectrum Next support – thank you!

Why have the PDFs just been replaced? The only visible difference seems to be that they've increased in size from 19MB each to over 50MB each… Presumably you've increased the image quality, but since there's no visible difference when viewing on the screen, I can't see the point of more than doubling the file size.

There seems to be some misunderstanding here. The version of the TAP file that's (still) online is the one that appears to be incomplete. Before, in the original version that this replaces, the TAP file contained a program called "Collect" followed by another called "Notes" and then a third called "M/C TEXT" (which loaded a final bytes file called ".TXT").

Now, the current version of the TAP file contains JUST the main program, now called "C>Things", and nothing else.

If that's really what you intend then fair enough, BUT your main page about the program says (I quote): "To access the notes which will explain the workings of the BASIC/Machine Code program, - Break in to the game to access the listing and then type, LOAD"" enter, and a 2nd TAP file will load which when listed will give a full explanation of the code."

All that text is now irrelevant because the resource that it's referring to is no longer present.

Unfortunately the newly uploaded TAP file containing a correction no longer contains the extra resource program that's supposed to follow the main game

This looks very useful, thanks.

A small suggestion: could you please support the unshifted numbers (5, 6, 7, 8) for moving the cursor, for old-school rubber-key users who don't want to have to hold Caps Shift down all the time? Thanks!

Done! (5 stars) Sorry, I must admit I'd never really paid any attention to the rating/review option on this site, so I'd forgotten it was there!

I'm very impressed. I've just tried this out for the first time, and it's absolutely great. The graphics are LOVELY – some of the best I've ever seen on the Electron. The design is extremely colourful and attractive, the motion is smooth and everything's properly masked, so there's none of the ugly EORing that you so often see when sprites overlap (the BBC/Electron's answer to attribute clash on the Spectrum!). Overall, this colourful game makes fantastic use of the Electron's graphics capabilities.

As for the game itself… it's pretty simple and straightforward, without a lot of depth, but that's not a criticism. It's obvious what to do, and it's good, playable fun. (And with graphics like these taking up so much memory, you can't expect too much RAM to be left over for deep gameplay!)

On my first proper attempt I collected about 40 stars, so I must have got nearly halfway. That's encouraging: the game now feels like a challenge, but not an insurmountable one.  I've yet to see anything that seems unfair, or that I couldn't master without a bit of practice. I like games that are reasonably challenging but winnable, and this feels like one of those.

Two small criticisms, both of them very minor:

1. If you want to jump a gap, and Zezito has a solid block right above his head, the left/right movement stalls when jump is pressed. It's not a problem, but it feels awkward and unexpected. If it's not possible to jump upwards, I don't think that pressing jump should have any effect on left/right movement.

2. There's quite a lot of instances where you have to jump between platforms across screen boundaries, and it can be particularly awkward when jumping from the top of one room into the bottom of the next. Unless the keys are held down, the left/right movement can be forgotten while the screen is redrawn, leading to you missing the block you were aiming for and falling back unexpectedly. But if you keep the keys held down too long, you may move too much on entry into the upper room, and perhaps move into a killer object or fall off the ledge you've just landed on. I'm not sure how best to fix this, but it's the most awkward aspect of the gameplay I've found so far. You do get used to it, so it's not a big problem, but it could be improved.

Overall, though, this is fantastic, and a great demonstration of what the Electron is capable of.

The one other thing I'd really like to see is a dedicated BBC version of the game, probably with better sound (maybe even a background tune) and obviously speed-adjusted for the more powerful machine.

How odd! Well, sorry for the unnecessary message.