Be Excellent To Each Other

For the fourth time may I welcome you to the 8 Bit Challenge where we competitively play an 8 bit game each week for points. The games have been selected by vote and are as follows.

The Games:

[this weeks game in bold]

Jet Set Willy - CPC
Buggy Boy - C64
Jumping Jack - ZX Spectrum
Yie Ar Kung Fu - CPC
Uridium -C64
Burnin' Rubber - Amstrad GX4000/CPC Plus
Bounty Bob Strikes Back - C64
Guardian 2 - ZX Spectrum
[b]Ikari Warriors - CPC

The deadline for each round is 6pm each Friday. Simply play the game, post a high score screenshot and state your score. Scores without screenshots are only permissible by judges discretion (i.e you may have got a score so low it doesn't register on the high score table). There's a new scoring system inspired by the MAME Challenge but adapted enough that they don't sue. It's similar to before but gives more point scoring positions.

IMPORTANT: All scores must be submitted in brackets, eg <score> so Grim..'s clever automated system works. No brackets, no score, no ranking.

Current Leaderboard:

http://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/counter/8bit.php

Points scoring:

1st - 10 points
2nd - 8 points
3rd - 6 points
4th - 4 points
5th - 3 points
6th - 2 points
7th - 1 point

This Weeks Game: Jet Set Willy on the CPC (officially endorsed by the internets famous Richard Gaywood).



The DSK file of the game is attached.



Insert the disc into your emulator of choice and type:

run"jetset

From then on in you should know the game. The return key turns in game music on (it's off by default and probably for good reason)

CPC Emulator for PC: http://www.winape.net/

CPC Emulator for Mac: http://www.bannister.org/software/arnold.htm

Mac users, if you have Parallels, just use Winape. Trust me, it's 1000 times better than Arnold.

Scoring closes next Friday (the 21st) at 6pm.

Go go go!

A starting score for you : <11>

Haha 7am pwnage!



<20>*



*Do you want to use the scoreboard thing?

If its not hassle it would be cool. Cheers.

Here we go: http://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/counter/8bit.php
I'm winning!

And you should be winning by more - the scores are different for this challenge

Hurrah me!

Yeah sorry. I did think about using the MAME scoring but ended up adapting our old one. We don't get the competitor numbers to justify all the places available in the MAME scoring. In the past the complaint was people who came 6th and after didn't get points so this time I've added two extra places and made the points scoring all around closer to make things more competitive.

But likewise I don't want to be giving away loads of points for people who put in terrible scores each week.

So a question to the lurkers (and i realise this probably wont get an answer) , would it help to have a basic download with the files and instructions to just click and run ?

Winape / Winvice can both just be run from a folder , no installation required (and i'm sure i can find a similar speccy one) , you could just have a zip file to download containing the emulators + roms and have the instructions for things like this week as

Open the folder
Double click on CPC
Double click on Winape
In the main screen select File/insert disk image
Double click on JSW.dsk
In the main window type run "JSW

Controls are O = left / P = right / space = jump

I'm not a lurker but I would appreciate simple instructions like that.

I don't have any 8 bit emulators on my PC so being pointed in the right direction would be great!

Okay i'll have a look this evening when i get in - Chinny if you have already sourced download links for the games if you can drop me them in a PM otherwise i'll find some working links.

They are all on my Revo so I can get them tonight.

There are instructions to run Jet Set Willy at the bottom of the second post in this thread. The scrolling bit on the title screen lists controls. If Winape is installed I think you can just drag the image onto the window to insert the disk.

For Speccy stuff we can just use WoS so the only emulators needed are WinAPE and VICE.

Burnin' Rubber will work differently. As long as the emulator is in 464+ or 6128+ mode you can play the game just by pressing 2 on the numeric keypad (which is F2 on the CPC).

Big up to Grim.. for getting the counter working:

http://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/counter/8bit.php

<25>

Edited for scoring

I can't get winape t o work correctly. I get an error 'failed to load pang.cpr' and then I insert jsw, but just get a blank screen. I can't find out where to tell it not to load pang, and it doesn't seem to load jsw. any thoughts?
Edit, I removed the pang refercne from the config file, and that seemed to solve it, but I still can't get jsw to load!

I will have a go at a download with the roms already in there - however the first set of questions

Do you get a normal Amstrad start screen with the blue background / yellow writing ?
If not then its still a setting and i might be tempted to wipe it and re-download because your probably setting up a weird cartridge or something

If you do get the normal screen what happens if you type in "CAT" (without the quotes) ?

Ah, you must have still had the Pang cart inserted from the last challenge.

Go to insert cartridge and insert the cart marked "CPCplus.cpr" or similar that is in the Winape directory somewhere.

Basically Amstrad implemented carts by having them replace the system ROM. So you need to insert a system ROM to play.

Then follow the instructions above.

Let me know how you get on. If you have problems I'll do a walkthrough.

Winape still things Pang is inserted from the last challange. In theory inserting the CPC Plus cartridge that comes included with Winape will solve this.

Sorted, thanks.

what is the aim of this game? Is it collecting stuff? Will everything other than the ground kill me?

It's Jet Set Willy, man!

I had a BBC! Actually I think I had this, but at the time thought it was a manic miner clone. Also, even the blooming grass kills you!

I got<11>.

Collect all the objects. Or at least as many as you can.

Everything moving is lethal + it is possible to loose all your lives in one go.

You need to put the brackets around it for the score to register because we now have automated scoring. New rules. So as follows:

<score>

Okay - game links i've used :

CPC

JSW - already linked above
Burning rubber - included in the plus rom
Ikari Warriors - http://www.thehouseofgames.net/index.php?t=10&id=289

C64

Buggy boy - http://gamebase64.hardabasht.com/games/ ... 165_01.zip
Uridium - http://gamebase64.hardabasht.com/games/ ... 331_01.zip
Bounty Bob - http://gamebase64.hardabasht.com/games/ ... 054_01.zip

Speccy

Jumping Jack - http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek ... id=0002658
Guardian 2 - http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek ... id=0002167

Hopefully attached to this post should be a file called 8bit.zip which contains Winape / Winvice / Speculator and the game roms you'll need to play.

Unzip it into a folder ,and go into each one to play - the zip file is 10mb in total - if you've got problems with either the emulators or the games post in the thread and someone can help you get it going.

Some stuff that doesn't move is lethal, too.

Please ignore I was being retarded. Also I had forgotten how irritating Jet Set Willy can be.

What I'm doing is going straight down to Ballroom West - where there's loads of items, and along right until the Off Licence (which is also loads of items but is quite hard) then back and up the mega tree, and then back right the way to the Yacht, and back up onto the roof. Or a least that was the plan - I died on the Mega Tree, so I reckon I can double the score I have.

I'm avoiding the banyan tree completely (You can actually get all the items without actually crossing it) and it's also not worth attempting the Chapel for one item unless you're some sort of ninja. If you go up from Ballroom East, you can't get back down again wthout going all the way round, and I don't think there's many items that way, anyway. The Security Guard is also really hard in this version.

It's actually less responsive than the speccy version, assuming it's not my emulator, and it also respawns you right next to what killed you instead of where you started on the screen, which caused me to lose about 5 lives in one go. Also, 4 colours . Speccy version is still best, as well as being the most buggy

That's what it's always done. If you die at the start point of the monster (ie. where it is when you enter the screen) you're boned.

The speccy version resets the whole screen (including the player) so that you have to do the whole screen again. This version doesn't do that - it just moves you slightly to the left or right of where you were. So if you're walking along when you die, you'll probably die a couple of more times unless you're quick.

I used to be able to get to the Off Licence easily. However I chucked all my lives away on the bridge. Best I've managed so far is 11 but I know I can do better so I'm not submitting that.

Thanks to Zaphod for the disk image links. Long drive back yesterday so didn't fancy doing it as soon as I got back. By the time I was thinking about it, it had been done.

Of course, if you happen to be falling to your death when you enter the screen, you still get to watch that happen over and over again until game over.

<17>

<19>

Third attempt: <39>

That's me done, I think. If I keep trying I'll start to hate the thing and that would be tragic for something so special.

Holy moses! That's a terrifying score that will be hard to beat!

I just did <21>



I stupidly lost my remaining lives (5) in one go though. If I'd made it to the offy I could have done 30.

One thing that just occurred to me. How come they spent so much effort doing a great tune on the title screen and yet the in game music is repetitive and rubbish? So rubbish its actually off by default.

<26>



I *think* with a bit of luck i could probably get another 1 or 2 on here , but thats about it , the repeated death is a real pain on some of these screens.

BTW route wise i assume everyone is going Ballroom / off licence then up the megatree ?

On this game i got to "out on a limb" , but the only way on from there is doubling back so i doubt there are many more points until i'm back in the main house

Going the other way i've been to 'conservatory roof' by going along the top , and 'the beach' by the bottom but have nowhere near the same score

http://mdfs.net/Software/JSW/JGH/Screens/BigMap.htm

I just tried again but failed miserably. Gah!

I can't seem to jump a half distance, so am really struggling. Do I need an analogue pad?

Over to you, Chinster.



<39>

Still not played yet! And I'm away next week on jolly hols...

Not the best of starts for this tournament. I'll try and get a JSW score up before the deadline though.

There is only one jump distance.

DAMN YOU!

Don't make me play it more and start hating it.

I notice your scoring page will give you the 10 points if it stays how it is. (I'm guessing it's done alphabetically?)

I need to play this some more before Friday - I had a few goes the other day and got about 12 or 13 but I've always been crap at these games.

Tradition has been that if there is a joint score, the people drawing both get the same points but the next place is missed. So we go from 1st= to 3rd. Not sure if that can be coded so if we do get a draw we might have to ask Grim.. nicely to adjust the scores by hand or to adjust the code in a way that somehow ensures both people get the same points. Whatever is easiest.

However with over 3 full days remaining I'm sure we can get an outright winner.

Could be, or it could be because I got a score in first.

<30>