Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
IV. Jet Set Willy 128 (JSW128)
Games using John Elliott's JSW128 game engine for the 128K Spectrum
5. STRANGEL
Subtitle: WILLY IN THE OTHERWORLD!
Author: Sendy (Alex Cornhill)
Publisher: Arcane Design
Year: 2001
Language: English
STRANGEL was the third JSW game gamma-released by Sendy (Alex Cornhill) and the second one using the JSW128 game engine. It was released in March 2001, with a bugfix following in April of the same year.
As it turns out, deep down Willy is a true angel. Just like other strange and angelic folk, every now and again he needs to slip into the alternate antimatter dimension known as the otherworld and solve a multitude of interplexed problems, restoring the karmic balance in the real world and keeping the balance of the forces intact, using pure intent to do good as his weapon, as opposed to guns or nuclear explosives.
Nobody knows about Willy's secret life in the otherworld, not even himself, because time in the otherworld is a different sort of 'tyme', and the structures and ethers in the otherworld are not compatible with real world memory. However, small fragments of experience may leak through, in the form of, for example, weird dreams.
The player's task is guide Willy through the multitudinous locations of the otherworld, collect 256 'phantom gizmos' and then make their way to the escape route and return to reality.
STRANGEL was released as "a game for advanced JSW players who are interested in exploring possibilities at the fringe of the JSW game engine". It deliberately exploited all quirks of the JSW game engine known at the time of its release, such as passing from right to left through walls at head height, jumping through the so-called Innocent-Looking Blocks (ILBs), etc. It also introduced a significant number of new quirky features, including various uses of the 'invalid arrow technology' (arrows drawing attributes onto the screen, which allowed STRANGEL to be the first JSW game with moving platforms, moving holes, and moving deadly blocks), invalid ramps (which affect Willy's movement routine and make him act strange) and diagonal guardians straddling the vertical boundaries (which write colour attributes to the top of the screen).
STRANGEL had the longest toilet run among all JSW games released up till then. Some rooms from that final sequence were used, in an ever more developed form, actually presenting real challenges to the player, in the final sequence of "JSW: The 2010 Megamix".
The game uses Hacklevel 8 of the JSW128 game engine.
Number of edited rooms: 130
(There are 256 edited rooms in the game file, but the remaining 126 are rooms from where's woody?, with modified guardians, which are not part of STRANGEL. Not all of the 130 rooms are accessible without cheating.)
Number of items to collect: 256
Bugfix needed after original release? YES
Official bugfix released? YES
Spare lives at the start: 7
Completable without loss of life? YES
Starting time: 7:00 am
Best documented completion time with no loss of life: 10:04 am
Download links
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Game file in TAP and TZX formats |
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The game's page on WoS |
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The game's page on Spectrum Computing |
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The game's map on Speccy Screenshot Maps |
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RZX walkthrough of the game |
Video
A walkthrough of the game on the JSW Central YouTube channel
A complete screenshot gallery will be presented on this page in the future.
| Back to the list of JSW128 games |