JSW Central - Resource Centre for ZX Spectrum games based on Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines

Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines

II. Jet Set Willy (JSW48)

A. New games using Matthew Smith's original Jet Set Willy game engine for the 48K Spectrum and its modifications

16. Willy the Hacker

Author: Geoff Eddy

Year: 1999

Language: English

Willy the Hacker was the second JSW game to use what later came to be known as "Geoff Mode I" - modifications to the JSW game engine created by Geoff Eddy. The game was originally conceived as a sort of "Willy does cyberspace", but the concept was lost over time; only some remnants remain. Another design concept was to use at most three or four colours (not counting black) for many rooms.

The original release of the game was incompletable due to a critical bug in the room "The Right-Hand Edge of the Map" (27): it was impossible to jump over the foot on the right, and therefore impossible to collect the item.

In 2007, Andrew Broad suggested a fix for it. In May 2008, Robin Clive submitted a recording of the game to the RZX Archive; the recording was made using a different fix than the one suggested by Andrew. Robin also modified one non-critical bug: the necessity to lose a life in the room "Purple <hic>", and for some reason modified the game to show only 7 remaining lives, while in the original game there are 16, occupying the whole bottom part of the status bar.

A bugfixed version of the game created by Daniel Gromann has been available for download on this page since April 2019. It was made using the same fix that Robin Clive had applied to eliminate the critical bug in room 27, but without any other changes to the game file. Geoff Eddy kindly endorsed this version in September 2022.

Number of edited rooms: 64

Number of items to collect: 211

Bugfix needed after original release? YES

Official bugfix released? NO

Third-party bugfix released? YES

Spare lives at the start: N/A

(The game starts with an Infinite Lives POKE applied; 16 spare lives are shown on the status bar [the lower third of the screen]).

Completable without loss of life? NO

Lives which need to be sacrificed to complete the game: 1

(A life has to be sacrificed to collect the two items on the mid-air platform in "Purple <hic>" [29].)

Starting time: 9999999

(In Geoff Modes there is no clock like in the original JSW, but a timer using a 7-digit number which counts down from 9999999.)

Best documented completion time with no loss of life: 9973769

Download links

Direct game download	Game files of both the original and bug-fixed versions in TAP and TZX format

Fixed version	Bugfixed, completable version of the game in TAP and TZX formats with a Readme

World of Spectrum	The game's page on WoS

Spectrum Computing	The game's page on Spectrum Computing

Speccy Screenshot Maps	The game's map on Speccy Screenshot Maps


JSW Central	RZX walkthrough of the bugfixed version of the game showing the best documented completion time

RZX Archive	RZX walkthrough of a different bugfixed version of the game (showing a completion of the game which is inferior to the best publicly available recording)