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
17. We Pretty
Author: Andrew Broad
Publisher: Broadsoft
Year: 1999
Reissued: 2002, 2003 and 2004
Language: English
We Pretty was the first gamma-released game by Andrew Broad. It is also the first part of the Kari Krišníková trilogy (the second one being Goodnite Luddite; the third part has not been released so far).
The player is trapped in a parallel universe after having been sucked through a black hole in the 21st century and taken back to the 17th century. They have to play as an image of the art-murderess Kari Krišníková, who is their doppelganger in the surreal new world in which they find themselves. The player has to collect all the flashing items in order to turn the forces struggling for dominance entirely in their favour and defeat their evil alter-ego, which will allow them to return back through the black hole to the 21st century.
A diary included in the game's release package presents the storyline that underlies the game. It is written as a fragmentary, non-linear series of diary entries, jumping backwards and forwards between the 17th and 21st centuries. Reading or understanding the diary is not essential for playing the game.
Andrew Broad's inspiration for We Pretty came from many diverse sources, including personal experiences, dreams, television, computers, tennis and music, particularly the works of David Bowie. His album 1.OUTSIDE gave Andrew the idea of writing We Pretty as a concept game, based on an underlying plot (documented in a diary) and characters, as well as influencing the theme (namely, the ideas of art as murder and utter destruction as beauty). Andrew refracted his life's experiences into surreality, deliberately making We Pretty as surreal and esoteric as he was able to.
We Pretty was written for advanced JSW players. It is intended to be outstandingly difficult, as a challenge to the experts. According to the author, the gameplay requires both manual dexterity (a need for pixel-perfect and time-frame-perfect accuracy of movement) and lateral thinking.
The game deliberately exploits a wide range of the so-called quirky features of the game engine. It also has a number of technical features which had not been seen in any previously-released MM or JSW game. It was the first gamma-released JSW game: to be based on the fall-any-height POKE; to have 256 items; to feature 'off' and 'sticky' conveyors; to have non-swinging ropes; to have vertical guardians that move faster than eight pixels per time frame (creating the illusion of sixteen guardian instances in a room); to have horizontal guardians which straddle vertical character boundaries; to feature platforms which make the player skip; to feature an invalid arrow, and so on - see the Readme for the complete list of novel technical contributions.
After its release in 1999, the game was reissued three more times due to changes in the Readme; the TAP file remained completely unchanged since the original release, though.
Number of edited rooms: 64
Number of rooms accessible without cheating: 64
Number of rooms which need to be visited to complete the game: 63
(There is no need to enter the room "T HE HOL LOW M O O N" [25].)
Number of items to collect: 256
Bugfix needed after original release? NO
Spare lives at the start: 7
Completable without loss of life? YES
Starting time and the best documented completion time: N/A
(There is no clock in the game.)
Download links
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Archival version of Andrew Broad's Sinclair ZX Spectrum Download Page |
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ZIP of the official reissue of the game, with the game file in TAP format, the Readme and the Kari Krisníková diaries |
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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
Additional info:
Screenshot gallery |
