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
21. willy to the rescue!
Author: Sendy (Alex Cornhill)
Year: 2000
Language: English
willy to the rescue! was the first JSW game created by Sendy (Alex Cornhill). It was first beta- and then gamma-released in May 2000. The spelling of the title and the room names the author applied was all in lowercase.
In the Readme, Sendy calls the game "just a straightforward re-arrangement of the screens that make up Jet Set Willy" and notes that she had not redefined any of the guardian sprites or parths (in relation to the original game). As a result, "every attack path in the game can be found in the original Jet Set Willy", but they have been moved to different locations to fit in with the levels. Sendy also used many of the cell and item designs from the original JSW and notes that "it's interesting to see them fit together in a different way from the original". Despite the above limitations in terms of changes compared to the original JSW, willy to the rescue! is undoubtedly a completely new game, and that is the feeling a player gets when venturing into its spaces.
According to Sendy's notes in the Readme, the game was created "mostly within a one week binging period, in two hour sessions, with occasional breaks for sunlight, nutrition, excersise, and other basic bodily functions". Admittedly, it was "a bit of a rush job", but at the same time Sendy "took a great deal of care and experimented a fair bit with the layouts and graphics."
Willy ditches his dominating, frigid and somewhat frumpy ex, Maria, and his impractical mansion for a life of excitement with his his best friend from school, Adam. Adam has an interest in amateur archeology and is often away, giving Willy plenty of living space. Willy enjoys his newfound freedom until a dramatic turn occurs when Adam gets trapped in the underwater catacombs of Xojad by a bizarre creature which looks identical to Maria. Urgently contacted on his trusty Nokia cellphone, Willy learns that he must collect 256 flashing objects from the tombs and caverns before midnight to prevent a disastrous flooding and Adam's drowning. Strapped for cash, Willy embarks on a perilous journey to Xojad, puzzled by the so-called "long-lost" pyramid's sudden appearance on the map. As the game begins, Willy stands at the pyramid's entrance, with a vast, nameless ocean to the left, contemplating the mysteries that lie ahead and the two-dimensional reality he inhabits.
Number of edited rooms: 64
Number of rooms accessible without cheating: 64
Number of rooms which need to be visited to complete the game: 60
("you cant go that way" [08] can be omitted at no cost; "acid barf" [31] and "dodgy connection" [61] could be omitted at the cost of extending the completion time significantly; "awfully nice but dim" [58] could be omitted at the cost of sacrificing a life in order to collect the leftmost item in "i wanna see you get down" [40].)
Number of items to collect: 255
Bugfix needed after original release? NO
Spare lives at the start: 7
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 uppermost item in "purple caves, all in my brain" [17]).
Starting time: 7:00 am
Best documented completion time with no unnecessary loss of life: 8:42 am
Download links
|
Game file in TAP and TZX formats |
|
The game's page on WoS |
|
The game's page on Spectrum Computing |
|
|
|
The game's map on Speccy Screenshot Maps |
|
RZX walkthrough of the game showing the best documented completion time |
|
RZX walkthrough of the game on the RZX Archive (showing a completion of the game which is inferior to the best publicly available recording) |
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 JSW48 games |