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

V. Jet Set Willy 64 (JSW64)

Games using John Elliott's JSW64 family of game engines for the 128K Spectrum

4. JSW64: Dragon Jet Set Willy

Authors: John Elliott and Roy Coates

Year: 2006 (v. 0.04)

Language: English

JSW64: Dragon Jet Set Willy is John Elliott's conversion of the Dragon 32 version of JSW (by Roy Coates, Software Projects, 1985) back to the ZX Spectrum. John's primary interest was understanding the internal storage format used by Dragon 32 JSW and an automatic Dragon -> Spectrum conversion; he once remarked that he was not particularly interested in tidying up the conversion to create a completable game. Fortunately, he did correct some problems that arose initially and declared the game gamma-released in January 2006.

JSW64: Dragon Jet Set Willy was released, together with JSW64: Dragon Manic Miner, as a Java-based installer. The user has to provide snapshots of JSW (Spectrum and Dragon versions) and MM (Dragon version) as well as the Spectrum ROM. The installer will then generate two TAP files, which are Spectrum 128K versions of the Dragon games.

The game features the 15 extra rooms which were added in the Dragon 32 version. John tried to avoid patching the game engine "for other than cosmetic purposes". Nevertheless, he did apply several necessary patches. The bath in "The Bathroom" is drawn utilising a Room Setup Patch Vector so as to match the Dragon version. All rooms have a Room Setup Patch Vector that enables or disables conveyor animation (this is to match the Dragon version wherein the conveyors in the Bathroom and Ballroom West do not animate). Furthermore, the game engine has been modified with patches similar to "Mono" and "Wobble", to make the screen black and white and to make items vibrate, respectively. Colours have been removed during pauses and from the plinth on the Game Over screen. Lastly, a few guardian bounds have been tweaked (in Dragon 32 JSW guardians may harmlessly collide with each other or with Fire Cells, which is not possible in Spectrum JSW).

The game uses Variant W, Hacklevel 12 of the JSW64 game engine. The only gamma-released revision of the game is Version 0.04.

Ready-made files of the game, in TAP and TZX format, are provided for download below.

Number of edited rooms: 75

Number of rooms accessible without cheating: 75

Number of rooms which need to be visited to complete the game: 71

("SWIMMING POOL" [06], "BACK DOOR" [18] and "WEST BEDROOM" [21] can be omitted; "ENTRANCE TO HADES" [59] should be omitted as entering it results in a multiple-death scenario.)

Number of items to collect: 99

Bugfix needed after original release? NO

Spare lives at the start: 7

Bonus lives awarded: NO

Completable without loss of life? YES

Starting time: 7:00 am

Best documented completion time with no loss of life: 8:18 am

Download links

Homepage	The game's homepage on John Elliott's website

Official release	Java-based installer which creates both JSW64: Dragon Jet Set Willy and JSW64: Dragon Manic Miner

Direct game download	Game file in TAP and TZX formats

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 game showing the best documented completion time

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