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

5. JSW64: Dragon Manic Miner

Authors: John Elliott and Roy Coates

Year: 2006 (Version 0.04)

Language: English

JSW64: Dragon Manic Miner is John Elliott's conversion of the Dragon 32 version of MM (by Roy Coates, Software Projects, 1984) back to the ZX Spectrum. John's primary interest was understanding the internal storage format used by Dragon 32 MM 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 Manic Miner was released, together with JSW64: Dragon Jet Set Willy, 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 two extra rooms which were added in the Dragon 32 version. They could not be implemented in the original 48K MM engine, because they have multiple guardian sprites in a single room. That is why the JSW64 game engine was used - it is "nearly capable of supporting them, and with suitable modifications to the game logic it is entirely capable". The engine needed a little more patching than was the case for the port of Dragon 32 JSW. The patches which have been applied are related to Kong Beast support, the Final Barrier portal, the conveyor animation scheme, preventing Willy from falling off the bottom of the screen, and leaving a screen to the left or right (it wraps around to the other side, but the room is not reinitialised). Furthermore, items flash on and off (rather than wobbling as in JSW64: Dragon Jet Set Willy) and a more advanced version of the "Mono" patch is used, in which the screen is in black and white but the flashing attribute is preserved (this allows portals to flash).

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: 22

Number of rooms accessible without cheating: 22

Number of rooms which need to be visited to complete the game: 22

(The game plays just like the original MM, so the player cannot wander around freely, but has to tackle the rooms one by one and can only enter the next room after completing the current one.)

Number of items to collect: 95

(After re-entering the first screen, the player can continue to play and collect more items.)

Bugfix needed after original release? NO

Spare lives at the start: 2

Bonus lives awarded: NO

Completable without loss of life? YES (MM-style completable)

(The game plays just like the original MM. Therefore, it does not have Maria, the bed or the toilet - or any equivalents of these. The game can be considered completed after the player has re-entered "CENTRAL CAVERN" [000] after completing "THE END" [021]. At this point, the player will have collected 95 items. The player can then go on and continue to collect items in the second and the following sets of caverns.)

Starting time: 7:00 am

Best documented completion time with no loss of life: 7:40 am

(The moment of re-entering "CENTRAL CAVERN" after completing "THE END" for the first time).

Download links

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

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

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)