Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy Yahoo! Group
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Message: 3190
Author: dm_boozefreek
Date: 21/12/2002
Subject: Re: Help Needed/My Games
Hello here's a brief insight into my JSW games, well when I say Brief
I actually mean I'll try to keep it brief but probably won't be able
to.
My first ever JSW was pretty much what would nowadays be called a
"Remix". This was at (roughly) the start of 1998/99 (not sure which
year it is) when I first got my PC. Unfortunately after a power surge
blew my internal power supply and messed my hard drive up so badly it
was unrecoverable. I was just messing about really and all I'd done
was change the bathroom and about 3 or 4 sprites. It was untitled as
I didn't take it seriously and I didn't even think I'd ever be making
full JSW games myself one day. The only thing that gets to me about
this now is when I think back and I realise it contained one of my
best sprites, it was just the dancing rabbit from the "Ballroom West"
and "Roof" screens with a simple adjustment. It's left animations
were untouched, but it's right animations instead of it ballet
dancing or whatever it's supposed to be doing was changed to it doing
a backspin instead it was pretty simple but very effective.
JSW:The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!
My second JSW, but officially the first came about as an experiment.
I appeared to have lost all the JSW stuff I had backed up so I
trawled the net looking for all the stuff I'd lost, Partially because
I fancied a go of MM PC because I hadn't played it for years. I
downloaded the editors and this time I thought to myself I'll
actually go for it. So using Paul Rhodes JSW Editor the drunken
master was born. It's pretty crap by todays standards and the story
revolves around (wait for it) another party at Willys' house. This
party gets gate crashed by an unsavoury character and his crew (who
for some ridiculous reason I named after myself) These characters
don't actually appear in the game. This game was just really to see
if I could edit a JSW successfully. Three days and 2 buggy versions
later I stuck it on this groups files page and never looked back
hahaha. When you play it you can actually tell it only took me 3 days
to make. I think I released it about Mid-march this year could've
been earlier though.
Skint Willy
My second JSW game and still visably green around the ears. After
releasing the DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! I was bored and still wanted to edit
JSW (I think I started this the same night as I posted the final
versions of the DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!). My original version of this was
lost due to a computer crash but it was storyless and just a means of
getting used to JSWED. I choose 128K for this game and away I went. I
cooked the story up because I was a bit sick of Willys' Jet Setting,
so I decided to strip Willy of his Fortune, his Mansion, his dignity,
and the one that could have destroyed the whole game, his HAT. I
think it took me until about May to finish this, so that was only a
couple of months really. The story is pretty much Willy has partied
his fortune down the pan, Maria leaves when he can't afford to pay
her anymore, and a Wealthy German rival Hans Krauser (who doesn't
actually appear in the game) offers to help him out. Willy is happy
until at a party Krauser announces that he's bought Willys' estate
from underneath him and kicks him out into the street with nothing
but £1000. The money vanishes quickly Willy can't find a job and ends
up homeless. His last refuge is the infamous Hilltop Hostel, it's
said that once your there you'll never leave. But Willy determined to
regain his fortune escapes. I took many influences from things in
everyday life to films and sci-fi. One of these influences is the
original and hollywoods remake of "The Fly" also one of them is a
little seedy and resulted in me putting 2 pretty disgusting rooms in
there (which I think I almost regret now) "The New Studio of Magma
Video" and "The Fluffers". Within' about 3 days into making this I
had pretty much decided it was going to be the first part of the
trilogy and within' a week I'd come up with names and stories for all
three games. Which leads us onto the next game.
Willy The Rogue
I personally rate this as the best part of the trilogy, although the
story is pretty shallow compared to the first outing. The story goes
Willy after regaining his fortune can't stop stealing things. He
wakes up in another strange bathroom and decides to loot the house
simple as that. This game takes a lot of influences from the original
Miner Willy games and pokes a bit of fun at them as well. My
favourite section of this game is the simulator I put in there which
loads a faulty version of MM into it. These screens took me ages to
make but were worth it in the end. I suffered from mental block
whilst making this game and technical difficulties which cost me 4
screens and a lot of time. I took a month out or so and it looked
like I'd never finish it. But one day after scribbling a few ideas
down I removed the buggy screens from it (glad I did now cos' they
were crap now that I think back) and began work on it again. I think
I released this at about the end of september start of october time
this year.
Fantasy World Willy
This was a product of boredom and frustration. I think this took me
about 3 weeks and it was written some time in the midst of my
technical crisis with Willy the Rogue. I took loose ideas I had and
and stuff that wouldn't really fit into any of my other games and
slung them all together. The story is very unoriginal and pretty
shallow too. Willy finds a book in his library he's never seen
before, so he takes it to read on the toilet. The books title is The
Demonologists handbook, he reads it becomes engrossed passes out to a
sound like an air raid siren and wakes up in another world that is
still similar to our own (I nicked that idea straight from silent
hill). When Willy comes to he's still on the toilet and notices the
book on the floor open at a page headed "The fine line between them
and us", and off he goes to collect items for some unknown reason.
Still Stealin'
The third and final part of "The Down and Out Trilogy" and the one
that almost made me quit. I got so angry with it at one point I
almost nutted my monitor through. But several doses of nicotene and
alchohol sorted that out. This game was finished twice before I
released it. At first it seemed too easy so I held it back changed
the speeds of some vertical Guradians added a few more fire blocks
and a plethora of arrows. But this still didn't seem good enough. So
I held it back fiddled with the memory drew some more guardians and
some new rooms, then added more fire blocks. The story for this took
a little bit of thought. Willy hears that another rogue in town is
hiding an antique alarm clock almost equal in value to Willys'
fortune in a garage on an estate. These garages have been broken into
and robbed so many times that nobody goes near them now. So Archie
Smackengrabb (the aforementioned rogue) has stashed the clock in the
most obvious place. A place where nobody will even bother looking (a
kind of boy who cried wolf situation). Willy vows to steal the clock
and if he's successful never steal ever again. So by the cover of
night he nicks the clock and when it seems like he's gotten away with
it he's chased by the police. This forces him to run through an old
warehouse and use a crackheads illegal backstreet teleporter. Without
checking the co-ordinates Willy. blindly jumps into the teleporter
and ends up in a strange place he's never seen but feels like he has
been there before. This is where I put my Fahrenheit 3000 screens
from my abandoned side project. A ridiculous attempt to convert the
entire F3000 to JSW format, which probably would've taken me years to
finish, hours of hacking, and probably take my sanity as well. So I
scrapped this and cheaply used the rooms and guardians I'd made for
it in this game instead. I did a few experimental things with this
game that I'd never tried before, like the attempt at a cut-scene a
bit of a joke really but more successful than I thought it would be.
I achieved my goal with this part of the Trilogy by finishing it
earlier this month thus making the trilogy and all my games so far
for that matter products of 2002.
Bizarre
As you may know I intend to release this some time next year, and I'm
pretty much keeping quiet about the rooms and ideas in the game. But
I'm willing to say now for the benefit of anyone who's interested in
this game that the storyline is short, sweet (if somewhat slightly
unoriginal for a change) and waves a big shitty stick at the
storyline from "The Perils of Willy" (that awful travesty on the
VIC20).
I hope I've helped you out here and not bored you death! I tried to
keep it short and to an extent succeeded.
DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!
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