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: 4710
Author: Daniel
Date: 15/03/2005
Subject: Jet Set Willy - The 2005 Megamix
Hello,
I would like to let everybody know that I am in the final stages of
work on a new JSW game, called: "Jet Set Willy The 2005 Megamix".
If all goes well, it will be released in April or May this year. I
have placed screenshots of 20 rooms on my Jet Set Willy website,
kindly hosted by Xabier Vasquez (xabi@...), at:
http://xa.bi/jsw/megalery.htm .
The inspiration for the game came from the information on Andrew
Broad's website about a couple of unfinished games whose authors have
no apparent interest in finishing them, of single rooms scattered in
various enhanced versions of the original Jet Set Willy, and of
alternative graphics which I liked a lot. According to the
information given by Andrew, the authors of this material did not
mind it being reused and/or developed, as long as they were given
proper credit. I had a strong feeling that these fine rooms and
graphics should find their place in a finished, compleatable game so
that they could be enjoyed by JSW fans while playing 'for real'. And
so I decided to develop the unfinished projects, put together the
individual rooms scattered here and there, introduce the alternative
graphics I particularly liked and thus create a new, consistent game.
In the process, I decided to use John Elliott's 128k JSW engine in
order to accommodate all the rooms. I also expanded the game
significantly, adding a number of new rooms of my own design.
So "Jet Set Willy The 2005 Megamix" is a 128k engine game. It
features 156 rooms in total, including 130 which can be accessed
during the game and 26 which belong to the final sequence, after the
program has taken control of Willy. The playing field is divided into
two separate parts, one with 38 rooms, the other with 92 rooms,
linked by a teleporter. There are 256 items to collect. Theoretically
the game can be finished without losing a single life (in practice,
if you save snapshots on the emulator or are a genius).
I consider myself to be a co-author of the game rather than its
author, since it includes a lot of material written by other people,
and I want to take great care to give proper credit to everyone. From
the point of view of the authorship, the game consists of:
- 48 rooms designed by Paul Howard ("Equinox Tetrachloride"), from
his unfinished "JSW '96 Remix";
- 12 rooms from the Dragon 32 version of Jet Set Willy, converted
back to the Spectrum format by John Elliott;
- 6 rooms designed by Rob Moseley;
- 4 rooms designed by Ian Collier;
- 2 rooms designed by Greg Heslington using DefRoom for the Spectrum
by J. G. Harston;
- 2 rooms designed by John Elliott;
- 2 rooms from JSW Editor MkII by Softricks;
- 1 room designed by Dave Nichols;
- 1 redesigned room originally created by Richard Hallas.
The rest are rooms of my own design, but many of them use graphical
elements borrowed either from the above rooms or from Darren
McCowan's "JSW (Sunday Afternoon Graphical Remix)".
The guardian sprites in the game include sprites designed by:
- Matthew Smith from the original Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner;
- Darren McCowan from "JSW (Sunday Afternoon Graphical Remix)";
- Richard Hallas from "Join the Jet-Set!" and "Jet Set Willy In
Space";
- Paul Howard from "JSW '96 Remix";
- Michael Blanke and Arno Gitz from "Jet Set Willy III";
- Adam Britton from his three JSW games;
- Greg Heslington using DefSprite for the Spectrum by J. G. Harston;
plus sprites from the Dragon 32 version of JSW and some of my own
design.
The game requires the player to take advantage of some of the quirky
features of the game engine that is inspired by and in some cases
based on Andrew Broad's games.
Detailed credits for all of the above elements will be given in the
text file which will accompany the game.
I hope the game will provide a coherent, enjoyable and challenging
playing experience for everyone interested in Jet Set Willy. So keep
an eye out for its release later this spring!
Daniel
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