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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 5386
Author: Daniel
Date: 02/01/2006
Subject: "Spaceman Willy" Daniel's review
Relaxing after hard work related to the release of Sendy's and
mine "JSW: Mind Control", I played "Spaceman Willy" to completion. I
completed it with the infinite lives POKE (and saving snapshots,
which was useful several times with multiple-death scenarios), but I
have a feeling that it should be possible to complete the game
without losing a single life.
Even though the game is probably not particularly impressive and
certainly not difficult by today's standards, playing it was a very
nice experience. I couldn't help thinking that it was like
discovering a long-forgotten remote territory or something after
all, it was created by Leslie Marwick 20 years ago, must have been
experienced by some players at that time (not many of them, I
imagine), and was then totally forgotten until Steve dug it out!
(how does he do it...) The same thing as with R.D. Foord's "Dr. Jet
Set Willy", but "Spaceman Willy" is much better, because it is
complete and it has a concrete theme and atmosphere. You can see the
author was very meticulous while designing it; he even included a
nice loading screen and new title-screen and in-game music.
There are 60 rooms in the game, plus another room (47) which can be
accessed only by Writetyper, I think (it is playable, it is almost a
copy of another room, but you cannot exit safely - unless by
Writetyper again). The layout is carefully planned, with only one
problem as far as I could tell - there are seven rooms
between "Oxygen Production Plant" and "The Reactor", and there are
only six rooms below them, between "Filtration Plant" and "Under the
Reactor", even though "Filtration Plant" is located directly
below "Oxygen Production Plant" and "Under the Reactor" is
obviously located directly below "The Reactor". As jet_visy
mentioned, there are some nice sprites which might deserve being
reused in new games.
A word of criticism would certainly have to go against some unfair
infinite-death scenarios, such as going down from "The Ruins"
into "Down The Mine", or jumping left from "The Ruins" into "The
Flying Saucer".
The ending is interesting, because evidently it involved some
hacking those of you who have technical knowledge would know.
After reaching the bed (the point where the toilet-run normally
starts), the game ends and the player is shown a congratulations
screen, after which he/she is given the option of restarting the
game. So, according to the definitions established by
Andrew, "Spaceman Willy" is bed-completable, but not toilet-
completable.
Incidentally, in your document you say, Andrew: "A JSW game is bed-
completable if it is Maria-completable and you can reach the bed-
column, triggering Willy to run towards the toilet." I think that
taking the ending in "Spaceman Willy" into account, perhaps you
might want to add something like: "A JSW game is bed-completable if
it is Maria-completable and you can reach the bed-column, triggering
Willy to run towards the toilet or causing another ending designed
by the author". Just a thought.
So, thanks again to Steve Brown of the TZX Vault and I hope he will
continue to find new hidden treasures from the golden years of ZX
Spectrum era! :-)
Daniel
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