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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 6445
Author: Daniel
Date: 12/06/2008
Subject: "It's Wet Jelly" - Daniel's review
Yesterday I completed the newest JSW48 game, Paul Equinox
Collins's "It's Wet Jelly". The RZX recording of this effort is
available for download from The RZX Archive
(www.rzxarchive.co.uk/j.php). I managed to complete the game with a
toilet-time of 8.31 am, and with six spare lives. The loss of one
life is inevitable, AFAICT, in the room "Blind jeweler veers into
hive" (40) you cannot go safely down (or up) from the hive after
collecting the three items. Paul, or someone else could you please
confirm that this is the case, that this life indeed has to be lost?
I must say that I enjoyed playing "It's Wet Jelly" immensely. The
game is great in its graphics, colours and room-name-related
atmosphere. Anagramming the room names has worked very well, IMO.
Some highlights for me: very atmospheric rooms such as "Fog Town
wires" (56), "Lost Coder" (25), "God in plant" (34), "Temple aquifer
makes fur grow" (16) and "Built a moon" (13); rooms with particularly
interesting graphic design ideas: "Cute socks on" (07), "Into the
sketch Maria was tiny" (22) and "Basalt Weasel" (26); a room with a
nice sense of humour: "Cat we throw" (50). The game also features
many new sprites, which are nice to see.
The game is rather easy, but interesting enough thanks to some use of
the quirky features of the game engine. I managed to discover all of
the four secret rooms without any cheating the leftmost room
(looking at the map) was the most difficult one to find, and it was
only by trial and error that I finally spotted the entrance to it.
Also, the technical trick making possible the entrance to the
uppermost secret room is delightful it uses a quirky feature which
I once suggested in an experimental file and then used (although in a
slightly different way) in "Willy's Hoard". Here it is used in its
own, very effective way.
So, to sum up, it was a great feeling to be able to play a brand-new
JSW48 game, one that is simple, elegant and interesting at the same
time. I highly recommend it to all of you and suggest that you have a
go at solving the puzzles without any cheating they are not that
difficult, after all.
A note to Andrew Broad: Am I right in thinking that you play gamma-
released JSW games according to a certain schedule of yours? If so,
you /might/ not be playing "It's Wet Jelly" before a dozen years from
now (due to the merciless tennis distractions and other things). So
just to encourage you to disregard the schedule this one time and
play "It's Wet Jelly" on the nearest Sunday afternoon: one of the
secret rooms is a tribute to your games, with a proper name for that
purpose, a tight jump right behind Kari Krisnikova (which has to be
performed twice) and many jumps requiring taking advantage of the
QFs. :-) .
Daniel
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