Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
Archive of the
Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy Yahoo! Group
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Message: 7102
Author: jetsetdanny
Date: 27/03/2017
Subject: New era on the MM/JSW scene
A short reflection about the current condition of the ZX Spectrum MM/JSW scene and the people who have contributed to its development lately.
In 2014, only one message was posted on this Group during the whole year and no new games were released. That year seems to have been the low point for the scene. However, it was also back then when JetSet Willy & Manic Miner Community was launched by Andy Ford (Spider), which has since become the centre of the MM/JSW activity.
Andy has created a friendly, welcoming forum with all the technical features one could wish for. A lot has been going on there, with close to 6000 posts published already, their number growing by the day.
Ian Rushforth (IRF) has been the most active member over there, and I can't help but wonder about the amazing progress he has made in JSW affairs in a very short period of time. Back in October 2015 Ian hadn't even used JSWED yet, and in the last few months, in his posts here and elsewhere, he has been correcting Andrew Broad's documents and technical solutions, finding bugs in the JSW64 game engine and offering fixes for them, and explaining quirks (such as the Rope-Teleport bug) which had never been explained before. He was - together with Andy Ford - one of the key developers of "Jet Set Willy: The Nigthmare Edition", he has made numerous, invaluable contributions to the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion", he has released his first micro-game "Jet Set Willy Heaven and Hell" and he is currently working - together with Andy, a great specialist in loaders, among other things - on a new project which will introduce various technical novelties never before seen in JSW games. Last but not least, Ian has also helped this Group to cross another millenial milestone.
Other things have happened as well in the last couple of years. JSWED was updated back in 2015 (v. 2.3.7). "Jet Set Luis: Rumbo a la Costa Blanca", a remake of "MM", was released by Spanish authors who were not even aware of the existence of JSWED. SkoolKid (Richard Dymond)'s disassemblies of JSW and MM have been gaining new features and their hex versions (JSW and MM) have been launched.
And then "Jet Set Willy II+" appeared, created by Derrick P. Rowson (with Adrian Grubb and Dan Dasse Evertsson's contribution) 31 years after the original game was released!
These are good times for the MM/JSW scene and I hope they will continue 
. It's great to see new people involved. Perhaps some of the old timers will step forward with new projects as well?
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