Bugfixed, completable version of "Willy the Hacker"

"Willy the Hacker" is a 1999 game by Geoff Eddy. The original release of the game was incompletable due to a critical bug in the room "The Right-Hand Edge of the Map" (27): it was impossible to jump over the foot on the right, and therefore impossible to collect the item.

In 2007, Andrew Broad suggested a fix for it (in a post on the JSW/MM Yahoo! Group, which used to be here, but Yahoo! Groups are not online any more). Andrew said, "POKE 56116,4 (Hex DB34: 04) puts a Water-cell at (6,18), which is possible to jump onto if you stand to the right of the foot with your legs apart."

In May 2008, Robin Clive submitted a recording of the game to the RZX Archive, which is still hosted there. In order to be able to complete the game, Robin applied a different fix than the one suggested by Andrew. Strangely enough, he also modified the game to show only 7 remaining lives, while in the original game there are 16, occupying the whole bottom part of the status bar (as a matter of fact, the game has the infinite-lives POKE turned on by default, so it doesn't really matter to the player how many spare lives there are left, and their number does not decrease if a life is lost, but this change does make a significant visual difference on the status bar). Robin never released his modified game file (however, an RZX recording can be used to play the game it was made from).

I prepared a bugfixed version of the game while creating "Willy the Hacker"'s page on JSW Central in April 2019. I applied the same fix that Robin Clive had applied to eliminate the critical bug in room 27. However, it was done in ZX-Blockeditor so that the rest of the game remained unchanged, the only difference was that it was made completable. I did not correct another, non-critical bug which Robin had corrected, which is the necessity to lose a life in the room "Purple <hic>" (29) (where the only way to collect the two items on the mid-air platform is to jump for them from below, which kills Willy upon falling from an excessive height).

I made my bugfixed version available for download from JSW Central in TAP and TZX format, hoping that Geoff Eddy would approve of this, but without his explicit approval. It was a great joy to learn that Geoff did endorse it in September 2022. I am very grateful for Geoff's approval and support - thank you so much, Geoff!

Thus, this ZIP file contains bugfixed, completable, original-author-approved version of "Willy the Hacker" in TAP and TZX format.

Play, enjoy and complete the game!