Jet Set Willy: The Nightmare Edition

Experience the timeless classic with a refreshing wave of new challenges and surprises! Solve the mysteries and find all the items... and be quick!

Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner Community (jswmm.co.uk) is proud to present a new, enhanced version of "Jet Set Willy".

The project was launched in the Contributor Lounge of jswmm.co.uk on 26th October 2015. The founding idea was to have a new JSW build, using the existing 48K engine, "with a few minor tweaks to platforms and the like". The plan was also to have 256 items to collect and to locate them in interesting places where Willy might not otherwise venture.

The project exploded in the following weeks, when several Contributors joined in and launched an avalanche of ideas and suggestions for the new build. By the time "The Nightmare Edition" was ready for release on 26th January 2016, over 2000 posts related to it had been published. More than 100 working builds of the game were created, as well as various minor revisions and numerous working files related to the loader and loading screens.

The general ethos of "The Nightmare Edition" was to work within Willy's original mansion, whilst maximising the difficulty of the classic rooms. However, a few extra screens have been added, inspired by the mythology surrounding the game. Another notable feature of "The Nightmare Edition" is that all unused graphics that were buried in the original JSW game engine since 1984 have been recycled and placed throughout the layout.

The name "Nightmare Edition" was adopted at some point along the way to reflect the increased difficulty of the game and the devious puzzles designed to make the player suffer. The game contains a substantial number of changes, including technical novelties such as different tunes in various areas of Willy's mansion, and a suitably nightmarish font style! Unlike in the original, the time limit is a serious factor.

The team of Contributors have worked hard together to convert their enthusiasm for "JSW" into a final product both enjoyable and challenging to the members of the wider ZX Spectrum community. The end result optimises the potential of Matthew Smith's original game layout, somehow managing to be both reassuringly familiar whilst at the same time fiendishly difficult - all within the 48K game engine!!

A detailed readme file of the building history, credits and technical changes is included in the package.

"Jet Set Willy: The Nightmare Edition" can be completed without losing a single life. The game has been play-tested extensively and is believed to be bug-free. However, if you find any problems, please report them to us at the community.

Enjoy... and suffer!

The download contains the following formats:

Standard .tap file, suitable for general use and transfer to other formats such as +3 disk or Sinclair Vega.
High speed .tzx file, suitable for transfer to use on a real machine. This tzx version must be loaded in 48K mode only.