Spider

She's never really been that much of a concern though even in the standard game ? 🙂

I had a good friend also download and listen to it, but again she could not ID it either. Perhaps it just "sounds like" a section of something else and that is the reasoning. I'm not sure. Quite a few level intro tunes in Specventure (this is a decent game trying to get out) are vaguely familiar too.

That's the way I was thinking (without looking at the code) just not call the code that draws it all (rope/guardians/arrows) I do wonder what would happen if a rope was in the bathroom or top landing however but that is off topic, assuming it was still displayed.

That may be a saner (easier to code too) solution as its not unviable that 'he's won' so the guardians have run away! It does make more logical sense than allowing him to pass through otherwise erm 'solid' sprites.

Vague recollection of the C64 version of JSW applies some kind of immunity to M.W during his "dash" , I may have to check that. I think a few years back I may of mentioned this idea for custom games at one point ie when in 'mode 2' (run to toilet) perhaps collision detect should be disabled, this is more helpful for altered layouts where the designer then does not have to be hugely concerned with guardians 'in the way' 🙂

Most welcome! 🙂

Thanks. 🙂 Its well beyond my area (musical items) at all, example being Zzoom, I've heard that title so many times but I cannot put a name to it 😞 🙂 I do remember at least a couple of people said it sounded vaguely familiar but could not place it. I did wonder if that Shazam program might be able to ID but decided to not bother installing any random stuff to find out. South Bank Show ? 😮 I remember that from the 80's ? I did not know it was still about.

Not a trick question. Attached is a small 20second mp3 file from Alchemist. I'm not a "musak fan" but I'm sure this is part of a real classical piece of piano perhaps ? Can anyone ID it please ? , I stopped recording where I did as it loops at that stage. Alchemist.mp3

The above manual pokes were helpfully converted to a .pok file as attached. I can't do an 'undo' for it for two reasons: 1. Spin does not always honour the undo value for some reason, Spectaculator does as does Zero and Fuse (iirc) 2. As part of it is user set during load, I'd be forced to set a preset colour choice. I've called it chaos mode but I suppose its not really that bad, just try a few rooms with it applied anyway: Mono_Plus_Patch.pok Apply during title screen / gameplay , ie: anytime after menu has 'done its stuff'

I did plan on this earlier but there were some time constraints. BB: #870E = SP: #8714 BB: #8908 = SP: #890E BB: #902B = SP: #9036 Attached are three slightly messy (sorry) combi pics of the disassembly, however its likely enough for what you want as you can clearly see the locations. BB version on left side and SP on right side, so you can see its properly 'matched up' , the addresses you mention are highlighted (obviously only in the left part as the SP version is in a slightly different place!) 🙂 Ignore 'breakpoint' red dot on them, and the rest of the code around the indicated line(s).

One thing I did note about Skyranger that was similar to SD and BTS is the border colour cycle during the 'title tune' 🙂 That seems to be a Microsphere trait (its good) 🙂 CSC is quite different. Its hard to play with not being able to 'see in' too well, as the outer building wall is there. You can make a small change to the code to make it draw the moving graphics outside (on top) of the background , you can see what's going on when you do this but cosmetically it looks quite bad 😄 I'm not aware of what happened to them, I'd like to assume they are perhaps still involved in the software industry at some level though. I've not tried The Train Game, I do remember trying Evolution at one point in the past. Although quite basic it was perhaps a good candidate for a complete rewrite in assembly with a few more graphics rather than 8x8 blocks.

It is the Bug-Byte version. 🙂 I half thought it was in the file descriptor but its not. Probably the quickest way to fix it without changing the code code (to halt the game etc) is to simply insert the data from 45056 / #B000 from the SP version into the BB version of this, that way the game graphics (cavern and sprites) data will be using the SP version.

@IRF has answered you @crem but that's the correct file. For reference the Mastertronic and VentaMatic are based on the Software Projects release too, the latter has a different loader with a vaguley hidden cheat and some language changes, the former is missing a single byte of data from the end of the code, effecting the horizontal guardian in Final Barrier in its appearance.

That's excellent Norman 🙂 🙂 Well spotted! , It is something that is overlooked. Don't forget the items too 😉 Pic attached:

One more thing I appreciate about the above file is the fact that a small 'third screen' preview of each cavern has been provided. 🙂 This is an excellent nice thought, and while I'm at it the fact the score alternates in colour for each point incrementation.

Ah yes. 🙂 Microsphere. David and Helen Reidy. There was a decentish article in one magazine back then. I think they had some extra help from another person with the graphics designing at one point or another. I've not dug out the article. The first game I saw from them in late 84 or possibly early 85 was Wheelie, not actually quite my "cup of tea" but I did appreciate the good gameplay. This was something that was brought around to me by a relative, who lived nearby a video hire shop (ah the good old days of BetaMax and VHS tape hire!) , point being this place hired out original games for week iirc for a small sum. Off the top of my head here the first games I saw from said place (I did not se them all that were hired) were Wheelie, Frank-N-Stein, Pyramid, Kong, Chuckie Egg and likely a few others, memory fades! Back to Microsphere itself, yes I did purchase SkoolDaze 'back then' , I actually still have it! First thing that struck me was the loader with its initial bright red screen with yellow ink and its high speed. I'll not go into the loader here as its off topic I guess. I do remember having a bit of paper with a list of battles on that I'd discovered during playing etc. Back To Skool again was so impressed with the first game I managed to cobble enough to get this too. You must not forget "Contact Sam Cruise" 😉 as that is a similar vein, slightly different gameplay, I do have this now (got it about 4 or 5 years ago I think in a small bundle of a dozen titles), it was not really a game I could get into too well. I think somewhere I did post about this, the fact that the 'game core' engine as such is likely not that far different between SD/BTS and CSC, I do wonder if any other games were planned using this 'engine' as such, if that makes sense. I could not find any evidence of this unfortunately. It would be interesting to ask even if it was only "ideas at the time on a bit of paper" if anything was actually planned or not. SkoolKid released the excellent PiSkool and SkoolKit, so you can modify the game engines a bit too, I do recall messing about with this a few years back, great fun! But there's disassembly's of all three of these games available. 🙂 Microsphere did release a few other titles but they were iirc not that well known about perhaps, I don't recall seeing any 'in the plastic' so to speak , as in on a shop shelf back then but its quite possible I may of overlooked them. EDIT.. Completely forgot about SkyRanger ( ! ) , I had this too when it appeared on Mastertronic re-release, iirc partly on the strength of it being a Microsphere game, however it was again not really my "cup of tea" , pretty sure there's a decent game in there trying to get out though. Perhaps I should of played it a bit more! 🙂

I did at one time grab all Software Projects and Bug-Byte's games that were listed (and not denied) as its quite surprising how many other good titles they actually have. I mean, when 'Software Projects' pops into my mind I think of JSW and to a lesser extent, MM. Similar with Bug-Byte I tend to immediately think of MM 🙂 There are a few erm 'not great' titles from both 'houses' though, but to be fair the same could be said for most others too. To a slightly lesser extent PSS do have some cracking titles inc FNS (bug fixed and slightly easier version available I modded) Is a lot to be said about the smaller or less well known 'houses' too, Atlantis being another perhaps. 🙂

A few pics were (sort of) requested elsewhere so I thought I'd attach them here rather than into the file itself, its just a single 'combi-pic'

Its quite an interesting question, thank you @MtMfor posing it and to @Norman Swordfor your reply too. The only thing I can really add is there -might- of been some slight confusion somewhere along the lines as Matt wrote a sprite tool, I've not looked if this was a 'released file' or an 'internal tool' ie: written by coders for coders (you should see the state of my screen splitter for instance!) ^ Typo fixed, there's a 'g' in 'alongside' Source here : Having said that the screenshot itself indicates the game itself was also by the same. I suspect that the mention of the tool was intended to mean 'Matt wrote this'

🙂 Brief answer for now. I've not read your honest feedback as negative (honest!) I appreciate good/bad/other input at all times. I did not want to 'mod' the game core code (by this i mean machine code block) too much. The shortened startup routine was something I have a home-made .pok file for so it was a moment to apply that. The reason for not offering cyan or red , I must of not explained properly sorry. The primary choice of 'green' was simply because there were (and are) green screen monitors around, and to a less popular extent, amber and in some cases white (as in paper white) 🙂 Joke: I don't think there's such a thing as a mono cyan or red monitor 😄 , however it would not be difficult to do a red one with a colour CRT by disconnecting the G and B from the amplifier stage (don't try this at home folks! 30kV not pleasant at the final anode and the red/green/blue electron guns can run at up to 3kV in some cases) , this is not a DIY proposition! I also did not really have the ability without much time taken to write the routine in assembly either, I could just about do it however but this then leads onto "we've done that so how about offering xyz too" , I resisted the difficult temptation to tweak it as I'd wanted to reduce the beach item to one and either give the 'moved item' a shape or remove it altogether. There is a small solution to those who would perhaps prefer a bit of chaos. Apply the following poke after the game is 'running' , ie at title screen stage or at a minimum after the 'menu' has applied or been prevented from applying its change: POKE 35339 , 058 POKE 35340 , 222 POKE 35341 , 128 POKE 35342 , 024 POKE 35343 , 010 On a slightly different note, the 'cheat' does work (its limited I was going to add more to that too) and the mono JSW1 style loading title I think suits quite well. EDIT... I did look into the 'monochromatic' term/definition but was not really sure if it suited or not, ie: Monochromatic Edition. I'd not heard of 'duochromatic' before, although my understanding of 'mono' simply means (rightly or wrongly) a single colour combined with black or two colours one being the background and one being the foreground.

Very small update to fix a typo in the menu and update the description text a little bit.

View File Jet Set Willy Mono Plus JSW Mono Plus A small expansion on the existing 'JSW Mono' variant offering a choice of colours! The download consists of a .tap tape file and a small 'tech notes' text file covering a few details of interest. Although the patch to set 'JSW Mono' is readily available from John Elliott's site (home of the brilliant JSWED tool) and it is indeed quite possible to find a prebuilt game file with it applied from other sites, both with and without bug fixes it is by it's nature slightly limited in what colours are permitted. Monochrome does not always have to mean white text on black paper! Upon loading the player is presented with a neat and tidy menu offering a range of suggested presets, selectable by a letter key: White ink with black paper White ink with black paper and bright enabled (This is the original 'JSW Mono patch' effect output when applied to the game engine) The above options are also offered in inverse! That being white paper with black ink, again available with or without bright. A basic 'green screen' choice is available, limited to green ink on black paper but with the option of bright enabled or not. Thought was given to offering an 'amber' choice too as 'back in the day' there were amber 'mono' monitors around as well as the more common green-screen and black-white ones. Unfortunately it was felt that the Spectrum's yellow was not really quite adequate enough to pass itself off as an amber mono display, so the option of a preset for this is not initially offered however, read on about choices... To allow further visual entertainment, the player may select their own preference for desired ink , paper , bright and (if they insist!) flash options. A basic sanity check is applied to prevent the player choosing the same value for paper and ink and a further check to confirm they really do want flash enabled. Upon completion of picking the colour options the text for the custom option is displayed in those colours. Please refer to screenshots of the menu, it was written to be self-explanatory as far as sensibly possible. The player may at this stage change their mind and pick a default value or re-enter a choice of custom values. When happy pressing the 'R' key will execute the game code, this is necessary even if one of the pre-defined choices is selected. A basic check is present to ensure an option has been chosen before the 'R' key will function as no option is selected by default. The currently "active choice" is shown by the menu letter control key being set to flash. Again please take a look at the screenshots. We hope you enjoy this small expansion tweak to the existing 'JSW Mono' ! Submitter Spider Submitted 03/20/2021 Category Jet Set Willy [Patched]  

Just looked and its OK now. Keyword here I guess is " yet " , I will admit it is annoying it not being immediately updated like the previous version, seems a step back. I will attempt to look at that. Top work with the scoring/playing! 😄 , even the erm "A.I Bot" 😉 😄

Thanks. 🙂 I think the rankings need a quick recheck over given the newer submissions in the 'Automated Generation" topic too. I'm aware @jetsetdannyhas updated them yesterday and I did the same a few hours later to add four missing ones (I just quickly did four caverns)