jetsetdanny

The idea is certainly interesting and challenging. Determining whether something is a "clone" of MM or JSW may be tricky (how similar does the game have to be in order to be considered that?). My JSW Central website aims to list every single gamma-released MM and JSW game for the Spectrum, as well as minor versions of the original games. Non-Spectrum games are beyond its scope of interest and will not be part of it in the foreseeable future. As described here, whether a game is defined, or not, as a 'Willy game' for the purposes of JSW Central depends mainly on the game engine it uses. The only exception to the rule are games using game engines other than the several well-defined categories, but which for various reasons are without any doubt 'Willy games'. I would suspect that almost all of the ZX Spectrum games included in the 'Complete list of MM and JSW games' on JSW Central should be incorporated into the hypothetical all-encompassing all-platform list you've described. "Almost all", because there is one exception: my "Willy Games: The First 30 Years Quiz" IS a Willy game by the JSW Central definition - because it uses the JSW64 game engine - but in fact it's not a platformer, but a multiple-choice quiz (in which the ingenious use of the game engine is part of the tribute to the whole phenomenon of Willy games). So it would certainly not fit on any list of JSW clones. JSW Central also lists, as separate lists, "Versions and minor mods of the original Manic Miner" and "Versions and minor mods of the original Jet Set Willy". These are creations I do not classify as "new games", but as "versions" and "minor mods" of the original games (only), and I do feel very strongly about making this distinction, because it's often blurred on general ("non-MM/JSW-specialised") Spectrum websites, to the detriment of common sense and clarity of what we are talking about. It would have to be an arbitrary decision by whoever was making the all-encompassing list if they would want to include any of these entries. Section I. "Games inspired by and/or similar to MM or JSW" on the "Games of MM and JSW interest" page, which Andy (Spider) pointed to (thank you!), is a half-hearted attempt to create a list of Spectrum games that may be particularly enjoyable to people who like MM/JSW because of their similarity. It's grossly underdeveloped, and will unfortunately remain so in the foreseeable future, because developing it is very low on my priority list. However, IF a list of Spectrum games similar to/inspired by/amounting to clones of MM/JSW is developed elsewhere (like on this forum by following Jet Set Willie's idea), I would be happy to take advantage of it in the future and use it to add new entries to the "Games of MM and JSW interest" list on JSW Central. As for the lists on new MM/JSW games and minor versions on JSW Central, to the best of my knowledge they are currently complete, with the exception of two "versions/minor mods of the original Manic Miner" and a sub-version of one of them that have been around for over a year now, but I haven't got down to creating separate pages for them yet (they are Allan Turvery's "Manic Miner: Trick or Treat" and its 'Silver Shamrock' variant plus his "Manic Miner Presto"). I will include them in the list and create separate pages for them one day. If someone knows of anything else that is missing, please let me know!

> But how can I edit arrow´s Y-coordinate? You highlight the arrow guardian in the "Guards" list in the room. Then in the part of the screen which shows the room you have two narrow rectangles (to describe it somehow): one is yellow and unmoving, the other one is flashing (between white and blue, I think) and can be moved up and down with your mouse. The unmoving yellow one is the current position (=height) to which the arrow is set. The movable flashing one is the position (=height) you are setting it to right now. After you've moved it to the desired position (=height), you left-click the mouse and the yellow rectangle is moved to the new position (and stays there). The two pictures below illustrate this: A video would be better, but this should do. In the first two pictures, the flashing rectangle is shown as white (as I guess it happened to be white when I took either screenshot). As you can see, in the second picture the white rectangle is lower than in the first picture - that's because I moved it with my mouse. Now the third picture: This time the yellow rectangle is lower than before - because I left-clicked my mouse when the flashing rectangle was at that height, and that moved the yellow rectangle there, i.e. defined a new height for the arrow. The flashing rectangle is still there (this time it happens to be blue), as the arrow's height can be edited again, and it happens to be higher up, because I moved it with my mouse before taking the screenshot. I hope this helps 🙂 .

Regarding "Safe restart places": I've never used it. I've tried just now and indeed JSWED does not seem to allow this option to be applied in a regular JSW game, even though in the manual it says, "Note that if you turn this effect on, on a game which previously didn’t have it, it is essential to set up a valid restart position in every room, and to set the initial room again. Otherwise the game will crash on startup or when Willy loses a life." The words "if you turn this effect on, on a game which previously didn’t have it" imply that you CAN do such a thing; however, from a cursory glance, it doesn't seem possible. If you want to see how this feature works, you will need to use Ian Collier's version of JSW then. I've attached it to this message. I've checked and indeed, it works in JSWED, in that you can choose the "Safe restart places" option and then you can set the position for Willy to respawn after death in every room. JETSETHK.z80

The problem that people who start to work with JSWED experience most often is with what's come to be known in the trade as guardian classes versus guardian instances. Guardian classes define most of the properties of a guardian. They are visible as hex numbers in JSWED. When you do "Guardians" - "Add" - "Choose a new guardian", you have to select it (in the JSW48 game engine, i.e. the unmodified engine from the original JSW) from 127 guardian classes. The first is called 00 [None in the original JSW], the second 01 [Rope in the original JSW], 02 [Vertical in the original JSW] and so forth, until guardian class 7e (for technical reasons JSWED does not allow the designer to use guardian class 7f, which would be the last one otherwise). You have to select a guardian class and then either use it as is, or redefine this guardian class (in any way you want; if it's currently a vertical one, you can change it to a horizontal one, or a rope, or an arrow). The guardian class defines the type of guardian and most of its parameters (depending on the type) such as the sprite, colour, bounds of movement, animation, etc. A guardian instance is a guardian class used in a particular room, so the thing that we would commonly called "a guardian" in the room. There are some things that are defined in the guardian instance parameters, such as the horizontal position of a vertical guardian, the starting point of a horizontal guardian, the horizontal position of a rope in the room or the height at which an arrow flies. These properties are defined in a guardian instance and are individual for this particular instance, but most of the elements of each guardian's behaviour are defined in its guardian class and are the same for all of the guardian instances of this class. When the author modifies any of the existing guardian classes, if there are any guardian instances using this particular guardian class in other rooms, they will be modified accordingly. This is the problem I mentioned: people would add eg. guardian instances using class 01 in rooms 01, 02 and 03. Then they would modify this guardian class 01 in room 01 (in a way that fits the design of this particular room), and then they would be surprised that "the guardians" (i.e. guardian instances) also got modified in rooms 02 and 03 (in a way not fitting the design of either room). Of course they got modified, because the guardian class got modified, so all guardian instances using this particular guardian class have been modified. If you want to have different guardians in rooms 02 and 03, you will need to use different guardian classes for them. It is good practice IMO to have a table for each JSW game you create where you make a note which guardian classes are used in which room, eg. Room 00 - guardian classes 01 and 1b, Room 01 - guardian classes 12, 3f, 4b and 52 and so on. I always do it in a simple table in MS Word (just an example to say that *even* MS Word is good enough for this). In this way, you always know which guardian class you can modify without affecting other rooms, or see if a change in one room will be acceptable for the guardian instance(s) of the same guardian class used in another room/other rooms. It's probably not the problem you've encountered and sorry if it's very basic, but I know people have had problems with this before, so I thought I'd better mention it 🙂 .

Regarding JSWED crashing/other problems described: This is something I can't really help with, because I haven't experienced the same problems, so I can't say what causes them or how they can be avoided. In recent years (say, the last six or seven years, since I've worked on "Willy's New Mansion" SE and other projects), I don't recall JSWED ever crashing on me, or having any other kind of problematic behaviour. The only problem I do keep encountering - and it's irritating, because it consumes time (I have to restart the editor and reload the game file), but it's not critical (I am able to save the game before closing the editor) occurs when I work in the Hex editor (it stops accepting input from the keyboard; you can still save the game using the mouse), so it's not one of the problems you've encountered. I have a *vague* memory of JSWED crashing when editing guardians (after choosing guardian sprites, I think it was), but it happened many years ago, and I haven't experienced such problem in recent years. I believe I had the habit of saving the game *before* editing a guardian, just to be on the safe side, not to lose progress if the game crashes. Again, it hasn't happened in my recent memory. I've always worked on Windows (currently on Windows 10). What operating system are you using?

JSW64 is a 'family' of 128K game engines developed by John Elliott. I call it 'a family', because there are six variants: V, W, X, Y, Z and [, which differ in the maximum number of rooms, number of guardians per room, number of cell classes per room and whether the cell type of each cell class is set globally or on a room-by-room basis, as shown in the table below: Variant Rooms Guardians per room Cell classes per room Free space per room JSW64 V 128 13 8 64 bytes JSW64 W 128 8 13* 0 bytes JSW64 X 64 13** 8 576 bytes JSW64 Y 64 8** 13* 512 bytes JSW64 Z 64 8** 13*** 256 bytes JSW64 [ 64 4** 16 512 bytes The JSW64 game engine was created by John Elliott as a development of the JSW 128 idea, using the extra memory of the 128K Spectrums in a different way. Whereas JSW128 can have up to 256 simple rooms, JSW64 can have up to 64 or 128 more sophisticated rooms. So JSW64 is not an editor, it's a game engine (with six variants). Games using any of the variants of the JSW64 game engine can be created using JSWED 2.3.7.

The easiest way for me to answer it is the following: Please download the ZIP package of the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion", open the "Willy's New Mansion - Special Edition" text file and have a look at Section IX. "Technical notes". Things which are described there were pretty much all done using JSWED's Hex editor. Similarly, you can download the ZIP package of the 48K Edition of "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre" and have a look at the "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre 48K Edition - Readme" text file, Section X. "Technical notes". Again, this was all done using by modifying the code by using JSWED's Hex editor.

John Elliott might be lurking around. He did in the past. Ligan's reply is absolutely correct in that you can apply the so-called triggers in games using JSW64 game engines, and they could probably do pretty much what you are asking for. Well, within limits - while I've never designed anything using triggers, I believe there is a selection of events you can relate them to (in other words: you can only pick the triggers and the effect they cause from a closed list of events). You can certainly do something like "When this particular item is collected, open a hole in the wall at [coordinates]". However, I'm not sure you can do something like "then SET guardian_life_time = nn_seconds". JSW64 game engines use 128K (not a problem I guess, just to reiterate that fact). In other kinds of games, you could introduce special effects by what has come to be known as 'patch vectors' (PVs). There is a thread about them here. In their case, JSWED will not not allow you to apply them using any special functions in its GUI, you would have to code whatever special effect you want manually. You can introduce the new code using JSWED's Hex Editor, of course. The changes could also be introduced 'manually' by tweaking the game code in a different way than introducing PVs, like in the examples Andy (Spider) mentioned. Again, no editor I know of will do it for you; JSWED can only help by allowing you to use its Hex Editor to modify the code (but you will have to know what and how to modify).

What do you mean, Andy? I would think a machine with 128K of RAM is more Bitcoin-wallet friendly than one with 48K RAM only 😁.

Yes, it is lovely! Thanks, Mtm! 🙂 P.S. A pity she's not in Solar Power Generator or somewhere else that would show she's really far into the game 😉 .

The same feeling here - it will be a great shame if Norman Sword leaves the scene. I hope he will reconsider/circumstances will change favourably. In any case, thank you for the release of V2 and I look forward to V3!

My personal opinion: JSWED is currently (and has been for a long time) an absolutely unbeatable tool for creating MM and JSW games. It's easy to use, reliable and versatile. You can edit most aspects of each game using its Graphical User Interface (GUI). You can copy and paste stuff in various ways (whole rooms, sprites, etc.). You don't have to know *anything* about coding to create a complete, interesting MM or JSW game. JSWED allows you to edit games using several types of game engines, including the original 48K game engine and some of its variants (like the Softricks one), MM games, Henry's Hoard games, Jet Set Willy 128 games (using an extended 128K JSW game engine developed by John Elliott, who is also the author of JSWED), Jet Set Willy 64 games (using any of the family of several extended 128K game engines developed by John Elliott) and also games using the original "Jet Set Willy II" game engine. This list is impressive in itself and I may have missed some other variant it can edit. I would go as far in my praise of JSWED as to disagree with Andy (Spider)'s last statement ("Professionals tend to write and use their own editors/builders per game as far as I'm aware") in the sense that you can be a professional in designing MM or JSW games *without* building your own editor - just by using JSWED. This is for the following reason: when you look at the list of gamma-released MM and JSW games on JSW Central, a significant number of them (and certainly most of the game created in the last 20 years) were created using JSWED, as the basic tool or as the only tool. There are some *fantastic* games that were created by authors not using anything else than JSWED. They may not have a custom BASIC loader or a loading screen, they may not have some elements modified that other games have modified (those where you have to "go outside" of JSWED's GUI to do it), but they are brand-new, beautiful games which combine the elegance and excellence of the JSW game engine (original or extended) with the amazing creativity of their authors. I will not point to any specific examples (as I try to be objective and I love all JSW games, although I do have my personal favorites), but they are easy to find. And please note I'm *not* referring to my own projects, I have other authors' games in mind. In other words, I believe that JSWED is entirely sufficient for creating great JSW games. Yes, the final product can be tweaked by applying changes to the code you cannot apply in JSWED's GUI, but it may still be great even if no such changes are applied and no technical novelties are introduced (and they can also be introduced within JSWED, using its Hex Editor). And creating a single room may be a very good start to creating a great game... On top of all this, JSWED is entirely free. And, as Andy mentioned, it works just fine on Windows. And the last point: please see this thread for my thoughts regarding v. 2.2.9 and 2.3.7. A hint and a warning: I believe it's good practice to save every single file you edit in JSWED under a different file name, so that you keep all the versions you create. This is particularly important when changing the code arbitrarily in the Hex Editor (to be able to check against a previous version or many previous versions in case something goes wrong, but you only discover the problem later on), perhaps not so much if you only work using the GUI. I've been saving (and still keep) all of the files I've ever created. I don't need them now, they are just a historical curiosity, but this practice helped me a number of times to solve problems I came up against. And I've never accidentally overwritten any of my work. I look forward to whatever you will create in JSWED, Jet Set Willie! 🙂

To be precise, I haven't yet released a new MM and then a JSW mod (I am missing the MM part 😉). Some people have done so, in addition to Matthew Smith, of course: R. D. Foord (the person who is behind the R. D. Foord Software, I assume that's his/her name), Andrew Broad and Vidar Eriksen (Erix1). Also, more recently, Ian Rushforth (IRF) and Andy Ford (Spider). I definitely want to create more games in the future. However, I would like to complete a certain phase of development of JSW Central first (working on it bit by bit [no pun intended] is more compatible with my other current actitivies in life than delving into a new game-creation project, which tends to absorb me 100% and sap the time I should be dedicating to other aspects of life). Hopefully, one day circumstances will be more propitious for brave new game-creation projects :). I wish you the same and already look forward to your future MM and JSW mods 🙂 .

Thanks! I'll have another go and try to shoot my way through 😉 .

Thanks for the pre-pre-pre-alpha version 🙂 . I've tried it, but cannot get past the wall Willy is standing next to in this screenshot: and not much seems to be happening...

No, I'm not aware of anyone reporting completing it, but of course it doesn't mean anything other that I haven't heard of such thing. Since I focus on ZX Spectrum games, the only interesting element of Craig Rothwell's game for me is "Manic Miner 7", which, as I understand, is complete in the DOS version. Craig started writing it as a Spectrum game and it is listed as such on JSW Central, even though that's controversial - it's really an unfinished project as far as Spectrum goes, with only 5 edited caverns (the rest are original MM caverns). It shouldn't really be listed as a complete, gamma-released game, but it is for historical reasons, as it appeared in this capacity on older lists of MM games for the Spectrum. In any case, Craig's DOS game features, as I understand, a complete version of "Manic Miner 7". I once had a look at it to see if it would make sense to try to transfer/ port it back to the Spectrum. I decided then that it would be hard, because it has elements that go beyond what the regular MM game engine on the Spectrum can do. I also seem to remember that I was surprised because the first caverns in the DOS version were different from the edited caverns in the Spectrum version, as if Craig started creating the game anew (or modified it significantly) in DOS. I believe "Manic Miner 7" is an interesting MM game and certainly one that would be recommendable for people who are interested. In my case, I have a huge amount of plans related to JSW and MM games for the Spectrum and little time to carry them out, so I won't be playing the DOS "Manic Miner 7" in the foreseeable future. The other games included in Craig's package of games are not that interesting, I think, because they are just DOS versions of various JSW and possibly (I can't remember off the top of my head what's included) also MM games (mods) that were in existence when Craig created his set of games. Still, IIRC from the description, the challenge was to complete them all one by one, so if there is some kind of final prize at the end for completing them all, it could be a nice challenge for people who are interested and have enough time to dedicate to this quest 🙂 .

Regretfully, I don't have any ZX Spectrum story explicitly related to Christmas going back to the "real hardware" days. I am sure Christmas and the holidays around it was a happy time for me back then as I could spend a considerable amount of time playing on the Spectrum-compatible Timex computer I had (still have, in fact). However, I don't have any specific recollections. My generic (non-Christmas 😉) story of involvement with the Spectrum and JSW goes back to 1986. My parents bought me a Spectrum-compatible 48K Timex. "Jet Set Willy" happened to be one of the first (if not *the* first) games I ever loaded into it, and I fell in love with it right from the beginning. I only played "Manic Miner" after playing "JSW". I also loved "Jet Set Willy II", I spent a huge amount of time exploring it and trying to finish it without an infinite lives POKE (I remember that back in those days I never figured out how to reach the Deserted Isle). I also remember playing "Manic Miner 2". Come to think about it, it was related to my first attempts at editing, as I translated the German room names into Polish. I also designed a loading screen for "JSW", which years later (in 2007) I recovered by transferring it to emulator format. I may still use it one day in one of the "modern" projects, as a little historical curiosity. For the context, all of this took place in Poland, which was under the communist regime at the time. My Timex was purchased, together with a tape recorder, at a a special hard currency store for $130, while at that time, due to the way the finacial and social system were structured, a monthly salary in Poland averaged the equivalent of US$30 (people who could would travel to do some physical work, like pick berries, in the summer in Germany or Scandinavia, and after returning to Poland they could live comfortably for the next year... or buy a personal computer). I never had a colour monitor back then - I used a Polish-made monochromatic (greenish) monitor (the first time I played JSW or MM in colour was years later, on a PC, already in the emulation era). Later on, my parents also bought me some additional hardware, expanding the Timex's memory (to 128K, or perhaps 256K, I can't remember exactly), a 3-inch floppy disk drive and a printer. I still have all this hardware, as well as all the software tapes I had back then. The last time I used them was in the summer of 2007 when I transferred all of the software I had written back in 1980s to the emulator format (and submitted the two games I had created in BASIC to the Crap Games Competition (C.S.S.C.G.C) - you can check out the two parts of the infamous "Spider Attack" here and here 😄). After I stopped playing on my Timex some time in the early 1990s, I was blissfully ignorant of the existence of ZX Spectrum emulators for PC computers until 2001. Then I suddenly became interested in the subject, for no apparent reason, and I also discovered and downloaded the already numerous fan-made MM and JSW games. I had a brief look at them, arranged convenient shortcuts to them in my Windows start menu with the intention of playing them at some point, but then, after having to reformat my system HDD, I let them slip into oblivion again. At the beginning of 2004, after another reinstallation of my operating system (Windows 98 SE, back then), I fired up John Elliott's JSWED v. 2.0.3 and played around with it for a while, designing a room which later became "Jump'n'Jive". And then I started working on another room, and then another, until I realised I wasn't getting enough sleep and I was definitely neglecting my family... And then I knew I wanted to finish and release my first JSW game, which I did in November 2004, when the world was stunned with the launch of the original edition of "Willy's New Mansion" 🙂 . In the years since, the Christmas period has sometimes been a time of intense work for me in order to finish some projects and have them ready for release before the end of the year. That was the case back in 2005 (Sendy's and my "Jet Set Willy: Mind Control" was released on 30th December), in 2010 ("Jet Set Willy: The 2010 Megamix" was released on 29th December) and 2016 ("Willy Games: The First 30 Years Quiz" was released on 30th December). And finally, when I think of JSW and Christmas, this room from Steve Worek's "Jet Set Emily: Baby on the Go" invariably comes to my mind:

Thank you for your reply. It sounds like a very interesting and creative project, and something I don't believe have ever been done before. There is something about destruction that fires up one's imagination and makes "Skylab Landing Bay" a charmingly attractive room. I once created the room "Skylab Recuperation Bay" (for Sendy's and mine game "Jet Set Willy: Mind Control"), which you can see here starting at 1:13:17 - it was inspired by the fascination with the destruction theme. I don't have any good ideas for the other rooms for you right now, but if something comes to my mind, I will certainly share it 🙂 .

IIRC, Craig Rothwell's game runs in DOS. I believe it won't run on a newer system unless you use a DOS emulator like DosBox. I was able to run it successfully on a modern PC a couple of years ago and I believe I used DosBox then. Give it a try, it's free 😉 .

Hi Steve, Thanks for sharing info about your project. Are you creating a ZX Spectrum game or one for another platform?

Updates on the JSW Central YouTube channel since the last video I mentioned in this thread: "Miles Mad Mission" "Willy the Hacker" "ZX81 Manic Miner" "Utility Cubicles" "Jet Set Willy X" "STRANGEL" "Jet Set Willy: The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!" "Jet Set Willy: The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!! Special Edition" The videos of "STRANGEL" and "Jet Set Willy X" and were made from RZX walkthroughs I recorded a long time ago, in September 2008 and May 2013, respectively. The videos of "Miles Mad Mission", "Willy the Hacker" and "ZX81 Manic Miner" were made from RZX recordings I made recently, as I had not played these games to completion before. I managed to complete "Miles Mad Mission" at 8:25 am, "Willy the Hacker" at 9973769 (please see this thread for more info), and "ZX81 Manic Miner" with 21,911 points upon the first re-entry into the first cavern, all of these results being significant improvements over other publicly available completions of these games. For the other three videos, I replayed and re-recorded them in order to improve my own earlier performances. I brought down my completion time of "Utility Cubicles" from 8:40 am to 8:31 am, of "Jet Set Willy: The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!" from 8:16 am to 8:13 am, and of the Special Edition of "Jet Set Willy: The DrUnKeN mAsTeR!!!" from 8:33 am to 8:25 am. All of the newly-recorded RZX files can be downloaded from the games' respective JSW Central pages.

Yeah, I somehow felt it was very natural that it was *our* Willy. Willy the Builder (an idea for a future game title 😉 ).

Apparently Willy has a new business, related to concrete. He may have moved to America, too, unless what I have witnessed is a branch of his British company (there are branches in the background, in fact - perhaps they're a hint 🙂). These pictures were taken in Washington, DC, earlier this month. Not the greatest quality, but I took them through from the car, stopping where I shouldn't have. However, I just couldn't let this go undocumented 😁.

I like "The Endorian Forest" a lot, although I haven't associated it with Christmas until now, at least not consciously.

Thank you so much for all the information, it does indeed make some things much clearer! 🙂 . It's great that you've managed to actually create a game of your dreams! 👍 That's what it's all about here - doing stuff we like and fulfilling our dreams in a way, and, hopefully, at the same time providing fun and nice experiences for the others 🙂 . As I said, my MM/JSW priorities call me elsewhere at this moment, but I will keep "Manic Mission" on a list of things to come back to one day. Who knows, perhaps I'll even practice the puzzle part 'secretly' to become good at it and able to produce a nice recording of the game being solved some day 😉 .