jetsetdanny

I've just added complete screenshot galleries to the pages of "Jet-Set Willy Ivy" and "Mr Top Hat". I've also added some supplemental information/corrections on these pages. 1. In case of Jet-Set Willy Ivy I realised the number of rooms accessible without cheating I was indicating previously (64) was wrong, as obviously the room "Was It Worth It?" (08), with a big word CHEAT written on the screen, can only be accessed by using the Writetyper cheat or POKing the game. I also corrected the number of rooms which need to be visited to complete the game. I described it as "not more than 63" with the following comment: ("Was It Worth It?" [08] should be omitted, as it cannot be accessed without cheating and has no items. Omitting "The Waxworks" [25] might perhaps be possible, at the expense of extending the route unnecessarily.) I could not force myself to try to complete the game without visiting "The Waxworks" (and I won't force myself to do it any time soon). However, if someone took up this kind of challenge and confirmed that "The Waxworks" can indeed be omitted, I would be happy to correct the information on JSW Central once more, to introduce certainty instead of probability. 2. In case of Mr Top Hat, I did spend some time trying to verify whether the rooms "The late Mr. Springs" [59] and "The lost Sundays - 1/7th of life" [60] are actually accessible by using the Writetyper cheat. I managed to activate Writetyper in-game (i.e. without POKing the game), after some 20 attempts or more, in the lower left-hand corner of "The original?" [28], and teleport to room 00 from there. I did not actually reach either "The late Mr. Springs" or "The lost Sundays - 1/7th of life", but I think that theoretically it should be possible to do. However, I don't know if it is possible to enter the long Writetyper codes for these rooms [654219 and 65439, respectively] on emulated keyboards (it's not possible in Spectaculator, as far as I can tell), and I don't have any way of checking it on the real hardware right now or in the foreseeable future. Hence, in the picture gallery I included these rooms as ones which can "probably be accessed by using the Writetyper cheat". If anyone should be able to verify this, I would be happy to correct the information on JSW Central. If you see any errors or dubious information on JSW Central, please let me know and I will be happy to look into it and correct everything as necessary. The same goes for language issues, typos, etc. - please let me know about anything that might need to be changed 🙂 .

Thank you so much, Norman Sword! 👍 Later today (in a few hours, probably) I will playtest all of the LiganTM's (modified) caverns to confirm that they are completable in V6c5.

OK, I confirm that Room 26 is passable now 🙂. However, I believe room 28 ("United Kongdom Customs") isn't, because the conveyor there is a left conveyor (contrary to the original LiganTM's room, where the conveyor is a right conveyor), which makes it impossible to cross from the left to the right part of the room. I have also tried playing the other remaining rooms (moving between those I couldn't complete using the 3-2 cheat) , with the following results where I encountered problems: Room 29 "Germanopharmacy" - it is impassable as well AFAICT. This is again because the conveyor is a left conveyor (instead of right) and there is no way Willy can negotiate it to proceed rightwards when he drops on it vertically from above. Room 31 "Finding the Perfect Insurance" - I don't think it's possible to collect the item in the lower right-hand corner. Whether you jump for it from the side or whether you walk and drop upon it, you get killed by the Fire cell below it. There seems to be a crumbling floor there, but it disappears as soon as the item has been collected, or so it seems at least. There seems to be no way to avoid getting killed by the Fire cell below the item. Room 32 "The Pronce's Palace" - I have been able to complete the room without throwing any switches. I have also been able to bring down Kong, but if you do that, I don't think you can complete the game. It's because I don't see any way of escaping from this platform after tripping the switch located above it: So if this room is to be "Kongable", I think this should be corrected somehow. The rightmost switch does not seem to have any effect or even to move when touched. Just an observation. Room 34 "Mandatory Space-onaut Training" - I don't see how you can collect the uppermost item without losing a life. Jumping for it from either direction leads to falling down so far that you get killed. Room 36 "I forgot the name of this Cavern" - I don't see how you can collect the item in the upper right-hand corner without losing a life. You cannot jump onto the crumbling platform that's below it. So you can only jump for it rightwards from below, but that leads to losing a life. Room 37 "Iron Filings Recycler" - the conveyor problem again. The conveyor goes leftwards, while in LiganTM's room it goes rightwards. Consequently, I believe it's impossible to access the platforms that would enable the player to collect the item above the letter "l" in "Recycler" and get to the portal. These are all the problems that I have discovered. I was able to complete the rooms I didn't mention without any issues. Looking forward to v6c5 🙂 .

Thanks, Norman Sword! I'll have a look at it a little later today and confirm that all is good.

Norman Sword, Thank you for V6c3 👍. It's cool that you have applied a switch! I have just tried to complete Room 26 and I believe it is still impossible to complete. I confirm that all of the "old" items can be collected and the switch can be flipped. However, once that is done, Willy cannot get back to the part of the room which I circled in red below: (there's no way to jump there) and hence he cannot collect the last item. Extending this platform by one block where marked in red: would solve the problem, I believe. Time is not an issue (when playing with Rollback) as you can see from the screenshots above. I am looking forward to V6c4 🙂 .

I've just added complete screenshot galleries to the pages of "Jet-Set Willy (again)" and "Escape of the Snails".

Unfortunately, I believe V6C2 is still not completable. This is because "The Cloning Facility" cannot be completed as far as I can tell. This is because in order to collect the item I circled below: at some point Willy HAS TO be in-between the yellow and magenta guardians: Once there, he cannot escape, because it is impossible to get out from in-between these guardians. Consequently, all the items can be collected in this room, but the room cannot be completed, because you cannot reach the portal. With this in view, a "vicious" way of making this room completable would be by adding a switch that would do something after the last item has been collected, such as remove the Water cell circled below: so that Willy can then outmanoeuvre the magenta guardian and get to the portal. Alternatively, this Water cell could be removed from the start if implementing a switch were not feasible (for lack of memory space or whatever reason). If a switch was possible to apply, an even better solution would be to make it remove (once it's triggered) the Fire cell which sits on the conveyor. Thus Willy would be able to escape from in-between the yellow and magenta guardians, but he would have to make another detour around the lower part of the room. However, I wouldn't recommend removing this Fire cell altogether (i.e. without a switch), as that would make the room easier to complete and less interesting. Furthermore, in LiganTM's original game this room is completable, because the problematic item is not there. So this item: can be collected as the last one, omitting the magenta guardian while being on its right-hand side. So in LiganTM's original room you never get in-between the yellow and magenta guardians, from where you couldn't escape, either. So an alternative solution for "Manic 40 Miner", without using a switch, would be to remove the problematic item or move it someplace else where it would be collectable. Norman Sword, I hope you will release another revision of the game and I am looking forward to it 🙂 .

Count me in for playtesting when it comes to it! 🙂

Andy (Spider), thank you for the link, it's very interesting. I wasn't aware of the difference between copyright and trademark. Pixel Stonk, do let us know once you have more information about the current legal situation of JSW - it's always good to know. And good luck with your project - it's really impressive and it will be great if you manage to complete it successfully! 🙂 P.S. I have one maths problem with the info you've given: In the ad, it says that the game includes "all classic rooms from the original games" "plus over 200 never seen before". In your post, you say that the game contains "nearly 500 rooms". The "classic rooms from the original games" would be 134 rooms from "Jet Set Willy II" (that also include the 60 rooms from the original "JSW") plus possibly 20 rooms from "Manic Miner" (if they are included). So the addition of "over 200" rooms never seen before brings the total number up to some 350. That's still a long way from the nearly 500 you've mentioned. Any comment on this?

Welcome to the forum, Pixel Stonk 🙂 Your project looks VERY impressive, it's great stuff really! 👍 I don't quite understand why you want to make it an "official" sequel to JSW and JSW II. Such an ambition makes you an obvious target for those who claim to be (or indeed are) the current owners of the copyright. From this point of view it would be much easier to release the game as a free, non-profit offering and abstain from any claims of anything "official". Still, if you do want to make it official, I wish you the best of luck in negotiating with the current copyright owners. I can't tell you anything with any degree of certainty, but when I last investigated this issue a little bit more than two years ago, I came to the conclusion that the current copyright owner for both Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner is: Andrews UK Limited Suite 112, Crystal House, New Bedford Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1 1HS, United Kingdom The details for JSW are here and for MM here. Look at all the tabs there. The copyright clearly refers to retro computer games. Interestingly, in the graphic, Willy's hat is different, it looks more like from "Willy's New Hat" than from the original. Interestingly, this is a different copyright owner than the one that CPL has indicated. So perhaps that's the beginning of a legal dilemma for you... In any case, I don't believe Matthew Smith owns the copyright (or any part thereof) any more, from a strictly legal point of view. Nevertheless, if you want to contact him, try contacting Paul Drury of Retro Gamer fame (pauldrury64 at hotmail.com) - I have reasons to believe he may be in touch with Matthew, at least from time to time.

Thanks, Norman Sword and Spider. I will try to complete V6C2 and will report about its completability (or lack thereof) shortly. I will work with this version as the final one for JSW Central if it's completable 🙂 .

Thanks for the new versions, Norman Sword! 👍 I believe it is always good if there is one final version of a game (unless there are parallel final versions, like Easy and Hard one). It wouldn't be advisable, IMHO, to have two versions that are "equally final" while differing in just a tiny detail. Therefore, I will consider the last version according to its number, i.e. V6c2, to be final and I will work with it in the context of JSW Central (RZX walkthrough, screenshot gallery, etc.). Please let me know if you should have something against it.

I have played "Manic 40 Miner" up to "The Pyramid Entrance", i.e. the first of (modifed, at least this one is) LiganTM's rooms. I believe this room is impossible to pass, because I don't see a way of collecting the rightmost item (the one that's above a platform that's above the portal). I can get onto the platform below the item, but this platform, apart from being a crumbly cell, is also a right conveyor (quite a technical feature - a crumbly conveyor!). There is a Fire cell directly above the item. Therefore, I can't see any way of jumping for it safely, since you can only jump for it straight up or rightwards, and both these jumps result in Willy being killed against the Fire cell after collecting the item. Norman Sword - or anyone else who might know for certain - please let me know if there is some trick here that I've missed, or whether the room is indeed impassable. If it is the latter, a bugfixed version (6d?) would be greatly appreciated.

I've just added a complete screenshot gallery to the page of "Dr. Jet Set Willy".

Thank you for your reply, Norman Sword - I appreciate it! 🙂

A question to Norman Sword: You have said here, regarding "Manic 40 Miner": "Last version I have assembled is version 6c. No immediate plans to update." Could you please confirm this? The reason I am asking for confirmation is that I want to start "processing" "Manic 40 Miner" in order to create its individual page on JSW Central (so, play it to completion, record a good RZX walkthrough, take screenshots of every room, etc.) and I would not want to do this work in vain if another update is in the pipeline. Furthermore, version 6c which earlier could be downloaded from this post is not there any more. I don't know if you removed it on purpose or it got accidentally deleted. I do have it, as I had downloaded it before it disappeared. However, its current absence makes me wonder if something is going on... Please let us know 🙂

I've just added a complete screenshot gallery to the page of "Spaceman Willy".

I've just added a complete screenshot gallery to the page of "Willy's New Hat".

You are welcome 🙂 . Today I've added a complete screenshot gallery to the page of "Jet-Set Willy in Space". So both pages dedicated to Richard Hallas's games are now complete 🙂 .

JSW Central has just been updated. It was the first update since May, but I do plan to make the updates (small ones) more regular now. The pages of "Jet Set Willy III", "Join the Jet-Set!", "Spaceman Willy", "Willy's New Hat", "Jet-Set Willy in Space" and "Willy does the Great Pyramid!" were modified to include embedded videos from the JSW Central YouTube channel. Furthermore, the spelling of the title of Richard Hallas's first JSW game was changed from "Join The Jet-Set!" to "Join the Jet-Set!" everywhere. This is because I know he prefers this spelling (I do, too), and it appears in this form on the title screen, so it's fully justified. Now that I think about it, I don't know why I used to spell this title capitalising the article. The capitalisation must have been "inherited" from Andrew Broad's list of MM and JSW games, but I'm not sure why he opted for it, since the text file I've got (with a March 1997 time-stamp, so an old one) also has the article spelled with a lower-case "t", and this is also the spelling on Richard's website.

JSW Central YouTube channel has just been updated with six new videos. These are the walkthroughs of: "Jet Set Willy III" "Join the Jet-Set!" "Spaceman Willy" "Willy's New Hat" "Jet-Set Willy in Space" "Willy does the Great Pyramid!" The videos are brand-new, while most of the walkthroughs - with the exception of "Willy does the Great Pyramid!", naturally - are quite old, going back to 2006 in most cases. I watched them to see if they should be improved, but didn't see enough room for improvement to make me re-record them again. Enjoy? 😜

I had some news from him in a PM some time ago that he was into a new hobby (whose nature I will not reveal - perhaps he will once he reappears 😄). So my suspicion would be that it may have got him hooked to the point of not visiting here. Or perhaps it's the holiday season. Or both? Keeping my fingers crossed for his prompt return... 🤗

Thanks for this detail, JianYang! Indeed it doesn't affect my dilemma either way, but it's good that it's mentioned for the record 👍.

Norman Sword, Thank you for your response. I will create an individual web page for "Manic 40 Miner" in the near future, when time permits, after I have completed another update of JSW Central I am currently working on. I have another question: would you say "Manic 40 Miner" fits more in the "Versions and minor mods of the original Manic Miner" section or in the "MM and JSW games using other game engines" section? On second thoughts, contrary to what I said before, I think it belongs in the latter one, as I imagine the code is thoroughly rewritten. I would appreciate your opinion on this. "Jet Set Willy in Altered Reality" and "Manic Panic" are listed in the "Other game engines" section. I have no doubt this is correct. However, your "Manic Miner" version where you can swap between the Bug-Byte and Software Projects variants of the game is listed in the "Versions and minor mods of the original Manic Miner" section. It did give me some headache, because, on the one hand, it plays just like the original variants of MM, it does not aspire to be a new game as such, it only shows your technical mastery in combining both variants in one file and adding some extra elements. On the other hand, you said yourself that its game engine is "a source code rewrite from the first byte to the last", so from that point of view it should definitely be in the "Other game engines" section. If yo have any strong views on this, please let me know - if necessary, I can move your "Manic Miner" version to the "Other games engines" section easily.

Intrigued by your comments, MtM, I fast forwarded DigitalDuck's walkthrough of "Jet Set Willy II+" to the end and saw what happened. I have no reason to think that DigitalDuck's walkthrough used any other version than the Ve22 rv1 that Andy mentioned. He got the "lovely" "Well Done" screen after killing Willy in the Central Cavern (after entering it for a second time, with 330 items collected). I also re-entered the Central Cavern in my walkthrough, but I didn't try to kill myself (=Willy), so didn't get the "Well Done" screen. I didn't know you had to kill Willy to get this final message. I am pretty sure I can still do it - I'll have to dig up my RZX walkthrough where I can roll back to just before the end and try it. I'll do it when time permits and report back.