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jetsetdanny

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  1. Ian, thanks for your kind words and your comments. Here are the answers to your queries: 1. I only mentioned number six in the quotation from Andrew's list of games. He mentioned six variations of JSW participating in an art competition in New York back in 2004. In fact, if you have a look at JODI's website, they are hosting six variations there right now (jsw011, jsw012, jsw013, COPYCARD, SPRITES and STORY). Perhaps they always work with six of them at any given time. What I did was to search for all the versions that ever appeared online that I was able to find. I ended up with 8 distinctive variations, but most of them also had various versions, with timestamps on the files ranging from 2003 to 2016. I did not want to go into such detail in my introductory message, but since you've asked (kind of), below is the list of all JODI files you can currently download from JSW Central. The list includes my bugfixes (so you can see at a glance which ones I deemed necessary to fix) and also the previous names under which some of the variations first appeared. COPYCARD (2003 version, aka L1).sna COPYCARD (2004 version).sna COPYCARD (2010 version).sna COPYCARD (2010 version).tap COPYCARD (2010 version).wav jsw011 (2003 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw011 (2003 edition, original).sna jsw011 (2004 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw011 (2004 edition, original).sna jsw011 (2010 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw011 (2010 edition, original).sna jsw011 (2016 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw011 (2016 edition, original).sna jsw011 (2016 edition, original).tap jsw011 (2016 edition, original).wav jsw012 (2003 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw012 (2003 edition, original).sna jsw012 (2004 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw012 (2004 edition, original).sna jsw012 (2016 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw012 (2016 edition, original).sna jsw012 (2016 edition, original).tap jsw012 (2016 edition, original).wav jsw013 (2003 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw013 (2003 edition, original).sna jsw013 (2010 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw013 (2010 edition, original).sna jsw013 (2016 edition, bugfixed).sna jsw013 (2016 edition, original).sna jsw013 (2016 edition, original).tap jsw013 (2016 edition, original).wav KEYWORDS (bugfix).sna KEYWORDS (original).sna SPRITES (2004 version, aka GRAPHICS).sna SPRITES (2016 version).sna SPRITES (2016 version).tap SPRITES (2016 version).wav STORY (2010 version).sna STORY (2016 version).sna STORY (2016 version).tap STORY (2016 version).wav STORY (April 2003 version).sna STORY (March 2003 version).sna SURBITON.sna To make this simpler, I have found the following variations: COPYCARD - 3 versions (2003, 2004 and 2010) jsw011 - 4 versions (2003, 2004, 2010 and 2016) However, since the only difference between the 2010 and 2016 SNA files is at the address #CAA0, which defines the attributes of Air in room 10 - unnamed as they all are - corresponding to "The Front Door" in the original JSW (Air is BRIGHT cyan in the 2010 file and BRIGHT blue in the 2016 file), in my analysis I discuss these two versions together as the 2010/2016 version. jsw012 - 3 versions (2003, 2004 and 2016) jsw013 - 3 versions (2003, 2010 and 2016) KEYWORDS - 1 version (2004) SPRITES - 2 versions (2004 and 2016) STORY - 4 versions (March 2003, April 2003, 2010 and 2016) SURBITON - 1 version (2003) So, some 21 different versions altogether between the 8 distinctive variations. 2. There are 8 links on JSW Central to its "main" page devoted to JODI. They are placed on top of each individual game page, which starts by saying that "... is one of JODI's artistic Jet Set Willy Variations." I did consider adding JODI to the "Authors about their games page", but came to the same conclusion you did, that it didn't quite belong there. I am not quite happy with it not being linked from there, but I don't think it should be, and I don't plan to create a new category like "About some authors" in the foreseeable future. I think that with the links on top of the individual games pages it should be easy enough to reach "JODI's main page" on JSW Central for those who wish to find more info about them.
  2. I am pleased to announce that a thorough analysis of JODI’s Jet Set Willy Variations has been added to JSW Central. Please read on for the links. I felt it was something that was long overdue. The only info about these mods I had came from Andrew Broad's old list of MM/JSW games, where it says, "JODI (Joan Heemskirk and Dirk Paesmans) entered six weird variations of the original JSW in an art-exhibition called Seeing Double: Emulation in Theory and Practice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, 19th March - 16th May 2004). See also their website, which has a different set of SNA files from those hosted here!" So back in October or November 2019 I started serious research on this subject. It turned out to be a huge, daunting task, for reasons I will describe below. I continued to work on it on and off, increasingly feeling that I had to complete this task and update JSW Central before I could proceed with any other substantial updates. My work on this project involved searching the web for information about JODI and their artistic work, searching the web for other versions of JSW Variations than the ones mentioned by Andrew (I found some 20 different game files in total, with time stamps ranging from 2003 to 2016), comparing them (down to code comparison in SPECSAISIE) to see how they differ, and playing them to completion or as near completion as possible. When I determined that some files were not completable, even though it looked like they should be (it was just an error or two that prevented them from being completable, not a conscious design), I came up with their bugfixed versions. Then it was recording RZX walkthroughs, taking screenshots of every room (over 800 in total), creating individual web pages for them on JSW Central, updating the main list of games with a new category, etc. All in all, a lot of work, but I am glad I have finally been able to make it public 🙂. The main page on JSW Central devoted to JODI's JSW Variations is here. It presents some quotes from various online sources that I think explain well what it's all about, an overview of the game files I have found and links to their individual pages. There are five JSW Variations by JODI which I classified in a new subsection I added to "II. Jet Set Willy (JSW48)" - the list of Games using Matthew Smith's original Jet Set Willy game engine for the 48K Spectrum and its modifications. The new subsection is called "C. Artistic modifications of the original Jet Set Willy" and currently includes the following game files by JODI: COPYCARD This variation is based on the copy-protection card: a red, blue, green and magenta grid that shipped with every copy of the original game. The pattern provided access codes that were necessary to launch the game (the colours are mapped into numbers that can be entered on the keyboard). STORY This variation lets the protagonist wander around the text, spelled in all capital letters and without punctuation marks, of the first part of the instructions from the original JSW: ""Miner Willy, intrepid explorer and nouveau-riche socialite, has been reaping the benefits of his fortunate discovery in Surbiton. He has a yacht, a cliff-top mansion, (...)". SURBITON In this particular variation the protagonist, a BRIGHT white square, moves across screens which are either one colour (BRIGHT green or BRIGHT blue) or two colours (divided in half horizontally or vertically, BRIGHT blue and green). No other colours are present in the game, apart from some entirely black Fire cells. There are no guardians in the game. SPRITES This variation lets the protagonist wander around blown-up sprites of guardians from the original JSW. The whole game is in black and white; there are no other colours. KEYWORDS This variation offers maze-like screens across which the protagonist moves as an evolving black square (at times just becoming a black dot or a couple of joint dots). There are no guardians in the game. I decided to place these games in a separate subsection because of their characteristics. None of them is either toilet-, Maria- or bed-completable by design. STORY and (a bugfixed version of) KEYWORDS are item-completable. So is SPRITES, but it only has one item. In the case of COPYCARD (a true horror to move around!) and SURBITON only part of the items can be collected; some are unreachable (that's my conclusion, at least - please correct me if I'm wrong!). Moreover, in the latter game file all items are amassed in one room. All in all, a strong characteristic of these games is that they are evidently not meant to be played with the aim of completing them. I believe they should be enjoyed as works of art, pieces of artistic expression which you can admire while roaming around the screens, but not really complete by triggering a toilet run or anything like that. Still, I did look at them as if they were "normal" games and did my best to determine the degree of their completability. I also added three of JODI's JSW Variations to the list of "Versions and minor mods of the original Jet Set Willy", as, in my opinion, they belong there according to their characteristics. They are fully playable (and toilet-completable after ironing out some bugs), they preserve the layout of the original JSW (with some very minor changes) and their editing involved mainly changes to cell patterns and colours. These three variations are: jsw011 It shows all of the elements of the game as squares of colour attributes. jsw012 It shows all of the elements of the game as squares in black and white. jsw013 It shows all of the cells in the game as letters symbolising their type (A for Air, E for Earth, W for Water, etc.). You can refer to the individual games' pages linked above to read more detailed info about them, have a look at the screenshots and download both JODI's original files and my bugfixes of some of them. You can also download a ZIP file with my RZX recordings of the various versions of these games from RZX Archive. Some websites mention that 10 or approximately 10 JSW Variations have been created by JODI. I have been able to find 8 (that's without counting the different versions of each variation, e.g. I've found three different versions of jsw011, four different versions of STORY, etc. - they are all analysed in detail). Please let me know if you know of/have any other versions than the ones discussed on JSW Central. Please also let me know if you find any errors or discrepancies in my descriptions of them or have any other comments regarding info about JODI's JSW Variations on JSW Central. 🙂
  3. Thanks for digging this up, Norman Sword! 👍
  4. IIRC, the guy in "American Psycho" says it very matter-of-factly, but it's the absurdity of it being said so matter-of-factly in certain situations is what makes it so great. For example, he has a dramatic confrontation with his girlfriend where they break up, or something like that, and then suddenly he gets up and is about to leave. She asks him, tearfully, "Where are you going?", and he replies, "I need to return some video tapes" and leaves. I'm quoting it from memory, I only saw that movie once and it was probably 20 years ago (!), but I remember it as a brilliant satire of modern consumer society and various aberrations related to it 👍.
  5. And another question: Am I right in thinking that "I'll get me coat" is somewhat similar to the classic line "I need to return some video tapes" from the movie "American Psycho" (2000)? The protagonist uses it as an excuse to get out of awkward social situations and, as someone commented here, "It's one of many clever things in the film that makes it such a subtle masterpiece".
  6. Thanks, Ian, the reference was indeed lost on me. What's a Brummie accent? 😧
  7. That's a broad understanding of the term "vice president" (pun intended) 😁
  8. And why do people - at least in the U.S. - drive on parkways and park on driveways? 🤪
  9. Or "Tricenarian Nights" 😀
  10. RuffledBricks, since this is the first time I am addressing you, (a much belated) welcome to the forum! 🙂 Thank you for your excellent contributions. I will refer to them more in detail when time permits, which may be between a week and two-three weeks from now. The list of the room codes for Writetyper in JSW128 you are asking for has indeed been compiled and is available on The Tipshop: https://www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/info.pl?name=Jet Set Willy 128K I hope that helps 🙂.
  11. "Vicenarian Nights" would make a nice room title in a new JSW game 🤪.
  12. jetsetdanny

    Technician Ted

    Happy New Year all! 🙂 Thanks for the info about the Radetzky March, MtM! Do you know that it has also become one of the popular in-game tunes in JSW games? It was coded as a JSW48 in-game tune by Richard Hallas and first used by Philip Bee in his 1998 game "Jet-Set Willy Ivy". Years later, Richard Hallas's original version was used as one of the four in-game tunes in "Jet Set Willy: The Nightmare Edition" (2016). That same year (2016) it was used as one of the four in-game tunes in the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion". In 2017, the introduction to the Radetzky March was used as the title screen tune in "Jet Set Mini", while its main part was used as the in-game tune. The in-game tune was re-encoded by Richard Hallas especially for this project, in an extended shape - a standard JSW48 in-game tune comprises 64 notes, but in "Jet Set Mini" this was extended to 256 notes thanks to changes to the game engine introduced by Ian Rushforth. Furthermore, in the 2018 Special Edition of "Jet Set Mini" the introduction to the Radetzky March, used as the title screen tune, was improved by being made more "dynamic". In 2020 (last year! 😉), Richard's original encoding of the Radetzky March was used as one of the seven in-game tunes in the 48K Edition of "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre". Due to all of the above, when I hear the Radetzky March, I actually think of JSW games rather than "Technician Ted". But that's probably because I haven't played "TT" - a game I did enjoy a lot in the past - for a long time... 🙂
  13. I haven't done anything about it in the recent days. I will come back to it next year - that's in the next few days, hopefully 🙂.
  14. A couple of snapshots taken in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, last night. When I saw that Santa, I could only think of one thing. I'm sure you'll easily guess what it was 🙂.
  15. Merry Christmas to all, and then a very happy New Year! ❄️ ⛄ 🌞
  16. JSWED's screen size is 800x600. This size was first introduced in version 2.3.0, released on 5th March 2006. Previously, up to version 2.2.9, the screen size was 640x480. If I understand this issue correctly, it is a fixed size and cannot be modified. Which - if 800x600 looks tiny on your 4K display - is an additional reason to use JSWED version 2.3.7 rather than 2.2.9. 640x480 would look even tinier on your screen...
  17. Yes, it is! Thanks for drawing our attention to it, I didn't realise there was such an ability.
  18. I will soon finish an update of JSW Central that I've worked on, off and on, for more than a year. It will be something that, to the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever done before... 🤪 So, watch this space in the coming days 😉
  19. The fact that you allow free download of your games is greatly appreciated, Norman Sword! 👍
  20. I couldn't understand what you meant, Andy, as the various versions of JSWED were discussed in several preceding posts, and version 2.3.7 has been around since 7th April 2015 (no idea how many downloads it has had, perhaps John Elliott would know). Then it dawned on me you were talking about "Manic Panic" 😁.
  21. Thanks, guys! 🙂 Do subscribe if you can - IIUC, once the number of subscribers goes over 100, I should be able to change the channel's address to a custom one ("youtube.com/user/jswcentral" would be the obvious choice), which would be nice. Thanks for the link to MM 3D! I've just created a new thread about it in the "Manic Miner" section.
  22. jetsetdanny

    Manic Miner 3D

    Thanks to MtM for bringing this to our attention: https://blakearts.artstation.com/projects/0nlgw5?album_id=2519164 I watched the playthrough and I really like it. The graphics are great, some of the guardians are really cool and feel very Manic-Minerish (like the seals), and I like the lifts-as-portals idea. Blake Robinson has done a great job on this project and I hope one day he will release the game, with all of the original MM levels 👍. EDIT: Edited a typo.
  23. Yeah, that's the reason for the 1125 points' score in that cavern - avoiding the Solar Beam almost entirely. There are a couple of occasions when it does sap the air, but I don't think this can be avoided. I tried some alternatives (like making a particular manoeuvre a little bit later on), but I think they would only lower the score. I don't think there is enough room to improve the final score to beat 39,500, unless there is still a different route somewhere which could improve the score for one of the rooms dramatically. 40,000 is impossible, I believe (and I would wager a moderate amount of money on it 😄).
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