jetsetdanny

Eighteen years ago to the day, Adban de Corcy (in real life: Fabián Álvarez López) released a beautiful Jet Set Willy game called “Madam Blavskja’s Carnival Macabre”. It was the third part of his “Gothic trilogy”, after "Willy's Afterlife" and "A Bulgarian Requiem". The story: This time Willy feels completely lost. He had managed to escape from his vampiric uncle, Jetza Setov Willovsky, and all apparently was going fine, when the car broke down. As far as he knew, he was somewhere right in the middle of Europe, and there was no gas station anywhere to be seen. So, he saw some lights, and when he arrived there, he discovered he was in a Carnival. And now, he can't find the exit, and he can't return to his mansion, because he cannot escape the Carnival Macabre! This lovely, atmospheric game uses a 128K Jet Set Willy game engine (known as JSW128). Ever since I first played it, I felt distressed and upset that the owners of 48K Spectrums and the users of emulators which only emulate 48K machines could not enjoy this fine adventure 😉. I also felt that it should be possible to fit the game into 48K, especially since it does not use any features that would be hard to reproduce in the JSW48 game engine, such as diagonal guardians. I undertook this challenge late last year and today I am very pleased to announce the upcoming release of “Madam Blavskja’s Carnival Macabre 48K” 😀 . It is Fabián’s game transferred to the classic 48K Jet Set Willy game engine (modified in various ways to fit in more code and data), with some enhancements. The player can choose to play either the original game, or a version with several additional rooms. There is also a custom-made title screen, an additional Game Completed screen and new music… The game will be released this month, perhaps next weekend if all goes well. Fabián has provided a real treat which will be included in the ZIP package: a description of the rooms (which was not included with the original edition of the game) and some current comments. I am very grateful to him for his support for this 48K Edition of his game! I would also like to thank Ian Rushforth for his valuable involvement in this project, including (but not limited to) the new title-screen tune and various technical, code-related contributions and support. So please watch this space in the near future! The release announcement will be here before this month is over…

Thanks for the update, Norman Sword! :thumbsup: I am looking forward to your uploading version 4.

Hello, I am trying to contact Adban de Corcy (Fabi

Good luck with your endeavours!

Thanks for the tip, Ian!

That

Congratulations! :)

Collecting it by dropping onto it is definitely faster than going for it from below.

I do. It's here. "Manic Miner: Matthew Smith 2008 Remix" is a version of the original "MM", not a new game, in my classification.

"Jet Set Willy 64" and "Jet Set Willy 64: Manic Miner" were never gamma-released by John Elliott as TAP files. The gamma releases were in the form of installers. In that sense, "Jet Set Willy 64: Manic Miner" did not originate from "Jet Set Willy 64" (it was a separate installer). Hence it's understandable that a glitch which is in one of these projects fortunately avoided the other project.

The value of #EB90 is #4B in three JSW128 games I checked, so they are fine :) . It is #00 in "Willy Games: The First 30 Years Quiz" which means that the game is affected by the bug. No worries, as mentioned above, I believe that using the cheat mode in this particular game wouldn't make any sense.

Thanks for all your comments and tips, Ian! :) I will continue the quest "when a convenient time presents itself" (to quote Geoff from another thread). No, not quite by chance. I modified the code to stop the game instead of increasing the value of the cheat mode indicator at #C400 by inserting the HALT instruction and I tried pressing various keys to see which one would stop the game. Then, when it looked like "s" was the culprit, I verified on an unmodified file that it indeed makes the cheat mode indicator at #C400 increase from 00 to 01. This is precisely the reason I mentioned before why I think this information should not be a secret any more - game developers should be able to test the cheat mode and all things associated with it in their creations. Fortunately, I have only designed one JSW64 game so far and it is Willy Games: The First 30 Years Quiz, where using a cheat mode would make exceptionally little sense :lol: . Does the missing graphic byte also affect the JSW128 games, though? If it does, it could affect "Jet Set Willy: The 2010 Megamix" and "Jet Set Willy: Mind Control"...

It's good that you are here now, Geoff, and I hope that the forum activity will be an inspiration for you to indulge in some more JSW-related creativity. :) My replies to some of your comments are in green below:

It is! :) "Manic Miner - Highscore Challenge" (also described here) is a nice variant of the original game where you can play only one level at a time and so see what your highest score in each cavern is. My personal high scores are as follows: 01 Central Cavern - 1721 02 The Cold Room - 1965 03 The Menagerie - 1891 04 Abandoned Uranium Workings - 1850 05 Eugene's Lair - 1715 06 Processing Plant - 1809 07 The Vat - 1825 08 Miner Willy meets the Kong Beast - 4046 09 Wacky Amoebatrons - 1343 10 The Endorian Forest - 1805 11 Attack of the Mutant Telephones - 1718 12 Return of the Alien Kong Beast - 4243 13 Ore Refinery - 1866 14 Skylab Landing Bay - 1768 15 The Bank - 1708 16 The Sixteenth Cavern - 1789 17 The Warehouse - 1909 18 Amoebatrons' Revenge - 1314 19 Solar Power Generator - 1080 20 The Final Barrier - 1775 Attached below is a ZIP with a set of my RZX recordings, documenting each of the above scores. I am attaching it here for your convenience; it is also hosted on RZX Archive as part of a set of my recordings of various versions of "Manic Miner." 'Manic_Miner'_Highscore_Challenge_-_D._Gromann.zip After this blatant self-promotion :o , I have to admit that some people have managed to achieve higher scores than I have in various caverns. The current list of the best scores for each cavern is on the previously mentioned home page of "Manic Miner - Highscore Challenge" - these are the highest-known scores you will ever find anywhere, I think. According to the information published there, Pgyuri has managed to score 1724 points in "Central Cavern" and Woody is in second place with 1722 points.

Yes, it definitely is possible. The data in question is at #C480 - #C49A and it is similar to the code in the original "JSW" (described by SkoolKid here). However, I think there is some difference in the earlier code which handles this data. WRITETYPER in the original "JSW" is coded in the following way: 1f 1f no keys pressed 1d 1f w 17 1f r 1f 1b i 0f 1f t 1b 1f e 0f 1f t 1f 0f y 1f 1e p 1b 1f e 17 1f r If the data in JSW128 corresponded to what happens in the original "JSW", the input would have to be (AFAICT): 1f 1f no keys pressed 1d 1f w 17 1f r 1f 1e p 1f 1b i 1f 1f no keys pressed 17 1f r 1f 1f no keys pressed 17 1f r 1f 1f no keys pressed 1f 1d o 1b 1f e 1f 17 u 1f 1f no keys pressed However, it doesn't work like this, I think. Pressing "s" changes the value of #C400 to 01, so I think is the first letter. But I can't figure out the following ones. Does your comment mean you've never cracked the cheat code activation yourself, Andrew, or did you just make a general comment as a hint as to how to proceed with cracking the code?

The JSW128 game engine, created by John Elliott as an extension of the original JSW48 game engine, has a special cheat mode. This is in addition to the Writetyper cheat, which also works. The Writetyper cheat is activated at the bottom of "First Landing" (028), just like in the original "JSW", by keying in the word "writetyper". A foot appears to the right of the last remaining life to show that Writytyper has been turned on. The cheat uses keys 1-8 (instead of 1-6 in the original "JSW") which need to be pressed together with 9 to teleport to another room. I am not aware of information about how to activate the other cheat mode and how it works ever being made public. I think it is high time it was, for the sake not only of the players, but also game creators who would like to check how it works in their games. I have been able to establish the following so far (using the information John gives on his website): The cheat mode indicator is at #C400. The value which turns it on is 9. So, POKE 50176,9 turns it on. A hash symbol then appears to the right of the last remaining life. If both Writetyper and the other cheat mode are activated, the Writetyper foot is next to the last remaining life, and the other cheat mode symbol is to its right. Both Writetyper and the other cheat mode stay on after the game is over. When you start another game, they are already activated - once on, they're always on. When the other cheat mode is activated, you can move to the room to the left by pressing "z", to the room to the right by pressing "v", to the room which is above your current room by pressing "c" and to the room which is below your current room by pressing "x". Judging by John Elliott's notes, the cheat mode also provides invincibility, antigravity and fast inter-room teleportation. It is also supposed to switch on the cheat-mode in-game tune. I have not been able to experience any of these effects so far. I also don't know how to turn on the other cheat mode in a normal way (without POKing the game). I know it has to be done at the bottom of room 046 ("Root" in the original Jet Set Willy 128) and it seems to me that the first letter you need to input is "s". However, I haven't been able to figure out the rest yet. I know some of you know the secrets of this cheat mode (John Elliott, of course, plus at least one other person I know of) - please share them here :).

Welcome, Geoff! :) It's great that you have joined this community! :D Thank you for wonderful contributions to the scene! They are greatly appreciated and have been a basis for further development of JSW games :thumbsup: . I am not sure how much you have been following the MM/JSW scene over the years, but - as Ian mentioned - your 'Patch Vector' concept has been used in various projects in the last four years, both in the form of your original PVs and numerous new ones. Your documentation describing your PVs has been instrumental in this development - thank you for it as well! :thumbsup: From my personal perspective, the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion" is a project I would like you to know about and have a look at, if possible. It features a number of your PVs applied in various rooms, plus a number of new PVs developed especially for it. Due credit is given to you amply in the Readme, where there are also disassemblies of all of the PVs used, both the ones you designed (their disassemblies were created thanks to your documentation) and of the new ones. I know you once had a look at the Original Edition of "Willy's New Mansion" back in November 2004 (you told me that in an e-mail) - if you ever have a go at "WNM" SE it will be a whole new experience! I wonder if you would recognise your own PVs there... :) Is it possible you will take up any JSW projects again? Shall we ever see the release of "Willy and the round tuits" or "Willy does the Great Pyramid"? ;)

I've tried opening the file that eighteentee sent me in Spectaculator and Spin (won't work), as well as in JSWED (sees mostly zeros in the Hex Editor apart from some code at the beginning, which doesn't look familiar) and in ZX-Blockeditor (won't open it, gives an error message). I've downloaded a program called Free File Viewer and opened it in it. It shows content, but I can't make any sense of it, I don't see anything that resembles code known from JSW :unsure: .

Thank you! :) I

My immediate suspicion would be that's it's a Z80 file but NOT of the Spectrum type, but I don't know enough about non-Spectrum files to know if there is such a thing. I would suggest trying to have a look at the file in another emulator (e.g. ZX Spin or Spectaculator), or JSWED (including the Hex Editor if it wouldn't load as a proper JSW game but would show meaningful code in the editor) or ZX-Blockeditor. In fact, I would be happy to try it myself if you wanted to share the file in a PM or e-mail message.

If the Z80 file is a separate file, why can't you copy and paste it or send somewhere?

Richard Hallas's classic "Join The Jet-Set!" has two rooms: a slightly redesigned "Entrance to Hades" (06) and "Hades" (07) (to the right of it, designed in a similar style). There's also "Below Hades" (50) and "A far cry from Hades" (30), both designed in different styles. So, come to think of it, "Hades" makes quite a significance presence in "Join The Jet-Set!" :o . The screenshots of all these rooms can be seen here.

John, going back to the decription of the Softricks game engine you present on your website (as mentioned above), the following questions arises: You say, "The major change, then, is that the guardian table doubles in length. The data that were in the range A400h-A7FFh (the object tables and a couple of sprite pages) have been relocated." The item (object) tables are relocated to #FE00 - #FFFF. It takes away two rooms, that's why in the Softricks mode in JSWED you cannot edit rooms 62 and 63. Do you know where the "couple of sprite pages" are relocated by the Softricks engine? Are they really relocated or are they simply lost (i.e. the player has fewer sprite pages to use than in a standard JSW48 game engine)? If it's the latter, a correction might be in order on your website. Thanks to Ian for drawing this issue to my attention.

Interesting, Andy! :) There must have been some kind of announcement from Software Projects. I suspect it may have been both about the winners of the competition and the POKES they had come up with at the same time. I don't know how they announced things back in those days. Today there would be info on their website and social media accounts, I am sure. Back then perhaps they wrote an announcement and sent it to various editorial offices of magazines related to computing, and the magazines published the content of the announcement, but in their own way, without citing it. It's an interesting question whether the original text of the announcement survives in some archive...

Thanks, Ian! It sounds very interesting. I will need to look at it again with a fresh mind to fully appreciate it :) . Please do so, by all means! Or perhaps it'll find its way into a collaborative project of ours one day :) .