jetsetdanny

Congratulations, Ian! :) ... but there's no attachment :o .

An interesting article about whether or not "internet" should be capitalised, and how the UK leads the trend to write it in lower case.

Thanks, Andy. I don't know if colour photocopiers were readily available on your side of the Iron Curtain back in the 80s (they weren't here, I think), but if they were, it would have solved the 'problem' of the 'extra thing' easily enough... for those who copied games illegally, of course.

Andy, how would you define "padlock protection" in case of Spectrum games? "Colour code protection" makes sense to me (because it kind of describes the way the protection works, or rather what it requires), but why "padlock"? There's a whole list of games featuring padlock protection on WoS, but certainly they didn't all have colour code sheets. So what do they have in common as far as copy protection goes?

This is post #9000! We have just reached another milestone :D. Congratulations to everyone involved! :)

It's an academic discussion, I guess :), but it highlights the difference between what I would call 'technical demos' and 'real games'. For me, a 'real' MM/JSW game is a product which is launched - thrown at the player, so to speak - with a task which is the same for all games of the kind, i.e. collect all items before the time runs out (if there is a time limit), without losing all lives (and without cheating). That's it. It doesn't matter how you collect an item or move from room to room. Only the final result matters. If someone told me: You need to collect the item in "The Nightmare Room" by passing through the uppermost row of platforms, I would reject that claim, because you can collect it without jumping on those particular platforms. I would see no reason why the way in which I am to collect an item should be imposed upon me. That's in a 'real' game. In a 'technical demo', which is meant to demonstrate some particular feature, or quirk, or innovation, I guess requiring the player to do things in a certain way is justified. Having said that, a perfect solution in any kind of game is that the design of the game should enforce the way things need to be done. If the author wants the player to do things in a certain way, he should enforce it by design, so the player cannot do things otherwise. If it is indeed enforced, it's the author's triumph, so to speak. If the player manages to find loopholes in the design and perform a certain task (collect an item, move from room to room) in a way 'better' than what the author intended (easier, faster, less troublesome in the sense of avoiding guardians, etc.), it's the player's triumph. In the history of MM games some Special Editions have been released to eliminate loopholes discovered by players. If someone told me: You should complete the original 'JSW' without using the shortcut from "Rescue Esmerelda" to "Ballroom East", I would object. Why should I not use this shortcut if it's there? I'm not cheating, I'm performing a legitimate action I've performed a hundred times in other rooms: I'm just leaving the room. If it takes me to a place which is very convenient for me as a player, it's not my problem, it's the designer's problem. He should have not allowed me to exit there, if his intention was that I shouldn't. So I guess a lot depends on the point of view and the intention. I approached the "Comprehensive Willy Movement Rewrite" files in a real-game way, i.e. it was like: here are some fine, new, quirky challenges, let's tackle them and see if I can complete these games. From this perspective, I didn't "miss" anything, I completed the task. Your expectation was, however, to approach them as 'technical demos', performing certain actions in a certain way. When I said, 'Solved!' at the beginning of my message, I meant it from the perspective of my approach. However, as you pointed out correctly, I didn't quite comply with the mission that you set. Whether I 'solved' the challenge or not and whether I 'missed' anything or not depends on the approach and the expectations. Having said all this, taking into account your expectations and the 'technical demo' character of the files, I will have a look at them again in the next few days to solve the "Before" one according to your suggestions :).

Not long ago (November 2017) there was a quiz on the Spectrum Computing Forum about how well people know 'JSW'. A dozen of cells from selected rooms were shown and the task was to identify which rooms they came from. The quiz, started by Rorthron, an administrator over there, was solved and is over now, but it shows there is still some detailed interest in 'JSW' among the general ZX Spectrum community. I wonder if anyone who is a member here took part in the quiz or, to look at it the other way round, if Rorthron and/or other participants are also members here. And one more thought: would it be proper to add another message in that thread over there to advertise this community? One can assume that people who participated in the quiz / read the related posts over there are interested in 'JSW' to some extent, and it is possible that some of them are aware of the existence of this community. What do you think?

I will consider it, but it's unlikely I'll do it, because it goes against my JSW philosophy, which is: It is important to collect an item without losing a life in any way which is possible; once it's collected, don't think about it again. A part of it is RZX-recording the way it is collected for future reference (if needed), but this is in order to be able to collect it *the same way* as before. For me the challenge in MM/JSW games is to collect an item safely (without cheating), not any particular way of collecting it. I feel that once I know how to collect an item safely, thinking about other ways of collecting it would not be an optimal use of my JSW-time :o . I would perceive considering alternative ways of collecting an item as justified only if I were trying to make an RZX recording showing a walkthrough as efficient as possible, and I would suspect that there may be a substantially quicker way of collecting an item than the one I've come up with so far. This is not the case here. No. I had it a passing thought about it and decided that it would be impossible :blink: .

I have come across a very interesting article, which discusses copy protection in Jet Set Willy in a truly academic manner. It is called Copy Protection in Jet Set Willy: developing methodology for retrogame archaeology and it was written by John Aycock from the Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada, and by Andrew Reinhard from Archaeogaming. You can read it here. It's amazing :).

Last night I did what I postulated above, i.e. I edited the Download page to make it reflect the current knowledge about these two variants. One little point now: the name of "The Banyan Tree" is the same in both variants. It is "Jack lametta alla riscossa", which is Italian. So it's an example of the 'original' Italian room name left untranslated in the Spanish version.

Solved! :D Thanks, Ian, it's a very nice set of quirky challenges for an early Saturday afternoon :). *Very* nicely designed! :) The RZX recordings are attached below, but they are of course spoilers. So I would encourage everyone interested not to download them before completing the games yourselves, it's a lot of fun! Before Rewrite solved.rzx After Rewrite solved.rzx

OK, here we go. Attached below are the eight files mentioned above, i.e. 2x TAP and 2xTZX versions of both files which are essentially unmodified original releases (apart from deleting unnecesary files from TZX tapes which contained many programs, and saving half of them as TAP instead of TZX) and bug-fixed releases made completable by applying the four official Software Projects POKEs. La casa.zip And here are the source files which were used to create them (using ZX-Blockeditor), downloaded from here (I don't know how to point to the sub-pages here, because the address in the browser always seems the same, no matter what sub-page I'm on): LNR_Zx_Ita_11.tzx LNR_Zx_Esp_n1_02.tzx I would kindly suggest that the 8 files attached above as ZIP be hosted here, as they are the original releases (extracted from the original TZX tapes) plus their bug-fixed versions (fixed only by using the official Software Projects POKEs, with no other changes). There are two interesting things I've noticed: 1. In all of these files, the addresses in the #A4.. range, describing item locations, are unchanged in relation to the original JSW. So in the bug-fixed files attached here the 'regular' value of #0B was applied at #A4C7 to transfer the First Landing item (contrary to what I discussed previously). I am mystified as to why the addresses are changed in the two 'less original' files I had worked with previously. 2. Choosing the option of playing with infinite lives (2) in the cheat menu does not really give you infinite lives, but a very interesting effect I haven't seen before, which could actually be a good idea as an option for some future project: your lives are renewed as you move to another room (or re-enter the same one). In other words, if you keep losing lives in one room, you don't see them disappear from the status bar (lower third of the screen), but after you've lost the 8th life in this room, it's Game Over. However, if you exit to another room, your lives are replenished (and you can lose 7 of them again, and then it's Game Over after losing the 8th life in the same room, unless you move to another screen). Interesting, isn't it? The bug-fixed files I uploaded previously and the file of 'La casa di Jack' copied from Darkman's compilation should be deleted from here (I'll try to do it after posting this). I am not sure what to suggest about Andy's TAP version of "La casa de Jack". On the one hand, it is certainly not the original release. On the other hand, Andy put some work into creating it, and it was perhaps the best available version at the time. So I'm not sure - perhaps it'll be best that he decides himself :).

OK, the last thing for tonight. I've managed to extract and convert "La casa de Jack" from the above DSK file to a TZX file using ZX-Blockeditor. Here it is: EDIT: The attachment has been deleted, as I'm going to update 'better' versions. Apparently, it doesn't have a loading screen (like the Italian version). The only difference with the .Z80 version is that it prints "PULSA ENTER PARA JUGAR" (i.e. PRESS ENTER TO PLAY) after the game has loaded and the game is only launched after you press a key. Tomorrow or during the weekend, when I have time, I will have another look at the files downloaded from the above website (I'lve also dowloaded the whole Italian LOAD 'N' RUN tape 11 with various programs, including "La casa di Jack") and prepare a set of extracted / converted if necessary files (2x TAP and 2xTZX) of what I think will be files as close to the original as possible. Plus the fixed versions (so 8 files in total: 2xTAP original + 2xTZX original + 2xTAP fixed + 2xTZX fixed), to offer them as the ultimate download option here instead of the currently hosted files (if Andy agrees) :).

Thanks, Ian :) Yes, my mistake. I'll upload the other file tomorrow (actually, it can be downloaded from here, as mentioned above). After some further research (it's all here, actually, only I didn't look closely enough before): - The Italian LOAD 'N' RUN tape 11 with "La casa di Jack" was released in December 1984. - The Spanish LOAD 'N' RUN tape 1_02 with "La casa de Jack" was released in March 1985. So it's just like I suspected: the Italian version is primary, the Spanish version is a variant of the Italian version. I believe this settles the whole issue and gives us a clear picture. Furthermore, the game was called "La casa de Jack" in the Spanish magazine (printed version). So I would advocate even more using this name for the Spanish version. I have downloaded the actual file of the Spanish LOAD 'N' RUN tape (to see if something more can be found there beyond what's in the .Z80 snapshot - like a custom loading screen), but it's in DSK format EDIT: I found it in TZX format, too. Spin opens it, but then nothing happens. Here it is: EDIT: Attachment has been deleted. It's re-uploaded below. Perhaps someone will be able to make it run and / or convert it to TAP file? EDIT: I've done it myself. Please see below. EDIT 2: It was useless work, because later on I found a TZX file I could use.

Ever since I first learnt about "La casa di Jack" being 'a Spanish version of "JSW"', I have been uncomfortable with it. I never understood why a Spanish version of the game should have an Italian title. It just didn't make sense. Now, having investigated the issue, I believe I have the answer. Or rather, I know the truth. The truth is (in my strong conviction) that "La casa di Jack" is an Italian version of "JSW", which also happens to have a Spanish version. I am sure the Italian variant was the primary one (hence the title in Italian), and the Spanish version is secondary, translated from Italian. What happened was that the secondary Spanish version has been known amongst the JSW community for ages (at least since this page went online, probably earlier), and the primary Italian version surfaced later. The info on Andrew Broad's List of MM & JSW games is therefore misleading, when it is first stated that: A Spanish variant of Jet Set Willy called La Casa de Jack is now available for downloading (thanks to Vidar Eriksen (Erix1) for making it available!). It was written by Juancho Mart La casa di Jack (bug-fixed).tap

Thanks, Andy! :)

Andy, Thanks for discussing this version and creating a TAP file from the existing .Z80 snapshot :). Some points on this subject: 1. In the original .Z80 snapshot, after starting the game, Willy keeps jumping up vertically and you can't play the game (it doesn't respond to the movement keys). After the game has been reset (and exits to the title screen), after going through the title screen and the micro cheat selection, you can play the game normally. I've seen this problem: Willy just jumping up vertically, without the player being able to control him, after launching the game, in several old JSW hacks. I wonder what the technical explanation of this problem is. 2. Andy, I would suggest changing the above wording a little bit. When you talk about 'renaming' Entrance to Hades, I thought you were referring to the room name, and I didn't know what you really meant (because all of the rooms are renamed in this version of the game) until I saw the screen in-game. I think that saying something along the lines that the author has taken the time and trouble to modify the "DIE MORTAL" message in Entrance to Hades to read "LA MORTE" (which, incidentally, is not Spanish, but Italian, similarly like the title itself; in Spanish it would be "LA MUERTE" and "LA CASA DE JACK", respectively). Not all of them. The values of the bytes which describe the item locations in the #A4... range are modified. They have the same "layout" as in the orignal, but their values are increased by (decimal) 64, so e.g. The value #B2 at #A4AD in the original JSW becomes #F2 at the same address in La Casa di Jack. The value #1C at #A4C7 in the original JSW becomes #5C at the same address in La Casa di Jack. So to apply the fix for the First Landing item you need to apply the value #4B instead of #0B at #A4C7. I have seen such a pattern of differences before, but I can't remember where exactly. I am unable to explain the reason for it right now, although I know the explanation is very simple... I have applied the fixes to the TAP file which you created and I would kindly suggest that it be added to the download options on the Download page, so that everyone interested has access to a completable version of the game. Here it is: Jet Set Willy (Juancho Martinez Cubero) aka La Casa Di Jack) bug-fixed.tap Incidentally, there is a typo in the name of the two files offered for download at this moment. This author's first surname is Martinez, not Martizen. I have played the attached file to completion and I testify it can be completed with just one loss of life (in Conservatory Roof, just like all JSW variants where the Official Software POKEs have been applied, but Conservatory Roof has not been fixed otherwise). In fact, I have recorded an RZX walkthrough of it (with a completion time of 8.00 am), which I will make public very soon, in a few days' time, along with some other stuff :).

Thanks a lot, Ian, this optimisation may come in very handy when one needs some spare bytes! :)

Thanks, Andy. Some great stuff there :).

Brilliant! :)

Congratulations again, Ian! :)

Thanks, Ian! :)

Thanks, Ian, it's very helpful! Would it work the same with authors' names, e.g. Jet Set Willy - Elon Musk's version or (equally correct) Jet Set Willy - The Elon Musk version ?

R. D. Foord Software's version of "JSW" or R. D. Foord Software version of "JSW"? "R. D. Foord Software" is the name of the publisher here. So this is equivalent to: Software Projects' version of "MM" / Bug-Byte's version of "MM" or Software Projects version of "MM" / Bug-Byte version of "MM" Which is correct (or better, if both options are correct)?

Interesting stuff, Ian! Congratulations on this novelty :).