"Versions of the original MM and JSW" versus "new games"

[jetsetdanny]

I would like to share some comments on the subject of "versions" of the original MM and JSW versus "new games". I wanted to start it some time ago, but didn't have enough time to do it. 

I will start by copying (with edits) something I wrote as comments to Njenkin's review of "Jet Set Willy: Wet Sunday Afternoon Graphical Remix". I hope it's OK to copy and paste here from there - these are my own comments and it will also be useful for me to have them here for future reference.

On JSW Central I strive to keep an updated list of "Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy games", which I define as games using Manic Miner (MM) and Jet Set Willy (JSW) game engines, both original and modified. I make a clear distinction (it's an arbitrary, but I think easily defendable  one should someone question it) between "new games" created using these game engines on one side, and "versions and minor mods of the original MM" and "versions and minor mods of the original JSW" on the other.

 

Among the "new games", currently there are 50 games listed in the "JSW48" category (using the 48K original game engine of JSW, also in various modified shapes). Additionally, among the 48K games there are 6 games which I've classified not as "new games" but as "Advanced modifications of the original JSW" and 5 games classified as "Artistic modifications of the original JSW" (these are all JODI's JSW Variations). Then there are two JSW II games, 18 JSW128 games (using a 128K modified game engine developed by John Elliott), and 24 JSW64 games (using another 128K modified game engine developed by John Elliott). This is not to mention games using the MM game engine (there are currently 20 of them), games for the ZX Spectrum which can definitely be considered "Willy games", but use still different game engines, and some mini games.

 

Most of the above (with the exception of the "Advanced modifications of the original JSW" subcategory) are listed as "new games", as opposed to "Versions and minor mods of the original Jet Set Willy" of which there are currently some 26 listed on a separate page.

 

I am emphasizing the distinction between what I consider "new games" and "versions of the original JSW" (the same goes for MM), because it is very important. On the "mainstream" websites, such as World of Spectrum or Spectrum Computing, this distinction is not made sufficiently clearly (in fact, not made at all!). They list the "mods" together, due to which some people say e.g. that there are "about 117 different versions of Jet Set Willy". However, this doesn't do justice to what various authors did, and doesn't describe the reality accurately at all.

 

The distinction is so important because we are talking about totally different things. Please consider these two extremes:

 

1. A "minor" version of JSW which has, for example, just 1 additional room (like the historic "April Showers" version) or a technical tweak (like "Jet Set Mono") - a change that is minimal, perhaps involving just a few bytes, but has some effect on the whole. These are indeed "versions" of the original "JSW" and I wouldn't object to them being called "versions". According to my classification, there are some 26 of them.

 

2. A new game. Let's take Herve Ast's "Willy on a Transatlantic Cruise" as an example. Dozens of games could be taken as examples, but I'll just describe this one, because I can't describe them all. This is truly a NEW game. It is NOT a version of JSW. It has 128 rooms, more than twice as many as the original JSW. All of them are new rooms - they are not rooms from JSW tweaked here and there, or with just modified graphics, or something - they are brand new rooms, designed from scratch, according to a game map designed from scratch, which has nothing to do whatsoever with Willy's original mansion. The game has new room graphics, new guardian sprites, new items and a new story behind it. Furthermore, since it uses the expanded 128K JSW64 game engine, it features many things that the original JSW does not and cannot have: more cell types in every room, switches, diagonal guardians, etc.

 

The things that "Willy on a Transatlantic Cruise" shares with the original JSW are: the protagonist, the general idea of the game (avoid nasties and collect all items before time runs out) and the exquisite mechanics of the original (albeit expanded) game engine. Other than that, it is a brand-new game, which must have taken many months of intense work to create.

 

Calling "Willy on a Transatlantic Cruise" a "version of Jet Set Willy" is not even an understatement - it's an outright error! "Willy on a Transatlantic Cruise" is simply a brand new game that uses some elements from "JSW".

 

I am making these lengthy comments to try to drive this message home, because I feel that the talk of "versions of Jet Set Willy" or even "mods" or "clones" of Jet Set Willy makes many people dismiss them straight away - many people say "I'm fed up with all of these mods of JSW" and don't even look at them. The reality is, however, that the games listed on JSW Central as "new games" in the JSW48, JSW128 and JSW64 categories are NOT versions of JSW. Most of them are not even "mods" in my opinion - each of them is not a "modified" JSW, but a new game created using the game engine (original or modified) and, in some cases, some other elements of the original JSW, such as e.g. guardian sprites.

 

"Jet Set Willy: Wet Sunday Afternoon Graphical Remix" (whose review on YouTube inspired this discussion) is an interesting case, because it did give me some ontological headaches. I initially classified it among the "Versions and minor mods of the original Jet Set Willy", as it only has graphics modified. It does not feature any modifications to the room layout, guardians' paths or any other elements (such as music) that could be modified.

 

However, when some other "dubious" game files appeared - balancing between being "new games" and "minor versions" - I decided to create a new subcategory in the new games list: "Advanced modifications of the original Jet Set Willy", to classify them as seemed best. The few games that are currently listed in this category are, in my judgement, "modified too much" to be considered just "minor" versions, but at the same time "not modified enough" to be considered "new games".

 

They are somewhere in-between, but I would not object at all to "Jet Set Willy: Wet Sunday Afternoon Graphical Remix" or "Jet Set Willy: The Nightmare Edition" being called "versions of JSW", while I would strongly object to e.g. (just to mention the latest additions to the JSW48 list) "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre 48K Edition" or "Willy does the Great Pyramid!" being considered "versions of JSW". They are not "versions" - in relation to the 1984 classic, they are truly brand new games.

 

A related topic is a distinction between whether something is "a proper game or a homebrew". Such division is VERY UNFAIR to the homebrew games, as it suggests they are NOT "proper" games. What a lie! Please look at "Jet Set Willy: The Lord of the Rings", or "Maria vs. Some Bastards", or "where's woody?", or "Jet Set Willy 5: ZX Heroes", or "Willy and the Dodecahedron" or "Terry The Turtle" (again, just a few examples) and tell me they are not proper games! In each of them you will find something that is significantly more advanced than in the original "JSW": either improved game engine, or more rooms (the largest homebrew games have more than 4 times the number of rooms in the original JSW), or better graphics, or more interesting technical effects, or all of the above together. In comparison with some later games, the original "JSW" seems empty, easy and almost dull.

 

This is not to denigrate the original, of course. It was a work of genius, it started it all and it has a certain charm/sense of humour that most later games don't match (but they have their own charms). These later games were created using tools that made designing them a piece of cake (such as John Elliott's fantastic JSWED - if anyone wants to design their own game OR a version of the original JSW, they can do so easily using JSWED, without any coding knowledge, and it's free!), taking advantage of deepened knowledge and detailed analysis of the way the original game engine works, using improved game engines that built on that original, etc. Many later games are way more advanced than the original "JSW", but it doesn't mean that their authors have more "merit" than Matthew Smith.

 

However, if you just wanted to judge the games without looking at their history and time and circumstances of creation, I am sure that many "objective judges" (say, people unfamiliar with the history of JSW, who are suddenly given the original game and one of the new games and are asked to tell which one is better) would pick a new game over the original. Again, this is not to diminish the original in any way - this is to say that it is VERY unfair to distinguish between "proper" games (that would include the original JSW) and "homebrew" ("improper"?) games (that include the later creations).

 

A fair division would be between "commercially-released" or perhaps simply "commercial" games and "homebrew games". Such division would only refer to one aspect of the circumstances surrounding their creation and release, without entering into value judgements of whether they are "proper" games or not.

 

Comments? 😉

[IRF]

I think your system of nomenclature is, by and large, a fair reflection of the amount of effort and inventiveness that has gone into each project, Danny. 🙂

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for your opinion, Ian - it's good to hear it 🙂 .

[jetsetdanny]

I've just had a look at the page of Njenkin's review of "Jet Set Willy: Wet Sunday Afternoon Graphical Remix" to see if he responded to any of my comments,  as apparently he often responds to viewers' comments. He's had plenty of time to do it since April, but there is no reply.

Furthermore, some of my posts seem to have been deleted. There are only two left, the first one corresponding to the paragraph which in the text above starts with the words "A related topic is a distinction between whether something is 'a proper game or a homebrew''". So some two thirds of what I posted there have been deleted.

I could live with no reply, but I AM displeased that most of my comments have disappeared from that Njenkin's YouTube page - so I'll just express it here... 😵