Adam Britton's three 1985 JSW games - some mysteries revealed

[jetsetdanny]

Adam Britton's three 1985 JSW games: "The Continuing Adventures", "The Deadly Mission" and "Willy's Holiday" are great classics, being among the first new games ever created, enjoyable to play to this day. They bear testimony to what a brilliant guy Adam has always been (he has since had a successful career in a field unrelated as such to computers - Google him up if you're interested, he's easy to find 🙂).

Adam's games are going to be the next ones I will present on the JSW Central YouTube channel. In order to be able to present them in the way I have adopted as a standard (including a clip of the game loading from tape), I must have tape files of these games, and such files have not been released so far. This situation prompted me to create bugfixed, tape format files of Adam's games.

These files will be made public soon, after a 'peer review' I'm going to submit them to. Meanwhile, I would like to share some discoveries I made about Adam's games.

Andrew Broad discussed the critical bugs they suffer from on his website. The archival version of it is here.

Andrew's information is greatly appreciated, of course, and it has been very helpful in preparing these bugfixed games. I assume that, in the past, it also helped Robin Clive to prepare completable versions of "The Deadly Mission" and "Willy's Holiday" to make RZX recordings of them (available for download from the RZX Archive, here and here, respectively).

However, as it turns out, some of the information given there is not correct when one looks at the earliest versions of Adam's games released on the internet, or becomes obsolete in view of one particular discovery I made while being involved in JSW-archaeology. 

So here are my findings and the remaining question marks:

 

1. The way "The Beach" really looked like

The room "The Beach" (63) in "Willy's Holiday" in ALL files available on the internet was corrupted because of the application of the Bad Pause-Bug Fix (please see Andrew's archival page for more info about this bug): its list of guardian instances was overwritten by the code to correct the bug. However, fortunately, the entire room "The Beach", including the correct list of guardian instances, happens to be preserved in the existing snapshot files in the Empty Room Screen Buffer at #8000 - #80FF! So we know exactly what the guardians in this room were in Adam's original game file 🙂 .

Andrew made a guess as to what the guardians in "The Beach" may have been. I must say that, while not entirely correct, his guess was very close to the mark, being wrong only on the horizontal location of the sun and the starting points of the two cloud guardians.

Here's a comparison of the actual guardian data and Andrew's guess:

 

Original game	Andrew’s guess	Guardian
5394	539B	The Sun
510C	511A	Lower Cloud, left side
528E	529C	Lower Cloud, right side
4F04	4F09	Upper Cloud, left side
5086	508B	Upper Cloud, right side
001E	001E	The ship

 

So Andrew was spot on regarding the ship, and right as to which other guardians were there in the room. Congratulations!

 

And here's what this room looks like (please disregard the in-game time, I placed the starting position in "The Beach" to make the screenshots quickly):

 

The room as it really was:

 

Andrew's guess:

 

Since the clouds keep moving, the location of the sun is the only visible difference, really.

 

2. "The Deadly Mission" was perfectly completable when first released on the Internet

"The Continuing Adventures", "The Deadly Mission" and "Willy's Holiday" were first released in SNA format as part of the snapshot packs of three consecutive issues (3, 4 and 5) of the "Emulate!" online magazine, in November/December 1995, January/February 1996 and March/April 1996, respectively. These SNA files of "The Continuing Adventures" and "The Deadly Mission" do NOT have the Bad Pause-Bug Fix applied.

In the case of "The Continuing Adventures", it doesn't matter too much, because the original edition of the game does not use Room 63, so the bug doesn't affect it. The only thing is that, by looking at the SNA file from the "Emulate!" magazine, we know what the original values of the addresses #FF00 - #FFFF were, before they were overwritten by the Bad Pause-Bug Fix code.

However, the above means that "The Deadly Mission", as released in the "Emulate!" magazine, must be perfectly completable! (I say "must", because I didn't play it to verify, but the code, free from the Bad Pause-Bug Fix, tells us it's completable). Interestingly, it looks like the Bad Pause-Bug Fix was introduced into the game file just two days after the creation of the file that was included in the "Emulate!" magazine. That file has a date stamp of 21 September 1995, while the earliest known Z80 snapshot which features the bug has a date stamp of 23 September 1995 (it is currently hosted, for example, on World of Spectrum and Spectrum Computing).

In case of "Willy's Holiday", the SNA file released (the following year) in the "Emulate!" online magazine, dated 14 October 1995, already has the Bad Pause-Bug Fix applied. Fortunately, as described above, thanks to "The Beach" being preserved in the Empty Room Screen Buffer, we can be sure of what it looked like originally.

 

3. The original loaders of "The Deadly Mission" and "Willy's Holiday" were similar

As Andrew pointed out on his website, the BASIC loader installs "The Hotel Bathroom" (02) in "Willy's Holiday". I was surprised to learn, by analysing the "Emulate!" magazine snapshot of "The Deadly Mission", that the same thing used to happen there, with room 17 "In The Lair Of The Zaquaroid" being installed by the BASIC loader. You can see it in the loader, even though, contrary to what happens in "Willy's Holiday", the room data is correct in the SNA snapshot already. The snapshot of "The Deadly Mission" from the "Emulate!" magazine is the only one where you can see the BASIC loader (or at least a part thereof). The Z80 snapshot hosted on "World of Spectrum", or the SNA snapshot hosted on the old Jet Set Willy remakes website do not have this information any more (unless someone is able to retrieve it from the code in a way I couldn't).

 

The remaining mysteries

I was able to see how the loading screens worked for each of these games (a block of compressed code loaded at 26000 (#6590 - in "TCA" and "TDM") or at 25500 (#639C - in "WH") and then decompressed to display the picture it contains on the screen while the rest of the game loads. I recreated this loading process in the tape files I have prepared (and will make public soon). However, I have to admit I don't know why "Willy's Holiday", and most probably also "The Deadly Mission", loaded their opening rooms ("The Hotel Bathroom" and "In The Lair Of The Zaquaroid", respectively) using the BASIC loader, while the data for these rooms were disrupted (and so had to be fixed by the BASIC loader) and what purpose the code at 25000, 25020 and 25040 (in "TDM") and at 25300 (in "WH") actually served (also POKE 23659,0 and then POKE 23659,2 in "WH"'s BASIC loader).

If you should want to check it, the SNA files of these games (and also of "TCA" for completeness) from the "Emulate!" magazine are attached 🙂 .

The completable tape versions of the original editions of Adam's three games will be made available for download soon.

JSWCONTA.SNA JSWDEADL.SNA JSW-WHOL.SNA

[MtM]

Excellent work as usual Danny, someday 100 years from now we will all be gone but this will live on!

[jetsetdanny]

I certainly hope there will be people revisiting MM and JSW games for centuries to come 😃.

[jetsetdanny]

Two things I would like to add to what I wrote above:

1. Richard Hallas should be duly credited for transferring Adam Britton's games to emulator format back in 1995. He also submitted these games to the "Emulate!" online magazine for publication.

2. The SNA snapshot of "The Deadly Mission" from the "Emulate!" magazine, unspoiled by the Bad Pause-Bug Fix, confirms Andrew Broad's guess that "Mystery Room" (63) did not have any guardians.

[MtM]

I did search for Adam Britton using duckduckgo Danny, is he something to do with crocodiles now?

 

Either way, it is impressive that in a year or so, 1985, he managed to put out 3 modified versions of JSW.

Presumably he developed them directly on the Spectrum itself, though I guess he could of used other

computers at the time if he had access.

 

I note the new tune in two of them, was this the first instance of this tune, and can anyone say what the tune

is supposed to be, i.e. in the original we all know it is If I were a Rich Man, etc, but I do not think I recognise

what this tune is supposed to be? I know others have used it in their JSW games etc, including one of yours

Danny, I was playing the other day, I forget which one it was now, the tune changes as you get so far on

the first screen?

[jetsetdanny]

My replies are in green below:

> I did search for Adam Britton using duckduckgo Danny, is he something to do with crocodiles now?

Yes, he lives in the Northern Territory in Australia and is a recognised expert on crocodylians. I almost met him in Darwin one day when I happened to be there (some years ago), but unfortunately he was busy with a film crew at that time, and I was only there for a couple of days, and so missed the chance to meet him in person.

 

> Either way, it is impressive that in a year or so, 1985, he managed to put out 3 modified versions of JSW.

> Presumably he developed them directly on the Spectrum itself, though I guess he could of used other computers at the time if he had access.

Yes, it's very impressive, IMO. He created his games on the Spectrum, using Paul Rhodes' "JetSet Editor".

To quote Adam's words from the text file which accompanies the Special Edition of TCA:

"JSW:TCA was originally written in 1985 using Paul Rhodes' quite marvellous "Jet-Set Edit", purchased at a tiny computer store in Wakefield called... The Computer Store! I always felt rather guilty going into there when I should have shopping at Microbyte, but it was the only time I'd ever seen Jet-Set Edit. This was my first attempt at writing a JSW game, and it shows in some of the graphics and room designs. The game was circulated amongst my school friends, Richard Hallas being one of them. In 1995, Richard found a dusty tape containing a copy of this and my other two JSW games (The Deadly Mission and Willy's Holiday). He dutifully resurrected them (along with his own game, "Join the Jet-Set!") and made them available over the internet, and in 1997 I rediscovered them myself!"

 

> I note the new tune in two of them, was this the first instance of this tune, and can anyone say what the tune is supposed to be, i.e. in the original we all know it is If I were a Rich Man, etc, but I do not think I recognise what this tune is supposed to be?

The tune was coded by Richard Hallas, and I am pretty sure it must be one of the tunes that are featured in his game "Join the Jet-Set!" (the game features a choice of ten tunes, which must be poked into memory before the game starts). I can't recall off the top of my head which tune it is, but if you are interested enough to investigate, Richard lists the tunes that he remembers here, quote:

0: Tambourin, by Gossec
1: Unknown
2: If I were a rich man, from Fiddler on the Roof (original JSW tune)
3: In the Hall of the Mountain-King, by Grieg (original Manic Miner tune)
4: Wedding-Day at Troldhaugen, by Grieg
5: Whistle Song (original)
6: Unknown
7: Wheels by The String-A-Longs (thanks to Ian Rushforth for identifying this!)
8: Kinderszenen no 1 (Von fremden Landern und Menschen), by Schumann
9: American Patrol

If you recognise the tune now that you know most of the titles corresponding to what it may be, please let us know 🙂 .

If you don't, you could pursue the matter further by loading "Join the Jet-Set!", choosing one tune after another (you need to reload the game to be able to choose another tune) and seeing which one sounds the same as the one you hear in Adam's two games.

 

> I know others have used it in their JSW games etc, including one of yours Danny, I was playing the other day, I forget which one it was now, the tune changes as you get so far on the first screen?

I don't believe I've ever used this particular tune in any of my projects (I hope I'm right on that LOL). I've used at least two other tunes that Richard Hallas coded ("Radetzky March" and "Wheels"), but not this one.

You are probably referring to the Special Edition of "Willy's New Mansion", where the in-game tune is set individually in each room, so that the game uses four proper in-game tunes plus one "quasi-tune". Furthermore, a Patch Vector makes the in-game tune change in mid-room in "The Front Door" (60) - a novelty that hasn't ever been applied before TTBOMK. One tune is playing when Willy is outdoors, but as soon as he steps into his New Mansion, the tune changes to a different one. It's one of those little details about the game I'm quite proud of 🙂 .

[MtM]

Danny, thanks as ever for the wonderful reply, mega.

 

I can contribute a bit more to the lore here - the tune in question is number 4,

Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, by Grieg.

 

 

 

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for your contribution, MtM! 👍

[jetsetdanny]

The videos of my walkthroughs of the original editions of Adam Britton's three JSW games and of the Special Edition of his first game have now been published on the JSW Central YouTube channel:

Jet Set Willy: The Continuing Adventures (original edition)

Jet Set Willy: The Continuing Adventures (Special Edition)

Jet Set Willy: The Deadly Mission

Jet Set Willy: Willy's Holiday

These are all brand new recordings. The only game I completed previously was the Special Edition of "The Continuing Adventures". The RZX file of that effort can be downloaded from the RZX Archive. I re-recorded the game, improving my completion time by six in-game minutes (from 8:30 am to 8:24 am).

Robin Clive recorded walkthroughs of "The Deadly Mission" and "Willy's Holiday", which have been hosted on RZX Archive since 1 July 2007. They were helpful in establishing the most efficient routes in these two games; I watched them before recording my own walkthroughs.

I managed to complete the original edition of "TCA" at 8:23 am in-game time, "The Deadly Mission" at 8:27 am in-game time (improving Robin's completion time by 27 minutes), and "Willy's Holiday" at 8:22 am in-game time (improving Robin's completion time by 28 minutes).

The RZX files of these new recordings will be made available for download from JSW Central in the near future.

The walkthrough of "Willy's Holiday" presents the game in its original shape for the first time ever! The walkthrough recorded by Robin Clive used the POKEs to fix the game supplied by Andrew Broad. As it turns out, Andrew's educated guess as to the guardians in "The Beach" (63) was excellent, but not 100% accurate. In the current video the Beach (to be honest, visited only for a second or two) can be seen exactly as Adam Britton designed it 🙂 .

The game files I used to record the three original editions of these games are the bug-free tape versions I prepared. They can now be downloaded from the Jet Set Willy [Remakes] section on the Downloads page. Have a go at them - Adam's 1985 classics are very enjoyable to play also in 2021! 🙂

TODO: Update these games' individual pages on JSW Central, including complete screenshot galleries.

[MtM]

Just watched the Willy's Holiday video Danny, excellent. I really like the versions of If I were a Rich Man you use to bookend the videos too 🙂