The Worst Jet Set Willy Recreation Ever - JSW (or something similar to it) on Scratch

[lemmylemming]

Hello!

I discovered Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy last year, and i immediately fell in love with both.

When i like a game, usually i end up trying to make an approximation of it on Scratch for fun. And that's what i did with JSW.

This was also around the time i discovered the Furnace tracker, so i added AY versions of several JSW ports (excluding Rich Man '98 which is from Andy Noble's JSW, JSW 2 CPC/MSX which was ripped from JSW 2 CPC and Perils of Willy) to the game - you can press S at the title screen to select which one you want to listen to.

I took several months making this. Was it worth it? Probably not.

PS: the ropes work in a very different manner to the original JSW. Use the up/down arrow keys to climb them.

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1084150635/

Screenshots attached (i wanted to make a video but the game is so badly optimized it ran like a snail while recording)

Quick start guide for making custom levels also attached (for the 0% of people who want to do that)

And since i'm new here, it's nice to meet you all!

 

 

twjswr level making quickstart guide.txt

[Jet Set Willie]

Welcome, Lemmy!

I haven´t tried your game, but the colours and blocky pixels look nice. 🙂 I would like to point out just one thing. Compared to the background, Willy´s black clothes are quite dark. I´d suggest to keep the background colour as is, but to make the clothes just a tiny bit lighter, to make them stand out from the background better. But, as I haven´t tried this, maybe there´s no problem when Willy is moving. 🙂 

[manic986]

Well done. I had a quick go at it. I'd agree with making Willy brighter so that he is easier to see. Keep at it and you'll get there eventually. When I made Manic Miner I had to learn the Scratch way of doing things that I had no clue about when I started and I rewrote several parts over and over as I learned more. I'd still like to rewrite mine yet again now with everything I learned so far. I find the drag and drop code a bit on the hard side though so have avoided that last rewrite thus far. Anyway, my point is, don't be afraid to take it apart and use everything you've learned thus far. You will learn even more and just keep improving your coding technique with each iteration. Good luck!

[lemmylemming]

Thanks for the feedback - i tried making Willy's clothes brighter but it ended up blending in with the background more. I liked the brighter clothes and wanted to keep them, so i've made the background a grey-black gradient and i gave Willy a white outline. I think it looks good :)

I'm planning on changing the rendering system to only draw tiles near Willy instead of the whole room, which will let me display the room in 200% size (pixel-perfect) without it getting buggy instead of 175% which looks off.

I've attached a screenshot of what Willy looks like now (screenshot of Willy taken in 100% size instead of 175%)

I'll post another reply when i'm finished up with the change.

[lemmylemming]

I've updated the game, this is what it looks like now. It looks slightly off on my grandma's old Windows 7 laptop (i had to use it to make the edits, not joking. This is a slow piece of junk and even my grandma knows it.) but on higher resolutions it should look great.

I've also fixed an issue where if the game is running slowly and Willy walks into another room, he might fall into the room below before the game properly loads the new room.

Unfortunately the constant update of guardians is tied to rendering, and if they aren't rendered they'll freeze in place. I'll fix it some other day, because it's hell editing code on this computer.

[Norman Sword]

Graded grains make finer flour.

[jetsetdanny]

 Welcome, lemmylemmings, and thank you for your contribution! 🙂 

  

On 2/12/2025 at 7:32 AM, Norman Sword said:

Graded grains make finer flour.

I hope this won't be too off topic. I wasn't familiar with this expression, so I asked ChatGPT about it. Here's what it told me:

Graded grains make finer flour" is an established phrase, but it is best known as an example of articulation testing rather than a common proverb or saying.

Meaning & Origin

This phrase is often used in speech clarity tests because it contains multiple similar sounds and can be tricky to pronounce clearly. The idea behind it is simple:

• "Graded grains" refers to sorting or refining grains by size or quality.
• "Finer flour" results from using well-sorted, high-quality grains.

Interpretation

While not a widely used proverb, it can be loosely interpreted as:

• Better preparation leads to better results (i.e., carefully selecting and refining components improves the final product).
• Precision matters (particularly in processes like milling or even in broader contexts like writing, speaking, or craftsmanship).

[Norman Sword]

For those in the UK. A google search brings up....

[Jet Set Willie]

I understood the meaning of the phrase, but I thought Norman actually meant Willy is covered with the fine flour in this latest version. 🙂

By the way, I cut off Willy from one of the last screenshots in this topic to upload it here, to show Willy´s flour covered looks, but I got just this error message.

1 file was larger than the maximum file size of 0kB, and was skipped

 

My file was about 1.6Kb .png-file. I tried again by save´ing it as .bmp, about 36Kb, but the same happened again. The same happens either by choosing the file or dragging it. 

 

 

[Jet Set Willie]

In those Norman´s screenshots, I think it´s our Willy in his miner days, no top hat yet. 🙂