''Jet Set Willy'' is a platform

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...

originally written by Matthew Smith for the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

home computer. It was published in 1984 by Software Projects and ported to most home computers of the time. The game is a sequel to '' Manic Miner'' published in 1983, and the second game in the

Miner Willy Miner Willy is the protagonist in a series of platform games for the ZX Spectrum, MSX, Amstrad CPC and the Commodore 64 home computers. The first two games - ''Manic Miner'' and ''Jet Set Willy'' were written by Matthew Smith during the early 1980 ...

series. It spent over three months at the top of the charts and was the UK's best-selling home video game of 1984.

Plot

A tired

has to tidy up all the items left around his house after a huge party. With this done, his housekeeper Maria will let him go to bed. Willy's

mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word '' manse'' originally defined a property l ...

was bought with the wealth obtained from his adventures in '' Manic Miner'', but much of it remains unexplored and it appears to be full of strange creatures, possibly a result of the previous (missing) owner's experiments. Willy must explore the enormous mansion and its grounds (including a beach and a yacht) to fully tidy up the house so he can get some much-needed sleep.

Gameplay

''Jet Set Willy'' is a flip-screen platform game in which the player moves the protagonist, Willy, from room to room in his mansion collecting objects. Unlike the screen-by-screen style of its prequel, the player can explore the mansion at will. Willy is controlled using only left, right and jump. He can climb stairs by walking into them (jumping through them to avoid them) and climb swinging ropes by pushing left or right depending on what direction the rope is swinging. The play area itself consists of 60 playable screens making up the mansion and its grounds and contains hazards (static killer objects), guardians (killer monsters which move along predetermined paths), various platforms and collectable objects. The collectable items glow to distinguish them from other objects in the room. Willy loses a

life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...

if he touches a hazard or guardian or falls too far. He is returned to the point at which he entered the room, which may lead to a game-ending situation where Willy repeatedly falls from a height or unavoidably collides with a guardian, losing all lives in succession. One of the more bizarrely named rooms in the game is ''We Must Perform a Quirkafleeg''.We must perform a quirkafleeg — Game meets comic. () (On some versions it is misspelled ''We Must a Quirkafleeg''. The pre-release name for the screen was ''The Gaping Pit''.) This is a reference to the comic strip ''

Fat Freddy's Cat Fat Freddy's Cat is a fictional orange Tabby cat, nominally belonging to Fat Freddy Freekowtski, one of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, a trio featured in Gilbert Shelton's underground comix. While the Cat is usually featured in a small ' topp ...

'', a spin-off from the ''

Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers ''The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers'' is an Underground comix, underground comic about a fictional trio of Cannabis culture, stoner characters, created by the American artist Gilbert Shelton. The Freak Brothers first appeared in ''The Rag'', an u ...

''; in the original comic, the quirkafleeg was an obscure ritual in a foreign country, required to be performed upon the sight of dead furry animals.

Music

Music on the Spectrum version is Beethoven's

Moonlight Sonata The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, marked ''Quasi una fantasia'', Op. 27, No. 2, is a piano sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was completed in 1801 and dedicated in 1802 to his pupil Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The popular name ''M ...

for the menu, and Grieg's "

In the Hall of the Mountain King "In the Hall of the Mountain King" ( no, I Dovregubbens hall, , In the Dovre man's hall, link=no, italic=no) is a piece of orchestral music composed by Edvard Grieg in 1875 as incidental music for the sixth scene of act 2 in Henrik Ibsen's 1867 ...

" during the game itself. Early versions played " If I Were a Rich Man" as the in-game music, but this had to be removed when the publishers of the song demanded £36,000 for its use. Music on the C64 version was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata during loading, and J.S. Bach - Inventions # 1 during gameplay. Some rooms also play Mozart's

Rondo alla Turca The Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 / 300i, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a piano sonata in three movements. The sonata was published by Artaria in 1784, alongside Nos. 10 and 12 (K. 330 and K. 332). The third movement of this son ...

Bugs

Upon release, the game could not be completed due to several bugs. Although four completely unrelated issues, they became known collectively as "The Attic Bug". After entering ''The Attic'' screen, various rooms would undergo

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

for all subsequent playthroughs, including all monsters disappearing from ''The Chapel'' screen, and other screens triggering a game over. This was caused by an error in the path of an arrow in ''The Attic'', resulting in the sprite traveling past the end of the Spectrum's video memory and overwriting crucial game data instead. Initially Software Projects attempted to pass this bug off as an intentional feature to make the game more difficult, claiming that the rooms in question were filled with poison gas. However, they later rescinded this claim and issued a set of

POKEs Poke may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Poke (''Ender's Game''), a fictional character * Poke (game), a two-player card game * Poke, a fictional bar owner in the television series '' Treme'' * The Poke, a British satirical website Fo ...

to correct the flaws. Despite these bugs, Ross Holman and Cameron Else won the competition that Software Projects had set for completion of ''Jet Set Willy'' and provided Software Projects with a set of bug fixes. Software Projects then hired Cameron Else to port both '' Manic Miner'' and ''Jet Set Willy'' to the MSX.

Reception

Reviewing ''Jet Set Willy'' for '' Your Spectrum'' magazine in June 1984, Sue Denham wrote that the game was "every bit as good and refreshing as the original". In the final issue of

Your Sinclair ''Your Sinclair'', or ''YS'' as it was commonly abbreviated, was a commercially published and printed British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum. It was in circulation between 1984 and 1993. History Th ...

, the ZX Spectrum version was ranked number 32 on "The Your Sinclair Official Top 100 Games of All Time", and voted number 33 on "The Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time." In 2004, the ZX Spectrum version was voted the 6th best game all of time by ''

Retro Gamer ''Retro Gamer'' is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retro video games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Launched in January 2004 as a quarterly publication, ''Retro Gamer'' soon became ...

'' readers in an article originally intended for a special issue of ''Your Sinclair'' bundled with ''Retro Gamer''.

Copy protection

''Jet Set Willy'' came with a form of copy protection: a card with 180 coloured codes on it was bundled with the cassette. Upon loading, one of the codes from the card had to be entered before the game would start. Although the cassette could be duplicated, a copy of the card was also needed and at the time, home colour reproduction was difficult, making ''Jet Set Willy'' harder to copy than most Spectrum games. However, means of circumventing the card were quickly found, and one method was published in a UK computer magazine.

Ports

The original releases of ''Jet Set Willy'' for the BBC Micro and the Commodore 64 also contained bugs which made it impossible to complete the game. In the Commodore 64 version, it was impossible to reach all of the items in the ''Wine Cellar''. There are two versions of the original ''Jet Set Willy'' for the MSX. The Software Projects version that was sold in the UK is dated 1984 and was programmed by Cameron Else, co-winner of the ''Jet Set Willy'' competition. The other version was published by

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, T ...

in 1985 as a

Bee Card A is a ROM cartridge developed by Hudson Soft as a software distribution medium for MSX computers. Bee Cards are approximately the size of a credit card, but thicker. Compared to most game cartridges, the Bee Card is small and compact. Bee C ...

in Japan. A port of ''Jet Set Willy'' for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

of computers was released by

Tynesoft Tynesoft Computer Software was a software developer and publisher in the 1980s and early 1990s. History The company was originally set up in 1983 to release educational software but soon moved into the video games market on which it concent ...

in 1986. It received generally poor reviews which criticised inferior graphics and animation; however, Rob Hubbard's theme music, unique to this version, was considered a highlight. Like the Spectrum version, it was impossible to complete but for different reasons. Some of the legitimate items that were needed caused the player to lose a life (e.g. the bottles in the ''Off Licence''). Ports from Software Projects for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...

and

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first per ...

were cancelled before release, but have since been made available on the internet.

Legacy

Expanded versions

''Jet Set Willy: The Final Frontier'', an expanded version for the

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...

, was later converted back to the

and released as ''

Jet Set Willy II ''Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier'' is a platform game released 1985 by Software Projects as the Amstrad CPC port of ''Jet Set Willy''. It was then rebranded as the sequel and ported other home computers. ''Jet Set Willy II'' was developed ...

''. Both the original game and ''Jet Set Willy II'' were released for the

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

, Acorn Electron, MSX, Commodore 16 and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness W ...

. A differently expanded version of ''Jet Set Willy'' was released for the Dragon 32/64, with extra rooms. This version could also not be completed as it was impossible to traverse ''The Drive'' in a right-to-left direction, which was necessary to return to bed after collecting all the items. The game could, however, be completed using a built-in cheat, accessed by holding down the keys M, A and X simultaneously, allowing you to start Willy from any position on any screen, using the arrow keys and spacebar. The Dragon port was itself converted to run on the

Acorn Archimedes Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, England. The systems are based on Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and the proprietary operating systems Arthur and RISC OS. The first mode ...

computers. Better collision detection meant that "The Drive" could now be completed right-to-left, unlike on the Dragon.

Third-party modifications

In its original Spectrum version, the rooms themselves are stored in a straightforward format, with no compression, making it relatively easy to create customised versions of the game. The review of JSW in issue 4 of ''Your Spectrum'' included a section entitled "JSW — A Hacker's Guide"; remarks in this section imply that the author had successfully deduced at least some of the data structures, since he was able to remove sections of wall in the Master Bedroom. The following year, issue 13 contained a program that added an extra room ("April Showers") to the game, and issue 15 described the data formats in detail."Interior Decorating"
Your Spectrum, Issue 15, June 1985 Several third-party editing tools were published between 1984 and 1986, allowing players to design their own rooms and sprites.

References

External links

* *
''Jet Set Willy''
at Atari Mania
''A remake of the original Jet Set Willy''
at Darn Kitty *{{curlie, Games/Video_Games/Platform/Miner_Willy_Games/Jet_Set_Willy_Series, Jet Set Willy Series

1984 video games Amstrad CPC games Atari 8-bit family games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games Commodore 16 and Plus/4 games Commodore 64 games Dragon 32 games Hudson Soft games Mobile games MSX games Platform games Single-player video games Software Projects games TI-99/4A games Tynesoft games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games scored by Rob Hubbard ZX Spectrum games