Jet Set Willy

Jet Set Willy

Game No.	279
Voting	6.71 points, 17 votes
Developer	Shahid Ahmad
Company	Software Projects
Musician	George Neophytou
HVSC-File	GAMES/G-L/Jet_Set_Willy.sid
Release	1984
Platform	C64, Atari, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, PC, MSX, Acorn Electron, BBC Micro
Genre	Platformer (Multi Screen)
Gamemode	Single player
Operation
Media
Language
Information	Forerunner: Manic Miner Follower: Jet Set Willy II - The Final Frontier

Description[edit | edit source]

"If you exaggerate the good, it will turn into bad."
(free translation of Friedrich Justin Bertuch)

Jet Set Willy is a multi-screen platformer by Software Projects which was ported for the C64 in 1984. The aim of the game is to collect all items that are scattered in the over 60 screens. Jet Set Willy is game no. 2 in the "Miner Willy" trilogy, which started with Manic Miner and ended with Jet Set Willy II - The Final Frontier.

Miner Willy has hit the jackpot! After he has managed to sell all the immeasurable big amount of resources which he has found in the previus game, he is now a filthy rich bon vivant and lives the pure la dolce vita. Now he lives befitting his rank in a mansion of monstrous size, which is overdimensioned in such a way that he himself has not seen every room yet. There he celebrates with his new "friends" nonstop orgy-like permanent parties until everybody lies in coma.

But one morning, after the last scallywags have sped off with Willy's Aston Martin after an especially wild night, the Italian housekeeper Maria is finally at the end of her tether. Although Willy cannot look straight any more, the feisty women demands of him to do better tidying up all the garbage that the gang has scattered around the mansion. Only then the lout will be allowed to sit back and relax. Now a nightmare begins for the heavily hangoverish and overtired Willy, because it looks as if his nice guests have cluttered the whole mansion from the drive to the roof and the marina. At the same time it is not really helpful that the previous owner seemed to have been a crazy scientist specialized on gene technology, whose creatures briskly run around in the mansion. And instead of giving the sack to the chlolerical old bag, the hendpecked Willy actually starts to do as he has been told.

Steer Willy through the rooms of the mansion and collect all flashing items. You need to avoid contact with the scurrying creatures and the animated tools, same as too deep falls. Willy starts with nine lives, there are no extra lives.

Design[edit | edit source]

Well, if this is supposed to be a luxurious mansion...

Even for 1984, there is no cure for that, graphically. Utterly simply designed rooms using the flick-screen technique, show unhibitedly absolute stilistic bleakness. The sprites are sometimes rather eccentric. Ranging from rotating razor blades over dancing rabbits and dripping ice waffels to overdimensioned rolling eggs and killer penguins there are sundry of original, if only monochrome enemies gathered here. But they tried at no place to use the superior graphical abilities of the C64, the game is graphically almost 100% the same as the Spectrum original.

The ears are also not getting a treat. The title screen offers a version of the moonlight sonata worth listening to, while the interpretation of Bach's "Invention No.1 (BWV 772)" is an utterly unaesthetic attack on the player's ear-drums and temper. The more will tinnitus patients be happy to be able to switch off this cacophony.

Hints[edit | edit source]

Keys

Q to P : each of the 5 pairs of keys in the upper row of the keyboard can be used to steer to left and right
A to L : each key of the middle row of the keyboard can be used to pause the game
Z to M : each key of the lower row of the keyboard can be used to jump
Return : start of the game; in the game: sound on/off

Solution[edit | edit source]

Beware of jumps or crashes into the unknown: a bug makes you appear again in the screen at the same deadly place as before after crashing deadly, which means losing all your lives.

Map of the game

This is a map of the Spectrum version, but the arrangement of the rooms is identical.

Cheats[edit | edit source]

The best version of the game at the moment is the version by Mad Scientist where the game has been cleaned by the numerous bugs of the original and can therefore be played to the end. The version offers also trainer options.

Voting[edit | edit source]

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
6.71 points at 17 votes (rank 554). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64Games	8	08th October 2010 - "very good" - 3815 downs
Lemon64	7	08th October 2010 - 57 votes
Kultboy.com	6,14	08th October 2010 - 7 votes

Reviews[edit | edit source]

Robotron2084: "Jet Set Willy - a game ugly as the night and so difficult that there should be a picture of this game in each dictionary next to the entry "difficult". But at least it was an early representative for not linear platformers, in which you can explore a great area to your own desire. This is "the" game, where all the Spectrum fans outdo each other with hymns of praise. But this is of course no wonder, as eventually - and now hold on - the Spectrum version is BETTER than the C64 version. Yes, you heard right! Because even though the most bugs are fixed until now, there is still one big ill left, which makes the game more or less impossible to finish. Namely these are the screens "On the roof" and "We must perform a Quirkafleeg", in which you have to get to the other side by a swinging rope. The routine is buggy to such an extent that it is only possbile to manage with the stoic patience of a saint. Of course one can also play the game with the knowledge that some rooms simply are not accessible. But I am immensely annoyed by this and therefore, no matter if this is a milestone in the history of platformers or not: 4 out of 10 points.
Addition: In the meantime also the game destroying bug with the rope was fixed in the Ultimate Fix Version. This raises the fun of the game considerably, therefore I give the improved version 6 out of 10 points."

FXXS: "The staircase wit of history is probably, that the "fight against pirates" was more important for the programmer to put into the scroll text than a hint to the course of the game, but thanks to decentral and patched security backup the game is playable sensibly at all. Such bad conversions were probably also the reason why there were not enough paying customers on the long run. Music and graphics are also loveless, therefore I give 5 points."

Miscellaneous[edit | edit source]

Trivia[edit | edit source]

There are several locations in the game where there are swinging ropes and guards standing in pits stabbing with their spears. A clear hommage to Hunchback, especially as a screen is named "Rescue Esmeralda".

The cooks from the screens "Kitchen" and "West of Kitchen" found an employment later in Henry's House.

The room "Emergency Power Generator" shows a power plant over which a flying pig makes its rounds: an allusion to the cover of the album "Animals" by Pink Floyd.

In the game "Out on a limb" Jet Set Willys appear as enemies in the course of the game.

Screenshot comparison of different conversions[edit | edit source]

Jet Set Willy was written for the ZX Spectrum and converted to a number of other systems.
Here a choice. From left to right: Atari 8 Bit, BBC Micro, PC remake