Jet Set Willy

Jet Set Willy, which was published in 1984, is a sequel to Manic Miner and was originally written for the ZX Spectrum home computer. At the time it was considered to be a significant development in the platform game genre on the home micro.

Willy lives in a mansion house which he bought with the wealth he obtained from his adventures in Manic Miner. After a huge party, Willy has to tidy up the house and surrounding area in order to get to his bedroom for a good night’s sleep.

The previous owner of the mansion has gone missing, and his experiments have left the house full of strange creatures.

The adventure begins with Willy being moved from room to room where he must collect glowing objects. On the way he encounters aliens and strange creatures and has to climb stairs, jump through them or climb swinging ropes. If he touches an enemy or falls too far his life is lost and it’s back to the point where he entered the room.

When Jet Set Willy was originally released it was found to have several bugs which made it impossible to complete the game. These bugs became known as “The Attic Bug”, which was caused by an error in the path of an arrow in “The Attic” which resulted in the sprite travelling past the end of the Spectrum video memory and overwriting game data instead.

Eventually a set of POKEs were issued to correct these flaws.

Jet Set Willy was stored on a cassette tape which made it possible for people to copy the game. In order to try and prevent this, a card with colour codes was included in the package which meant that the codes had to be entered before the game could begin. However, means of overcoming this problem were quickly found and copying continued.

Jet Set Willy II, written by Derrick P. Rowson, was released in 1985 and was a sequel to Jet Set Willy. It’s the last of the Miner Willy series although there have been many unofficial sequels made since then.

The game is an expansion on the original with variations being added, and includes a screen called Cheat, which refers to the amount of cheating which went on with the original game.

These games have stood the test of time and been enlarged upon by many gamesters who still enjoy the trials and tribulations of Manic Miner.