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Jet Set Willy!!!
axilmar
Member #1,204
April 2001

Guys, do you recognize this man at this page ?

Have you seen him in this forum under the name 'MatSmith' ?

Do you know who is he? according to this and this he is the...

the one and only...

author of the original Jet Set Willy for the ZX Spectrum!

If this is true, we have the God of gaming between us, mere mortals!!!

When this man was a master in programming one of the greatest games ever, Jet Set Willy, we were busy sucking milk from our mother's breast and
peaing our pants!

I can't believe this! this is the greatest thing that has happenned to this board!!! I mean, for me, he is like Linus Torvalds or Bill Gates or John Carmack in status....

Long live Matthew Smith, the author of one of the greatest games ever!!!

...sorry if I am exaggerating, but I can't believe it...it is so amazing...what the guy did in that day and age, with a humble machine like the ZX Spectrum...a full platform game with tens of screens, fine music, 100s of enemies, and all in 48K!!!!

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
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I thought we knew that already ;) I keep hearing about this damn game; maybe I ought to play it ...

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

Richard Phipps
Member #1,632
November 2001
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Well... it is one of the greatest games ever made!

Perhaps you have to be british to understand this... ;)!

Rich

Johnny13
Member #805
October 2000
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???What's "Jet Set Willy"?
I have only played STREET FIGHTER series;D

Alg3D Praise my Games!!<code>#define SPAMMER (post>=666&&postperday>=6)</code><Mr.spellcaster>What post? <Mr.spellcaster>A useful post by me.

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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Only idiots prefer Jet Set Willy to the quiff-tastic Manic Miner. And don't try and tell me it is a mining hat, its well documented that Miner Willy was a big Smiths and Alvin Stardust fan . . .

For those who have never played them, there are PC conversions at http://www.retrospec.org , if you can put up with navigating the frightful newly redesigned site.

Matt Smith
Member #783
November 2000

Modesty nearly forbids me from racking up a free post count here :)

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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I should also point out that unlike the PC version, Miner Willy has a quiff and not a hat on the SAM Coupé.

Visa-Valtteri Pimiä
Member #2,034
March 2002

I, a regular member of the Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy editor group on Yahoo (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manicminerandjetsetwilly)
can say that MattSmith can be raised to same demigodhood as Tolvards. I've made a Willy game my self by an speccy editor. I think Jet Set Willy is a game that my friends at the club have hacked a lot. I mean, they know EVERYTHING about it. :)

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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But would they agree that in JSW he is in truth not wearing a top hat, but a sweat band to save his face from all the gel related to his new flat top hair cut? I can't imagine he'd keep a top hat on when in the bath - http://www.allegro.cc/depot/screenshots/1103_large.gif

Its just that if they would, then I couldn't possibly agree with them. But do they know how to get past the Warehouse? I've been stuck on that stupid level for at least eight years.

Neil Walker
Member #210
April 2000
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Hello,

Just out of interest, Matt also wrote two other games, Styx and Birds and the Bees.

All of which have been remade (using Allegro) and are available at the, to quote Thomas Harte who obviously has no taste ;)

Quote:

frightful newly designed

Retrospec site.

For those wanting to know what the fuss is all about, the original games can be played on the java emulator (and the remakes downloaded) at our site on Retrospec:

Manic Miner

Jet Set Willy

Styx

Birds and Bees

Neil.
BTW, he made one other, but that was just for a magazine. Oh, and the games will probably be lost on those brought up on Mega Drives.

Neil.
MAME Cabinet Blog / AXL LIBRARY (a games framework) / AXL Documentation and Tutorial

wii:0356-1384-6687-2022, kart:3308-4806-6002. XBOX:chucklepie

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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Quote:

Thomas Harte who obviously has no taste

Or I have a slightly older computer which doesn't run well above 800x600. Runs all of the retrospec titles I've tried though.

Peter Hull
Member #1,136
March 2001

The mad thing about JSW was the amount of coverage it generated in the magazines. Every little bit of the game was scrutinised for hidden meanings ('we must perform a quirkafleeg'?), and, month after month there were 'pokes' published. These allowed you to get infinite lives etc. by altering the machine code in the game itself, bit-by-bit.
One thing I always wanted to know, and since Matt is around I might as well ask him: the whole program got disassembled and a large chunk of it was devoted to 'apparently controlling a complex piece of hardware.' Is this true and if so, what on earth was it?

Pete
(OK I am old enough to have owned a spectrum, I admit)

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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Not the answer you want, I know, but I'm sure I read somewhere that Zombie Zombie, the sequel to Ant Attack, could run a midi device over the expansion port if you knocked up the correct circuitry.

(I'm only really old enough to have owned a +2)

Matt Smith
Member #783
November 2000

Peter, that was the HD driver from my TRS-80. The docs assured me it was loaded in low memory (below 0x8000) but it was in fact at 0xFC00, which messed up the last 4 rooms in the data.

I transferred the 32k memory image directly to the Spectrum and ignored the last 4 rooms. One of the crashes is a link from somewhere else into there.

What I think is funny is how these 'rooms' have been named :)

Peter Hull
Member #1,136
March 2001

Matt, that's bugged me since the mid-80s. Now I am at peace with myself :)

Pete

Cheradenine Zakalwe
Member #2,046
March 2002
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I must admit to being awestruck myself...:o:o

I mean I remember playing JSW when I was just a snot nosed kid!! :) living in Surrey.

and maybe would have to have been living in Britain at the time!!? (early - mid '80's)

I think my fave room has to be "Entrance to Hades"

No going back har har ;D

Cheers Mat!

gnudutch
Member #951
February 2001
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From the looks of your site, you really must have "the-good-stuff" ;)

gnudutch bows to a tru gaming legend

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