Most screens have a number of 'floors' which can be reached either by jumping or by taking the stairs (walking onto rows of dots atĪngles of 45 degrees) and a number of exits up, down, left or right. Top-hatted and suited Willy is manipulated by moving or jumping him left or right, occasionally requiring pixel-perfect accuracy. As with all platform games, JSW is viewed from the There were also very nice touches such as housemaid Maria standing guard at Willy's bedroom, tapping her feet and pointing sternly to the rest of the mansion when Willy got close. With each room of the mansion titled on screen - text ranging from the simple 'Bathroom' to the perplexing 'We Must Perform A Quickafleeg' - each was also packed with a dazzling array of CHR$ definition sprites in 100% machine code. On machines such as the C16 and Acorn Electron, this represented a miniature miracle of programming. A sometime sequel to Manic Miner (also available revamped from Andy Noble), it departed from the then traditional 'complete one room before proceeding to the next' format and allowed the player to roam freely between over eighty rooms. Not counting its sequel, JSW was a quite unique game upon its release. It concerns not, as you might expect, a jetpack-wearing hero in outer space but rather a member of the jet set upper class with a very big and messy house and a very big and angry housekeeper demanding he cleans it up before retiring to his bed. This is exactly what Andy Noble has done with the mansion jaunt of Jet Set Willy, once available over almost every retro format from Oric to C64 and now available free for the PC from It's fair to surmise that this title, despite a stupendously high frustration factor, is almost as beloved by retro players as the likes of Chuckie Egg and Impossible Mission. The result would be to offer a more stunning-looking PC title without encroaching the classic version requiring an 8-bit emulator. Without the emulator, to also touch up the spites and improve the sound, speed and collision detection (if required) too. Subsequently, the playability of a retro classic may be present in all its glory to the PC gamer, but the game itself on the PC machine can appear (graphically) a little blocky and somewhat 'tacky'.Īn ideal solution would be for a 'grafix' designer to rip the game from the emulated format but instead of just re-coding it so it works And whilst there are many web pages dedicated to Chuckie Egg alone, allowing it to be downloaded and played in less than a minute, the PC version is identical to the emulated Amstrad/Spectrum/Electron one. zip file, if the answer is in the affirmative.īut whilst the testimonials applauding this platform egg and ladder romp prove it the favourite tipple of the retro-gaming classes, there is not yet any improved version making use of the advanced features of the PC. The internet-surfing viewer simply asks him/herself "Will I be able to play Chuckie Egg again using this?" and downloads it, and the appropriate. In a sense, the game, coupled with an insatiable desire to play it again, sells the emulator. One need but glance at any 8-bit emulation site's 'guestbook' to note that a certain 'timeless' quality of some golden oldie games is the sole reason why many install an emulator on their PC.
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