Jet Set Willy - If I Were a Rich Man
Sometimes there is a game that just hooks you right from the starting screen, that even after all that time just one look at that screen and all the memories come flooding back. Are you ready for that screen? Are you sitting comfortably?
Look at that cool impossible triangle , at the age of 12 I loved optical illusions so I was immediately fascinated by this screen . Also the anti-piracy measure of having to enter a code from the cassette inlay's coloured sheet made you feel you were entering a special place. A place of infinite possibilities , a place of magic.
The year is 1984 and this is Jet Set Willy courtesy of Matthew Smith (Software Projects) . You remember Miner Willy, in Manic Miner? Well, this is what happens when you splash all that cash you got from those strange mines and can afford a big house and a grumpy housekeeper called Maria. Willy has had a party and Maria won't let him go to bed until the house is clean. (Hmm, if I was Willy I would fire her and hire a new housekeeper!)
The year is 1984 and this is Jet Set Willy courtesy of Matthew Smith (Software Projects) . You remember Miner Willy, in Manic Miner? Well, this is what happens when you splash all that cash you got from those strange mines and can afford a big house and a grumpy housekeeper called Maria. Willy has had a party and Maria won't let him go to bed until the house is clean. (Hmm, if I was Willy I would fire her and hire a new housekeeper!)
The mansion is huge ( 60ish screens) , some rooms with one item to collect, others with lots of items to collect and each screen has a name ( from the straightforward The Bathroom to the more obscure We Must Perform A Quirkafleeg .) Some are very easy, others will have your tearing your hair out. For my father and I back in 1984 it was a house we would come to know very , very well.
Our first few attempts were all about trying to find all the items, but after a while my excitable little brain realised that we didn't need to collect objects to go exploring. Besides as a child you would spend large amounts of your time being instructed to clean your room, dismantle your Lego , get your toy farm animals out the bath (or was that just me?) . The last thing you wanted to be doing while having computer time was to be doing what you should have been in real life! So I decided it was my duty to make Miner Willy rebel , sleep, ha , who needs it!
Our first few attempts were all about trying to find all the items, but after a while my excitable little brain realised that we didn't need to collect objects to go exploring. Besides as a child you would spend large amounts of your time being instructed to clean your room, dismantle your Lego , get your toy farm animals out the bath (or was that just me?) . The last thing you wanted to be doing while having computer time was to be doing what you should have been in real life! So I decided it was my duty to make Miner Willy rebel , sleep, ha , who needs it!
My initial exploring sessions were somewhat hampered by reaching stages I couldn't get past, but a quick read of Crash Magazine taught me a little trick , if I went to the staircase leading to The Chapel I could type WRITETYPER and then entering any number would send me to a different screen. Suddenly there was a whole new world out there for me!
Now I feel at this point I should make a confession. My father and I were having a little competition on who could get to the most rooms, there was even a notepad and a list . It has to be said I had been lagging behind some what. Dear reader, what would you have done? Shared the secret word with your father, or kept it secret for your own advantage? .....Suffice to say pretty soon I was logging rooms my father had never heard of!
Now I feel at this point I should make a confession. My father and I were having a little competition on who could get to the most rooms, there was even a notepad and a list . It has to be said I had been lagging behind some what. Dear reader, what would you have done? Shared the secret word with your father, or kept it secret for your own advantage? .....Suffice to say pretty soon I was logging rooms my father had never heard of!
The great thing about this game is that there is just so much to explore, each room is full of strange exotic creatures, beautifully coloured walls and little touches of humour like the Nightmare Room above where you have become a flying pig. You could lose yourself in this game, a whole afternoon would zip by as the little men down the bottom of the screen danced along to 'If I Was A Rich Man ' at least in the earlier versions. This was another reason I loved this game, I loved that piece of music and could bash out a fair rendition myself on the electric organ.
Neither my father nor I ever finished this game, we didn't want to , we were having far too much fun finding all the rooms, exploring the house , looking at the fantastic creatures ( and that horrific face in The Chapel ) . Most mornings would start with a whispered conversation behind my long suffering mother's back about what room my father had discovered the night before , whispered instructions that I would memorise and try out later on to find the same room. We may have been inside a two bedroom semi-detached bungalow but we had a much bigger house to explore.
Over the years , as is often the case , more advanced games came along with more to explore, but little pieces of Jet Set Willy kept popping into my brain to remind me of it. In fact going to places where there actually is an Orangery still makes me smile and I associate 'If I Were A Rich Man ' more with this game than with Fiddler On The Roof. It was the first game that I came across on the ZX Spectrum where I felt the sheer excitement of exploration, the feeling that I had no need to play the game objective to get enjoyment.
I may have been stuck in a small town, in a small bungalow , where my world consisted of 6 rooms, but through Jet Set Willy I had an escape, to a world where you could live on a beach , own a ballroom and have your own orangery.
In fact Miner Willy, sack Maria, employ me instead!
Over the years , as is often the case , more advanced games came along with more to explore, but little pieces of Jet Set Willy kept popping into my brain to remind me of it. In fact going to places where there actually is an Orangery still makes me smile and I associate 'If I Were A Rich Man ' more with this game than with Fiddler On The Roof. It was the first game that I came across on the ZX Spectrum where I felt the sheer excitement of exploration, the feeling that I had no need to play the game objective to get enjoyment.
I may have been stuck in a small town, in a small bungalow , where my world consisted of 6 rooms, but through Jet Set Willy I had an escape, to a world where you could live on a beach , own a ballroom and have your own orangery.
In fact Miner Willy, sack Maria, employ me instead!