YES, HE’S FEATURED MANY TIMES BEFORE IN RETRO GAMER – BUT THERE’S NEVER TOO MANY TIMES FOR THIS ZX SPECTRUM LEGEND, APOCRYPHALLY CALLED ‘JET SET F**KING WILLY’ BY SIR CLIVE SINCLAIR HIMSELF. WELCOME ONCE MORE TO GAMING’S STRANGEST MANSION FOR THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO JET SET WILLY
It all begins one sunny day in Surbiton. While out randomly prospecting, Miner Willy discovers an ancient mineshaft. Unable to resist plunging into the abyss, Willy explores caverns full of manic mining robots, deadly spiders and treasures beyond his wildest dreams. After his adventure below ground, he emerges blinking into the sunshine, considerably wealthier than when he entered. Now, Willy could finally abandon his backbreaking career and retire to a luxury mansion by the sea.
This clifftop abode houses all the trappings for a nouveau-riche socialite like Willy. There’s a large swimming pool, a luxury yacht, an ornate orangery and a conservatory, a huge master bedroom and a well-stocked wine cellar. He has an Italian housekeeper, Maria, a French chef, Andre, and, inevitably, many new friends eager to share in Willy’s good fortune. And all of them know how to enjoy themselves.
One night, Willy hosts the party to end all parties. There’s drunken revelry and merriment throughout his mansion and beyond, and when the last of the partygoers disappears (in Willy’s Aston Martin, to boot), all the erstwhile miner wants to do is fall into his lavish four-poster bed and go to sleep. But there’s a problem. Maria’s had enough. The mansion is a mess, with strewn glasses and bottles littering virtually every room. The housekeeper uses her imposing form to block Willy’s path to his bed. Willy is weary and may have had too much to drink. But there’s no rest until he’s cleared up every last piece of party detritus.
Jet Set Willy takes place over 60 screens, from the rooms of his crazy mansion to his yacht, the local off-licence and even hell itself. There’s no traditional scoring in Jet Set Willy: throughout the map are over 80 flashing items, and Willy has to collect all of them before Maria allows him to pass and collapse into his bed. The game begins – appropriately, given its cover – in the bathroom, where Willy has just barfed away some of the previous night’s excesses. He ventures dazedly out onto the Top Landing, descending to the First Landing, and onward into some of the weirdest building construction this side of a circus funhouse. Sadly for Willy, his mansion is inhabited by many strange and deadly creatures patrolling the floors and platforms of each room. And just what was the previous owner doing in the laboratory before his mysterious disappearance?
