Jet Set Willy Paradise !!

Phase 1:

Do you remember Gameboy version of "Dragon's Lair", which was said that it was the hardest platform game ever made for Gameboy?
But it was just a remake of "Roller Coaster", a very famous "Jet Set Willy" clone for ZX Spectrum.
Every Speccy users probably know both "Roller Coaster" and "Jet Set willy".
Such a famous game was said that it was the hardest in Gameboy titles
after the game remade and port to Gameboy. It's a bit strange, isn't it?
And, are you interested which title is the hardest as "Jet Set Willy" games?
I am seriously interested at least... For example,
I wanted to know whether "Dragon's Lair" was surely harder title out of all "Jet Set Willy" games or not.

As you know, there are 100+ "Jet Set Willy"-style games for 8 bit computers.
So it is nearly impossible to make a ranking of difficulty.
Therefore, we should grasp the nature of things while we complete several titles first.
Following is a list which consists of games I chose:

Some titles which was treated in my website once.(Some commercial games for ZX Spectrum/Amiga/GB )
& All Amiga commercial / free games that each author said it was inspired by "Jet Set Willy".

Year	Title Name	License	Originally released for:	Screen	Fatal Fall	Swim/ Climb	Pad is usable	To Jump	Jump Control	Author (Diskette icon: a custom ADF I created!)
1984	Jet Set Willy	Commercial	Spectrum48k	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Matthew Smith
1985	Chuckie Egg II	Commercial	Spectrum48k	Flip	Yes	Yes	Yes	fire	no	A&F Software
1985	Roller Coaster	Commercial	Spectrum48k	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	up / shift	no	S. Brocklehurst
1988	Chubby Gristle	Commercial	Amiga(ocs)	Flip	Yes	Yes	Yes	fire	no	Teque London Ltd.
1989	Chuckie Egg II	Commercial	Amiga(whd)	Flip	Yes	Yes	Yes	fire	no	MC Lothlorien
1990~92	Numpty and the Alien Invaders	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Coder:P.Gargin, Music:Diggy
1991	Dragon's Lair the Legend	Commercial	Gameboy	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	A button	Yes	Elite Systems Ltd
1991	The Adventure of Norris	Freeware	Amiga	Scrolling	Yes	Yes	Yes	fire	no	Coder:Glenn Cleary, GFX: Jolyon Myers
1991~92	Henry in Panic	Freeware	Amiga(relo)	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Coder:Kim Byrresen, Music:Jess Skov-Nielsen
1992	Jet Set Willy II	Commercial	Amiga	Scrolling	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Software Projects
1993	Jonas Fulstrand aka. Son of Blagger	Freeware	Amiga	Scrolling	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Code&GFX:Markus Gunnarsson, Music:Daniel Falk
1994	Jet Set Billy	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	Yes	Yes	Yes	fire	Yes	Niilo Paasivirta ( Map1, Map2 )
1995	Top Hat Willy	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Tero Heikkinen
1995	Jet Set Willy 3	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	no	no	Yes	fire	no	Jasper Byrne
1995	RockHard Willy	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	no	no	Yes	fire	no	Coder&Music:Shaun Watters, GFX:Tim Gilbert
1995~98	Willy's Weirdy Nightmare	Shareware	Amiga	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Coder:Richard Williams, GFX:Steven Tate
1996	Rockstar	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	no	no	Yes	fire	no	Giles Haydon
1997	Jet Set Willy '97	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Sam Becket
1998	Jet Set Willy	Freeware	Atari ST	Flip	Yes	no	no	space	no	Paul Taylor & Carl Whitwell (joy2key2 doesn't work)
1999	Jet Set Willy	Freeware	GBC	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	A button	no	Paul Taylor
1999	JSB: William Jetset	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	Yes	Yes	Yes	fire	Yes	Editor: Rob Moseley ( Map1, Map2 )
2015	Henry & Five Towers	Freeware	Amiga(relo)	Flip	Yes	no	Yes	fire	no	Editor: nittamituaki
2015	Jet Set Billy: New Map	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	Yes	Yes	Yes	fire	Yes	Editor: Chris Clarke ( Map )
2015	Elves' Dreamland	Freeware	Amiga	Flip	Yes	Yes	Yes	fire	Yes	Editor: nittamituaki ( Map )

Blue letters: External link (You can download that freeware there.)
The background color of the cells (of "Released for" column) depend on ABD / ZBD.
"ABD" stands for "Amiga games Booting Difficulty on CD32+FDD" (See details)
(ocs): Select "Original" and "Disable CPU Caches" at Early Startup Control menu.
(relo): Use relokick1.3 to load the game. (whd): Use WHDload to load the game.
Red letters: Fixed by using "joy2key2" program coded by Lorence Lombardo. You can download "Joystick support" version here.( Click each diskette icon.)
"ZBD" stands for "Zx spectrum games Booting Difficulty on CD32+FDD" (See details)
GBC freeware and ZX Spectrum 48k games can be loaded on SNES+AD Adapter(White version). (See details)

Anyway I don't have enough time to play all titles even if I focused those titles above.
Next I judge whether each title is surely "Jet Set Willy"-type game or not.
So I must choose titles which can be classified into two kinds, "Lineal" and "Inspired".

"Lineal":
Original "Jet Set Willy" itself and mods which were created by "Jet Set Willy Construction Kit".
There are 80+ titles released for ZX Spectrum.

"Inspired":
Games which were inspired by original "Jet Set Willy" game. They usually have following features as original "Jet Set Willy" has.
"Screen": Original JSW was "flip screen"-type. If not, it would be hard to determine "IRD" described below.
"Fatal Fall": Whether the player character dies instantly after it falls from a higher place. (Yes/ no)
                  If it is "no", the game cannot be classified into "Jet Set Willy"-type even if the author says it's JSW inspired game.
"Swim / Climb": Whether the player character can swim under water./ Whether the player can climb a pole / ladder by up/down keys. (Yes/ no)
              If it is "Yes", the game cannot be classified into "Jet Set Willy"-type even if the author says it's JSW inspired game.
              It is because up/down keys were unnecessary in the original JSW game.
              Exactly the player can climb a rope in the original "Jet Set Willy" game, however,
              there were very few rooms which make you use a rope. So if the game which make you "climb" action everywhere,
              the game cannot be classified into "Jet Set Willy"-type even if the author says it's JSW inspired game.
"Pad is usable": Whether we can use either original CD32 pad or 6 button pad for Mega Drive. (Yes/ no)
"To Jump": Which key would make the player character jump?
To be classified into "Jet Set Willy"-type,
keys which are pressed by our left fingers should make the player character move right/left.
And, key which is pressed by our right finger should make the player character jump.

"Jump Control": Whether you can move the player character freely
                         while it is jumping or falling. (Yes/ no)
                         If it is "Yes", the game cannot be classified into "Jet Set Willy"-type
                         even if the author says it's JSW inspired game.
                         It is because the original JSW game doesn't allow us
                         to move freely while jumping/falling.

After we removed several titles which cannot be classified into "Jet Set Willy"-type,
following titles still remained. Next we should start each game to compare their difficulty.

Class	Title Name	Basic Data				MAP
Class	Title Name	Save	Lives	Rooms	Items	Mapping	IRD Map
Lineal	Jet Set Willy (ZX Spectrum)	no	8	60	83	By Pavero	Here.
Insipred	Roller Coaster	no	10	60	240	By Pavero	Here.
Inspired	Dragon's Lair the Legend	no	10	58	194	Here.	Here.
Inspired	Numpty and the Alien Indavers	no	10+	100	395	Here.	Here.
Inspired	Henry in Panic	no	20+	150	331	Here.	Here.
Inspired	Top Hat Willy	no	9	100	160	Here.	Here.
Insipred	Willy's Weirdy Nightmare	Yes	12	186	465	Here.	Here.
Insipred	Jet Set Willy '97	no	10	188	200	Here.	Here.
Lineal	Jet Set Willy (Atari ST/GBC)	no	8	60	83	Here.	Here.
Inspired	Henry & Five Towers	no	20	108	220	Here.	Here.

Blue letters: External link ("Pavero" made and uploaded maps to http://maps.speccy.cz/ .)

To compare difficulty, I suggest using "IRD" scheme as description below.

IRD = Individual Room Difficulty

IRD	Definition
9	ridiculously ultra hell
8	nightmare havoc
7	insane hard
6	extremely hard
5	really hard
4	harder
3	hard
2	normal
1	easy
0	almost safety

For example, (1,2,3,4) = ("1","1","2","6") case, IRD of this room would become "5".
It is because we can complete that room with only 1 miss.
In other words, if we cannot control characters well, we cannot complete rooms which IRD are 6+ ...forever.
In addition, we can ignore difficulty of "return route"
when we determine IRD of "one-way" rooms or some rooms we don't have to pass their "return routes".

After we determine IRD of all rooms...,

I couldn't determine IRD of "Chuckie Egg II" due to specific reasons, however,
I think it's enough because "Numpty and the Alien Invaders" is tougher than "Chuckie Egg II".
Anyway, see my results described above. We can compare difficulty visually.
In 2015, I released "Henry & Five Towers" as hardest game of this genre.
So you may not have to search for harder games in 100+ ZX Spectrum games
if you want to know which title is the hardest... ( In MY opinion AT THAT TIME!! )

Phase 2:

In 2016, "Jet Set Willy The Nightmare Edition" was released. I thought it was one of the hardest JSW game ever made for ZX Spectrum.
However, to my surprise, it seems that there are much harder ones than "Jet Set Willy The Nightmare Edition".
Thanks to Daniel Gromann, who has played all JSW games created by JSW Construction Kit.
According to him, following 5 titles make "JSW:Nightmare Edition" look a piece of cake (!).
I have to play them and compare with Amiga games sooner or later.
At this time I have to say these titles are extremely harder than I expected !!

Class	Year	Title Name (All Freeware)	Author (Editor)	Basic Data				MAP
Class	Year	Title Name (All Freeware)	Author (Editor)	Save	Lives	Rooms	Items	Mapping	Strategy	IRD Map
Lineal	1999	We Pretty	Andrew Broad	no	8	64	256	Edit ver.	Here.	Here.
Lineal	2001	Strangel: Willy in the Otherworld	Alex Cornhill	no	8	104	256	By Pavero
Lineal	2002	Goodnite Luddite	Andrew Broad	no	8	64	256	Edit ver.(WIP)
Lineal	2005	Jet Set Willy: Mind Control	Daniel Gromann & Alex Cornhill	no	13	112	256	By Pavero
Lineal	2010	Jet Set Willy: The 2010 Megamix	Daniel Gromann & others	no	11	247	256	By Pavero
Lineal	2016	Jet Set Willy The Nightmare Edition	"jswmm.co.uk" team	no	17	65	256	Here.	Here.	Here.

Blue letters: External link ("Pavero" made and uploaded maps to http://maps.speccy.cz/ .)
IRD graph is WIP. I hope to complete it by the end of the 2020s.

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