It was a boiling hot summer, the grass was pretty much dead everywhere and I was on holiday with my dad's side of the family in the sunny flyblown climes of Somerset. A tiny little hamlet called Watchet to be precise, staying alongside my grandparents and uncles in a clapperboard chalet.
Someone came up with the great idea of visiting a local town, just to break the monotony, and while there I remember spotting Jet Set Willy for the first time. I had just enough holiday money left to buy it, and buy it I did - but with just over a week left of the holiday (they always insisted on two weeks in this place for some reason), I had the torturous wait until I got back home to my beloved rubber-keyed Speccy to give the game a go for the first time.
I've blogged previously about Manic Miner and my love for the game but Jet Set Willy was supposed to push the envelope even further, with a rapid flick-screen exploration of Miner Willy's vast mansion, purchased with his previously mined treasures, and left to decadent ruin while the top-hatted fellah hit the sauce. Under the demands of his housekeeper Maria, a stern finger-pointing matriarch with a serious killer bun on her head, Miner Willy undertook the colossal effort of collecting up all the empties and objects around the mansion so he can finally hit the sack and sleep off his hangover.
Like Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy (along with the initial pain of squinting at a colour coded security sheet, supposedly to stop you copying the game from tape to tape, as was the style at the time) had a weird and wonderful collection of creatures to avoid, and a fabulous interrupt-driven version of "If I were a rich man" from Fiddler on the Roof.
I don't think I ever progressed that far in it. I remember a copy of a gaming magazine showing off a full map to the mansion and realising I'd only seen about 10 rooms tops, and I'd probably never see the whole thing. Even to this day whenever I return to it, I barely get out of the hall but I still have a go anyway.
Matthew Smith followed up with a sequel (Jet Set Willy II) and there were various fan homages and rejigs of the original, but to my mind it lost a bit of the awesomeness compared to Manic Miner, and I still have a real love for any game that features creatively named levels that are as daft as I am
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