Adban de Corcy presents: "Madam Blavskja's Carnival Macabre" (MBCM) (2020 Special Edition) Intro: On 3/01/2020 it will have been 18 years since the release of my last (so far) gamma JSW game, “Madam Blavskja’s Carnival Macabre”. Now, thanks to the good office of Daniel Gromann, I am again in front of the keyboard writing a Readme for a ZX Spectrum game and thinking about finishing “Jet Set Jason: In Röddenwald” (my unfinished, lost until now, game about Willy’s up-to-now unknown nephew). My most sincere thanks to: Daniel Gromann, for contacting me; to all the people in the MM/JSW Yahoo Club (those were the days, folks!); I would particularly to thank, in no particular order: Dr. Andrew Broad, Vidar Eriksen, Sendy, Igor Makovsky, The Drunken Master and, last but not least in any way, Daniel Gromann again. And, obviously, Matthew Smith, wherever he may be. And all those creators, artists and people of all kinds who inspire me everyday. Intro (II): This time Willy feels completely lost. He had managed to escape from his vampiric uncle, Jetza Setov Willovsky, and all apparently was going fine, when the car broke down. As far as he knew, he was somewhere right in the middle of Europe, and there was no gas station anywhere to be seen. So, he saw some lights, and when he arrived there, he discovered he was in a Carnival. And now, he can't find the exit, and he can't return to his mansion, because he cannot escape the Carnival Macabre! Cast: Control Jet Set Willy Willovsky, our hero, and meet (from a safe distance): - Madam Blavskja, the Owner of the Carnival - Madam Zorba, the "Romani" Seer (Not Romani at all, just a conwoman) - Malocchio, the croupier - Wolfgang the Walrus - Doctor Buddah, the "Enlightened" Mystic - Doctor Necross, the Zoologist - And a host of other minor, but no less important, artists of the Carnival Macabre. Controls: You know, Left, Right and Jump. Yep, that is all. Game Engine: This is a 48k Jet Set Willy game. Notes: This time I am including some notes on the rooms I created for MBCM. Enjoy: 00: “The Night Nile / Beware Apophis!” - This room is a reworking of “The tunnels of Jormungadr” in “Willy’s Afterlife”, as I enjoyed the effect caused by the 3-sprite snake. In MBCM, Apophis lurks in the tunnels under the carnival, stalking the unwary. 01: “On top of the Big Top” - This room’s name is just a bad pun. A very bad one. 02: “Arrows, Ballons and a Clown”. - The clown (no particular name) was one of the first, if not the first, guardian sprites I created for MBCM. On seeing him, one of my first beta-testers said: “Oh, nice, a monkey!”. That goes for my pixel-drawing skills… 03: “The Ferris Wheel” In much more skilled hands, this screen would have been amazing. Here it is quite simple and easy to go through. 04: “Antares and his… Pigeons??“ Antares, a stage magician, is the first named character I created for MBCM (well, the second, but the first human; the very first NPC was Wolfgang, the Walrus). I remember I was quite proud of the effect I managed to convey with the birds… 05: “Doctor Necross’ Hall of Wonders” This room depicts the “cabinet of curiosities” and “freak shows” that lurked in carnivals across Europe, both in gothic fiction and in the real world. Not one of my best creations, but I thought in the end it looks all right. 06: “Dr. Necross’ Clone Chamber” The original Dr. Necross is the one in green. In MBCM I follow the colour code I stablished in “A Bulgarian Requiem”: green sprites are single NPCs with proper names. Dr. Necross’s big-headed sprite was my homage to “Eugene: Lord of the Bathroom” by one of my personal idols, Vidar Eriksen (aka Erix1). 07: “Outside the lab/Dr. Necross’ Lab” Not a particularly interesting room, but nice, nevertheless. 08: “Dr. Necross’ Disposal Unit” My attempt to create a deadly room with just a single chance to escape. I seriously think that Doctor Necross and his rooms were created during a time I couldn’t get out of my head the lines “Come to the lab and see what’s on the slab” from The Rocky Horror Show. 09: “Malocchio’s Games of Chance” Malocchio’s name is Italian for “evil eye”, a classical Mediterranean belief on bad luck and other misfortunes... That’s the reason the character’s eye is not in the expected place for a sprite based on Willy’s… 10: “The shooting range” This was one of the first screens I created for MBCM. I was particularly proud, at the time, at the effect of having guardians passing in front of earth blocks. 11: “Francesco’s Tattooing Parlour” A classical staple of gothic carnivals. At least in the movies I watched as a kid… 12: “A Watermill powers the Carnival” At the time I finished MBCM, I found the watermill to be a quite nice sprite. I still think so… 13: “Carnival’s Refreshments & Drinks” My personal homage to Jet Set Willy’s “Ballroom West”. I remember that, the first time I reached this room in the original Jet Set Willy, played in a real ZX Spectrum 48k, I felt awed at the amount of tokens on the table… 14: “I think I hear eerie Chants...” “Waxing Elizabeth”, the iconic track from Young Sherlock Holmes’ soundtrack (with its hypnotic refrain, “Ra-Me-Tep”) was quite another important influence on MBMC… 15: “Inside the Hill!/Temple of Set” and 18: “What an odd-looking Hill!!” This room coexists with room 18: “What an odd-looking Hill!!”. If you enter it from the right or the left, you see room 15. If you enter it from below, you see room 15. 18 years ago, I found this quite a cool feature. 16: “Something is not right here...” Obviously… 17: “Lo Wang’s Auspicious House” This is the room that made me expand “MBCM” (which had begun as a 48k game) into a 128k game. It is not particularly complex or difficult, but it has some interesting quirks… 19: “The gifts of Bacchus” One of the last rooms I created, and one of my favourite ones from all my three games. I really think this room (and the one on top of it) look beautiful. With its vines and grapes… 20: “The Ghost Train: Entrance Fee 2£” Not one of my best efforts, but not too bad. 21: “The Ghost Train: Exit”. I remember I thought it particularly ingenious at the time the way Willy couldn’t go back into the Ghost Train… 22: “Ripe for the Harvest” This is, if I remember correctly, one of the first rooms where we can see some strange events which seem to be out of place in a carnival… 23: “The Catastrophe Ballet” The room’s name is a homage to Christian Death’s album. So; dead ballerinas on stage… or ballerinas being killed… or… 24: “The sad Garden of Solitude” A nice, easy screen. 25: “Obviously, this is not a Cave!” Willy, our hero, again states loudly an obvious fact. 26: “Mismanagement of Ice Cream Carts” I think I found the name of this room to be quite funny… 27: “Ladies & Gentlemen: the Big Top!” 28: “The Big Top” 30: “Are these tigers and lions?” 31: “The Big Top” Four rooms for the central piece of any carnival or circus. At least, in the movies I watched when I was a young teenager. The smiling moon, the Carnival Macabre’s logo, looks quite nice here. 29: “The Ghost Train: Death on Wheels”. For this room, Daniel Gromann has used Willy’s skeleton sprite from “Willy’s Afterlife”. A quite cool touch. 32: “The Puppet Threatre of Cruelty” Not one of my best, but not one of my worst. I think I wanted to recreate the feelings Disney’s Pinocchio’s creepy scenes inspired in me… I am not sure, however… 33: “The Entrance to the Carnival” A cool trick. 34: “Around the Merry-Go-Round” This is the very first screen I created for MBCM. It was inspired by a creepy image: the Grim Reaper riding a merry-go-round’s horse. And, most probably, by the movie version of Ray Bradbury’s “Something wicked this way comes” 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43: The House of Mirrors and the Enigmatic Corridor. I had a great time creating these rooms. Not the hardest of puzzles anywhere in Jet Set Willy’s universe, but quite fun, nevertheless… 44 "I was hearing eerie Chants!!" I specially like the Earth blocks in the “Egyptian” rooms. 45 "Is this Sphinx also a game?" (also room 45 in "MBCM 128K") I liked Forcas’ sprite (in Willy’s Afterlife) a lot, so I tried to use something like to create a sphinx. It didn’t work so well, but… 46 "Mdm Zorba has lost some Arcana!" I thought about making Madam Zorba the protagonist of her own game (it would have been a Manic Miner-game), but it came to naught in the end. 47: “The Gate to Duat” Duat is the name of the Egyptian afterlife. This room is essentially a reworking of the themes in one of the screens in "Willy's Afterlife", "The mouth of the pit". 48 "The Embalming Room" Some organs seem to have escaped the canopic jars... 49 "The Catwalks / Over the Carnival" Just a corridor between more important areas. 50 "Enlightenment for Sale!!" Another of my favourite rooms; this one has Dr. Buddha, a charlatan offering "enlightment for a mere triffle" and one that got me worried 18 years ago, as it includes two ancient swastikas. Nothing happened, maybe I should be more worried nowadays... 51 "Up the vines / Don't fall down!!" Alongside "The Gifts of Bacchus", another of my favourite rooms. 52 "Thoth & Ra's Game of Checkers" A simple, easy enough room which depicts a beautiful scene in Egyptian mythology, the moment when Thoth wins from Ra enough days for Isis to give birth to her son, Horus. 53 "The Boat of Ra sails the Nile" Following in the steps of "The Night Nile / Beware Apophis!" 54 "The Blessed Fields of Amenti" Another beautiful, easy room. 55 "The Carnival's macabre fence" I love what Daniel has done with this room. 56 "Judgement of the Gods" I had a lot of fun creating the sprites for the Enead, the nine main gods of Egypt. 57 "Hall of Osiris/ Enthronement" Beautiful. 58 "The Marine World" My homage to Manic Miners' "Cold Storage". Ah, those penguins and those ice cream paddles... 59 "Don't feed the Sharks!" A horrible pun. Yes, I know. It refers to "Jumping the shark" and "Don't feed the Trolls!" 60 "Can you see the whole Carnival?" We have come to the end of the road. As I said last time, I hope you will enjoy playing this game as much as I enjoyed creating it and my other two games, "Willy's Afterlife" and "A Bulgarian Requiem". If you feel curious about any of the things mentioned in the game, please contact me at: adban@wanadoo.es OR alqamar.alaswad@gmail.com The copyright of the game engine, and all other registered stuff, belongs to their respective owners. Most of the graphics are of my own creations; all others are taken from JSW or Manic Miner (by Matthew Smith). You are free to take anything from this game, but it would be cool if you were to contact me beforehand.