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Ever since the Spectrum classic Manic Miner took the nation by storm, excitement has been mounting over the promised follow-up. It took ages to come. But it's here at last. And it's sensational. Jet Set Willy doesn't simply offer more of Miner Willy's whacky exploits, it brings an entirely new game idea to Britain's micros.

Just suppose that after gaining fabulous wealth from his mine, Miner Willy decides to build himself a fabulous seaside mansion featuring no less than 60 rooms and other locations.

Suppose that each of these locations was a kind of obstacle course filling the entire screen and featuring platforms, swinging ropes, conveyor belts and a large number of bizarre creatures to be avoided at all costs.

And just suppose that Willy has to move round this mansion collecting objects from each room. Yes, you guessed. That's the scenario of Jet Set Willy.

The game starts with Willy in the bath after a mad party. You're told that all he wants to do is go to bed. But there, barring the way to the bed stands Willy's Housekeeper Maria.

What a vast and marvellous creature he is. She stands there tapping her foot, and if Willy moves toward her she raises one arm in a gesture whose meaning is unmistakable: 'You may not pass.' Why not? Because the mansion is in a mess after the party.

So before Willy can get to bed he must go around the entire place collecting all the dirty glasses and other objects littering the rooms. Off he sets on a task which turns out to be rather a lot to expect from a chap suffering a hangover. The major criticism of Manic Miner was that, despite its 20 different fun-packed screens of action, you could get frustrated by having to work through the screens in the same order each time. You would reach a new screen, rapidly lose your lives, and then have to spend 20 minutes getting back there again.

Jet Set Willy's brilliance is that you can take the action any which way you like. Most of the locations have several different entrances and you can wander into and out of a room without necessarily risking your life to collect the objects it contains.

Of course, all the objects have to be collected in the end, but you can decide in what order you collect them. There is one exception to this, caused by a program bug. Entering the attic will make it fatal for you to try to enter certain other locations. You can still complete the game by reserving the attic until last - but it remains a significant blemish which Software Projects must correct as soon as possible.

I was able to find 50 of the 60 rooms without too much difficulty, and they're linked to each other in a logical way which makes it possible (indeed essential) to draw a map of the mansion.

Another feature which makes the game superior to Manic Miner, is that the action in each location is not necessarily self-contained.

For example, there is an object in a location called the Banyan Tree which seems impossible to reach, until you realise that to get it, you must use a different entrance. By looking at the map of the house which you've been drawing, you can see that the entrance must be reached through the ceiling of the West Kitchen.

Sure enough the West Kitchen does have a platform from which you could leap through the ceiling - but it's impossible to reach. To do so you have to go first to the Main Kitchen. And so it goes on.

In fact, what programmer Matthew Smith has done is to produce the first game which combines the zany action of the platform games with the complexity and intrigue of an adventure. When you take a walk through the mansion he's created you'll see why it's been months in the making. Not all of the 60 locations have the same complexity as the screens of Manic Miner, but the place is astonishing nonetheless.

Moving downstairs and east you will come across a ballroom, hall, front door, security guard, drive, a mega-tree, bridge and eventually an off-licence. To the west lie kitchens, a cold store, a tool shed, and eventually a beach and yacht. Elsewhere in the mansion you will find a swimming pool, wine cellar, attic, chapel and a series of roofs and battlements.

The action on the battlements is a take-off of the game Hunchback, complete with guards armed with spears flying arrows and swinging ropes. Buy Jet Set Willy, and you get Hunchback thrown in for nothing!

Special mention must be made of these ropes, which also appear in several other locations. They swing in the most realistic way you've ever seen and, as well as jumping on and off them, you can also climb up and down.

Incidentally, all of Willy's stupendous daredevil feats are achieved with the use of just three control keys - left, right and jump. No knotted fingers here.

In order to fit the program into 48K, the same creatures appear in several different locations. But they are still a remarkable collection, including chefs with waggling knives, rolling eggs, birds, grimacing faces, scorpions, rotating razor blades and a vacuum cleaner.

With this crew protecting the various objects, it's not surprising that Software Projects are offering a large amount of champagne and a helicopter encounter with Matthew to the first person who can collect them all and retire Willy to bed.

And in view of the huge piracy problem, it's also not surprising that they've included a clever protection scheme in which you have to enter a colour code off a card before you can start the game. The idea is that it's harder to copy the card than to copy the program, but easy to imagine people buying the game, losing the card, and getting very, very annoyed.

That's a risk you'll have to take because this game is one you simply can't afford to miss. Enter Willy's mansion. And begin the whackiest, craziest adventure of your life.

You may not believe this, but Jet Set Willy's 18-year-old programmer Matthew Smith has never come anywhere near collecting all the game's objects. Mind you, he's never been through all screens in Manic Miner either. "The furthest I ever got was screen 12," he told PCG. "I program games. I don't play them."

Jet Set Willy was a marathon effort. While Manic Miner was completed in two months, its follow-up took more than six months to program.

"I was working about twelve hours a day, starting at 3pm. Sometimes I'd still be programming at 6am. Towards the end it was getting to be a bit of a chore, there was just so much to get in."

Matthew believes that the merging of arcade action into adventure-type plots is bound to continue, and already he's planned a third chapter in the Miner Willy saga called Miner Willy Meets The Tax Man. He intends it to have a mind-boggling 250 different screens.

But meanwhile, with massive sales of Jet Set Willy guaranteed, Matthew is no doubt preparing for his own encounter with the Inland Revenue.