MANIC MINER (c)1983 Software Projects Ltd Converted for the C64 by Chris and Kris Lancaster from the original Spectrum program by Matthew Smith -------------------------------------------------------- "Guide Miner Willy through twenty lethal caverns..." CATEGORY: Platform THE STORY --------- Miner Willy, while prospecting down Surbiton way, stumbles upon an ancient, long forgotten mineshaft. On further exploration, he finds evidence of a lost civilisation far superior to our own, which used automatons to dig deep into Earth's core to supply the essential raw materials for their advanced industry. After centuries of peace and prosperity, the civilisation was torn apart by war, and lapsed into a long dark age, abandoning their industry and machines. Nobody, however, thought to tell the mine robots to stop working, and through countless aeons they had steadily accumulated a huge stockpile of valuable metals and minerals, and Miner Willy realises that he now has the opportunity to make his fortune by finding the underground store. Aim of the game Miner Willy is trying to strike it rich and collect all the keys to the mine in which he works. This is his first appearance, we shall see him again in "Jet Set Willy," also a conversion for the C64. GAME PLAY --------- In each of the twenty caverns are several flashing keys, which you must collect before your oxygen supply runs out. Having collected the keys in one cavern you must then go to the exit to go on to the next one. You must avoid nasties like POISONOUS PANSIES, SPIDERS and SLIME, and worst of all, MANIC MINING ROBOTS. When you have all the keys, you can enter the portal which will now be flashing. The game ends when you have been 'gotten' or fallen heavily three times. CONTROLS -------- Use Joystick in Port two - or the following keys: Q, E, T, U or O = MOVE LEFT W, R, Y, I or P = MOVE RIGHT SHIFT or SPACE = JUMP Other keys: A = Pause on. S = Pause off. L = Music on. K = Music off. Remember C64 version added keys: <- (back arrow) = Quit to menu. RUN/STOP = Try level again. ----------------------------------------------------- Comments "The all-time classic of arcade games on the Spectrum." (Sinclair User) Now This was the game that spawned a thousand clones on the Spectrum. MM was the original ladders and levels game from which all others are (reputedly) descended and is, needless to say, a classic for the Spectrum World. For Spectrum aficion- ados it is still considered surprisingly playable, even if the theme tune is unforgivably bad... Of course, outside the Spectrum, such a limited color game cannot compare with the beautiful platform games which existed already on the C64, that only Nintendo and Sega 10 years later could match (at a much higher price)[Remember the fight by Nintendo about "Giana Sisters" by Rainbow Arts, as it was a clone of Super Mario Brothers, better than the Nintendo game, as well as "Mayhem", the Sega Sonic clone on the C64 which left Sonic in the dust!]. In the C64 world Manic Miner is definitely a louse, and certainly not a classic. It is in fact telling that many well-known programmers started their hands on the Spectrum (and produced lousy games first...) only to discover the limitations of the machine and switch to the C64. It is also amazing to consider a software house like Codemasters having persisted in making such platform games on the Spectrum until at least 1994! And people on the PC, Nintendo and Sega cartridge computers to this day still play the descendants of Manic Miner... How could that be, unless they know nothing about the C64? SEQUELS/PREQUELS The main follow up to Manic Miner was Jet Set Willy. A prequel came in the form of Miner 2049'er on the C64 and the TRS-80. This was by a different author (so Smith made in fact a clone!). At the top end of the code in the original Manic Miner game for the Spectrum is a command set for the TRS-DOS, which Matthew Smith used to develop both MM and JSW. **********************Spectrum Text************************** [C64 people: Maybe the cheats work on the C64 version...] CHEATS: The Bug-Byte version - Type in 6031769. The Software Projects version - Type in WRITETYPER. Both of these allow you to flick between rooms by holding down various combinations of numbers. Use key 9 (for the SP version) or 6 (for the BB version) + combinations of 1 to 5, which actually correspond to the binary code of the room number. 00001 [1] = The Central Cavern, 10010 [17] = The Warehouse etc... Be careful though as this gives more combinations than there is actual rooms, so if you use a combination that does not exist then it crashes the game. Note that when the cheat is enabled, a boot appears next to the lives at the bottom of the screen, and The Final Barrier does not revel its secret so that people couldn't cheat at the competition. You can also POKE 35136,0 for infinite lives. COMPLETING THE GAME When you jump into the exit of The Final Barrier (and you haven't used the 6031769 cheat) the door changes from an omega sign to a fish and dagger, one above the other, the answer being Swordfish. You were supposed to quote this in the competition (i.e. the first person to quote what happened at the end correctly must have won, though I don't remember ever seeing who did it, if anyone). Then the game then starts again from the beginning - in the true tradition of Spectrum Games. GENERAL FACTS: This was the first game with in-game music, namely In the Hall of the Mountain King from the play Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg. The music that plays during the title screen is "The Waltz of The Blue Danube" by Strauss This game was originally released by Bug-Byte, and then re-released by Software Projects. The reason for this is that Bug-Byte originally only had a contract to sell Manic Miner, they did not actually own it. So when Matthew Smith moved across to Software Projects, he took Manic Miner with him. There are some differences between the two versions. Obviously the scroll-text at the start changes slightly to reflect the different copyright in the Software Projects version. However, there are two subtle but interesting changes. 1. In Amoebatrons' Revenge, the amoebatrons look different between the two versions. The originals look like Octopuses, with tentacles hanging down, whereas the Software Projects ones look like sort of beetles, with little legs up their sides. 2. In The Warehouse, the original game has threshers travelling up and down the vertical slots, rotating about the screens X-axis. The Software Projects version has 'impossible triangle' sprites (i.e. the Software Projects logo) instead, which rotate about the screen's Z-axis. It used flashing attributes to provide an animated "Manic Miner" logo while loading. Although there was nothing clever about this as such, it was nevertheless the first game ever to have an animated loading screen. For those who are interested (everybody!) the names of the rooms are as follows: 1. Central Cavern 2. The Cold Room 3. The Menagerie 4. Abandoned Uranium Workings 5. Eugene's Lair 6. Processing Plant 7. The Vat 8. Miner Willy meets the Kong Beast 9. Wacky Amoebatrons 10.The Endorian Forest 11.Attack of the Mutant Telephones 12.Return of the Alien Kong Beast 13.Ore Refinery 14.Skylab Landing Bay 15.The Bank 16.The Sixteenth Cavern 17.The Warehouse 18.Amoebatrons' Revenge 19.Solar Power Generator 20.The Final Barrier Eugene's Lair is a jibe at one of Matthew Smith's fellow programmers (Eugene Jarvis?). Miner Willy meets the Kong Beast is a parody of the old Donkey Kong games. Presumably The Endorian Forest is from Star Wars. This is how to complete what is generally regarded as the most difficult screen in Manic Miner, The Warehouse: As soon as the level starts, walk right, until you're past the blue killer. Fall through quicksand until you can walk under the plant. Turn around and face the blue cat-track, falling through the sand as you go. Once you've fallen through the seventh quicksand, jump straight up twice, (which brings you into time with the cat-track,) then jump left, collecting the object, and go back up through the quicksand to the start platform. (This is a bit close, but you should make it!) Stand on the very edge of the start platform. Wait until both yellow and white cat-tracks have reached the top of the screen, and are moving down again - let the yellow one touch the bush. (This happens almost straight away. If you're not quick enough on the keys, wait a revolution before the cat-tracks align again.) Jump right, and fall through five blocks of quicksand. Jump right again, which should place you on the level so that you can either walk through the travelator, or on it. (If you do jump onto the travelator. Panic not. Keep on truckin'.) *Without pausing!* Walk right, collect the object as you go and fall into the pit that the white cat-track uses. Fall through one section, collecting the object. Jump right again, which will place you underneath the next object, and wait until you fall through a section of quicksand before jumping to collect the object. (Otherwise you clout yourself on the bush... Not nice!) Now just fall through the quicksand, collecting the final object as you go, until you land on the floor, go right, and jump up through the quicksand, until you reach the portal. Easy when you know how! [C64 people: Look at the text below, where is the C64?? I guess since you can't match it, you better ignore it!] Regarding different version across different computers, the following may be interesting: 1. The original Bug-Byte release on the Spectrum featured 'threshers' in the Warehouse. 2. The second Software Projects release on the Spectrum replaced the threshers with rotating Sofware Projects logos ('impossible' triangles), and there were other minor changes: the deadly bush in the Processing Plant became a ghost, the Amoebatrons in Amoebatrons' Revenge were different sprites, and I think some sprites changed in the Sixteenth Cavern too. 3. The BBC Micro version doesn't have the Solar Power Generator! Instead, it's got a completely different room called "The Meteor Shower". This has the "reflecting machines" from the Solar Power Generator but there's no beam of light; instead, it has meteors which descend from the top of the screen and disintegrate when they hit platforms, like the Skylabs in Skylab Landing Bay. It also has forcefields which turn on and off, and the layout is completely different. Then, the last screen (which is still called The Final Barrier) is very tricky (unlike the Spectrum version which was easy) and has a completely different layout. It also features the blinking forcefields. 4. The Amstrad version is effectively the same as the Spectrum version by Software Projects, except that (a) Eugene's Lair has been renamed "Eugene Was Here" for some reason, and the layout of The Final Barrier is again completely different (but it's more similar to the Spectrum version than the BBC version, which has nothing in common with the Spectrum version at all). 5. The Acorn RISC OS version of Manic Miner has a couple of extra screens after The Final Barrier, but that's not an official release by Software Projects (just something someone created as a public domain release) so it doesn't really count. 6. I heard that the Dragon 32 version had a couple of extra rooms at the end (i.e. 22 altogether), but I don't know if that's true. I believe, though, that the two extra rooms in the RISC OS version are copied from it (though I can't now find evidence of this). The significance of the number in the "6031769" cheat is that it was Matthew Smith's number at the time he wrote the game. Please do not phone it any more however, since the owners of this number are fed up of people phoning them. NOTES: From a Spectrum aficionado: "Probably the most legendary Spectrum game ever. Even today programmers have trouble matching the devious design and incredible variety of imagination in the levels." This aficionado of course knows nothing of the C64... -END-