WIP: Manic Miner port

[Kweepa]

Game is complete (for VIC-20 with 16k expansion):

Screenshot:


Download: http://www.kweepa.org/step/vic20/miner-20180201b.zip


Old thread begins here...

I was off work feeling sick for a few days so I thought I'd whip this up:

miner_20180111.zip

(9.53 KiB) Downloaded 803 times

Only the first 4 levels fit in 3.5k
Also, no sound, no air, no score... yet.

I think the best approach might be an 8k cart.

[beamrider]

Awesome, will take a look later.

Cart would be great (make sure it's gold plated though)

[tokra]

Perils of Willy was 16K on the VIC-20. Sadly, I suck at these games, could barely finish the first level. Looks very true to the original though.

[Kweepa]

I didn't like Perils of Willy.
I'm not sure why they replaced some of the enemy sprites with less charismatic ones.
Also the jumps are too wide, the music is dreary, and the levels haphazard.

I split the vertical and horizontal movement into different tick rates so that I could control the jump width and make it more like the original's screen ratio. I may have made jumping over the guardians slightly trickier
Also, currently the stalactite and bush collision is block-based, which is a shame.

Note: I said 'port' above but the code is all new, based solely on screenshots and videos of the game.
Note 2: The first level is rather tricky - Matt Smith has admitted that it doesn't fit the difficulty curve of the rest of the game.

[Mayhem]

As someone who has played the Speccy and C64 versions to death, I shall approach this with interest

[majikeyric]

looks very promising

[Ola H]

I thought Perils of Willy was a very fine version when it came out, but I agree about the dreary music. Also that the levels are much less visually distinctive and not as well-designed. Overall, it lacks the pleasant atmosphere and almost mystical sense of wonder that Manic Miner provides.

And, wow, your version seems nigh on perfect Looks just as good as the Speccy and C64 version and plays almost exactly the same, just seems a little bit faster (might be an illusion caused by the wider pixels). I also notice that it is possible to land between the shrubbery and brick platform mid screen, that is not possible on the C64 version, I don't know about the Speccy one. Played great in any case! I didn't find it harder than the C64 version.

An 8 k cart with all the levels, sound and music would be like a dream come true! (But Speccy tune, please, just better sounding I never understood the deal with the C64 tune - it sounds like someone took an abbreviated version of The Hall Of The Mountain King and shuffled the beats and bars at random... Very strange, yet I have some nostalgic affection for it

[beamrider]

Suggestion: When you do the tune, consider using the recently posted 10-bit accuracy code to prevent it sounding off key...

[Kweepa]

Speed - I may need to play around with the speed, since it'll be even faster on NTSC.
Shrub - yes, I noticed I could get into that gap. It's a little different but it doesn't affect the gameplay, so I didn't worry about it.
Music - I intend to use Aleksi's method for more on-key music. I used something similar, but slightly less sophisticated, in Doom.

[hasseapa]

I had played a pirated copy of Manic Miner extensively on my dad's C64 before I bought Perils of Willy for my VIC, so I was well aware that the VIC-version was inferior but I still treasured it and - to this day - I think it is a very impressive VIC-game.

My main issues are the repetitive (and less imaginative) enemies, the lack of text descriptions/names for each level, and a never changing black background color. Together they make the levels much more forgettable regardless of actual level design.

So I can absolutely see the value in a proper port/conversion. Manic Miner may be very different from what the platform genre eventually evolved to, but it is still an ageless classic and your port plays great. Personally I don’t mind a slightly “too fast” version at all.

[beamrider]

Just had a play. Good job!

I've haven't played the original (never having owned a spectrum) so looking forward to the completed game.

[Floopy]

The reason why we still run NTSC television signals in the US is because it's so great we don't need to replace it.

(Just kidding where I live I don't even get internet (except dial up). Every time I travel to Europe I'm amazed at all the great stuff there is over there)

[Kweepa]

I remembered one other thing about Perils of Willy that bugs me - the flickering sprites. Ugh.

[srowe]

Gah! I'd forgotten how f*cking hard that first level was! That's far, far superior to the Perils of Willy.

[polluks]

I agree, we need a "true" port