Video games - Manic Miner

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	Video games - Manic Miner

Manic Miner is a classic platform game originally written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith and released by Bug-Byte in 1983 (later re-released by Software Projects). It is the first game in the Miner Willy series.

Gameplay

At the time, its stand-out features included in-game music and sound effects, excellent playability, and colourful graphics, which were well designed for the graphical limitations of the ZX Spectrum.

The plot

Miner Willy, while prospecting down Surbiton way, stumbles upon an ancient, long forgotten mine-shaft. On further exploration, he finds evidence of a lost civilisation far superior to our own, which used automata to dig deep into the 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.

The objective

In each of the twenty caverns are several flashing keys, which you must collect before your oxygen supply runs out. Once you have collected the keys in one cavern, you must then go to the now-flashing portal, which will take you to the next cavern. You must avoid enemies like Poisonous Pansies, Spiders, Slime, and Manic Mining Robots.

The game ends when you have been captured by an enemy or fallen heavily three times.

Cheats

The Bug-Byte version - Type in 6031769 (Matthew Smith's phone number at the time he wrote the game).
The Software Projects version - Type in TYPEWRITER.

: Both of these allow you to flick between caverns by holding down various combinations of numbers. Use key 9 (for the Software Projects version) or 6 (for the Bug-Byte version) + combinations of 1 to 5, which actually correspond to the binary number of the cavern (Where is the Central Cavern), e.g. 00001 (i.e. 6 + 1) = The Cold Room, 10010 (i.e. 6 + 5 + 2) = Solar Power Generator, etc.

: 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 reveal its secret so that people couldn't cheat at the competition.

You can also POKE 35136,0 for infinite lives in the Bug-Byte version, or POKE 35142,0 in the Software Projects version.

The caverns

# Central Cavern # The Cold Room # The Menagerie # Abandoned Uranium Workings # Eugene's Lair # Processing Plant # The Vat # Miner Willy meets the Kong Beast # Wacky Amoebatrons # The Endorian Forest # Attack of the Mutant Telephones # Return of the Alien Kong Beast # Ore Refinery # Skylab Landing Bay # The Bank # The Sixteenth Cavern # The Warehouse # Amoebatrons' Revenge # Solar Power Generator # The Final Barrier

Version differences

There are some differences between the Bug-Byte and Software Projects versions. Obviously the scroll-text at the start is slightly different to reflect the different copyright. However, there are three more subtle changes.

# In Processing Plant, the enemy at the end of the conveyor belt is a bush in the original, whereas the Software Projects one looks different. # In Amoebatrons' Revenge, the amoebatrons in the original game look like alien octopuses, with tentacles hanging down, whereas the Software Projects ones resemble smiling beetles, with little legs up their sides. # In The Warehouse, the original game has threshers travelling up and down the vertical slots, rotating about the screen's 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.

Trivia

On the ZX Spectrum this was the first game with in-game music.
The in-game music is In the Hall of the Mountain King from Edvard Grieg's music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt. The music that plays during the title screen is An der schönen Blauen Donau (popularly known as The Blue Danube), a waltz by Johann Strauß. Both pieces were selected due to their royalty-free status.
On the ZX Spectrum flashing attributes were used to "animate" a 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. A homage to this loading-screen appeared in one episode of the 2005 British sitcom Nathan Barley.
Eugene's Lair is a joke directed at one of Matthew Smith's fellow programmers, Eugene Evans, who went on to work at Imagine Software.
Miner Willy meets the Kong Beast is a parody of the Donkey Kong games.
Presumably The Endorian Forest is from Star Wars.
The number of the "6031769" cheat is taken from Matthew Smith's phone number at the time he wrote the game.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Manic Miner ]

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