Manic Miner
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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Story 

During a geophysical prospection, Miner Willy discovers an ancient mine shaft. After taking a closer look, he finds hints to a civilization, which was further developed than ours, and which had used unknown means to drill deep into the core of the Earth, to reach resources for their highly developed industry. Interestingly, the mine robots had not stopped their work and that way accumulated a big supply of valuable metals and minerals. Miner Willy realizes, that he now has the chance of his life. He just needs to find the storage places of these treasures and then make it safe back to daylight... 

 Course of the game 

In this Jump&Run game Miner Willy needs to collect coloured and flashing items as keys, stars or balls, which are scattered on the platforms of 20 different caves, to get to the next level. In any case, he needs to avoid touching poisonous plants, sharp items, spiders, mud and above all the most dangerous enemies, the bugged out mine robots. Furthermore ways over fragile material and moving floors need the be overcome. In some levels he additionally needs to pull levers to remove wall parts. The game ends, if Willy has died three times, to this also count deep falls. 

 Design 

A very "early" game from the beginning time of the C64. The graphics of the levels seem a bit unicoloured, but the animation of Willy and his enemies are fluent. The level buildup is well-thought-out. The simple sounds seem monotonuous in the long run. 

 Controls 

Q , E , T , U  or O  = move left 
W , R , Y , I  or P  = move right 
SHIFT  or SPACE  = jump 

Or use the joystick in port#2 

A  = pause on 
S  = pause off 
L  = music on 
K  = music off 

additionally in the crack by Remember 

←  = abort game and back to menu 
RUN/STOP  = restart current level 

 Solution 

Tips: 
 Floors that dissolve after walking over them can be recgonized most of the time by a different colour or structure than normal floors. 

 Critics 

H.T.W: "This veteran of the platform games is simple but nevertheless ingenious. You see in the graphics that the ZX Spectrum was the inspiration for it, but the animation of the sprites is fluent. The levels are built up well-thought-out and get harder during the game. You need pixel exact jumping and this also with the pressure of time. A nice game from the starting time of the C64." 

Robotron2084: "Manic Miner, that is borderline graphics, which is dishonourable to the C64, annoying background music in permanent loop and an inhuman difficulty grade. Hard stuff for true platform fanatics, who seek a real challenge after Jumpman. For me personally Manic Miner is simply too stressful. 5 out of 10 points." 

 Miscellaneous 

There is a cc65 remake by Stefan Wessels available.

Sequel

There was an unreleased sequel to Manic Miner called Mattie Goes Mining. The idea for this title was to improve upon the Commodore 64 version of Manic Miner. This may have included the use of multi-color graphics and other graphical or sonic improvements. There was once a news article about the title (the source is unknown) which says that the game was at an "advanced state" at the time of the article. They stated that there would be "many improvements" to the original game to take advantage of the Commodore 64. That was all that was ever heard of the game, and it never surfaced anywhere. Just who was developing the title is unknown as well.


http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Manic_Miner
