About This File
"Times are tough for poor old Willy. Decades of excessive partying have taken their toll on his finances. Despite already having downsized his mansion in 'Jet Set Mini', he is finding it increasingly difficult to afford the cost of maintaining his home, and keeping his formidable housekeeper Maria in the style to which she has become accustomed!
And so, after dusting down his trusty hard hat, Miner Willy descends back into the subterranean realm where he first made his fortune 35 years ago. Emerging into the Central Cavern, he soon notices that things have changed somewhat since the last time he ventured down here..."
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'Manic Mixup' is a remix of Matthew Smith's classic ZX Spectrum 48K game 'Manic Miner', and is released in 2018, 35 years after the original game. It can be played on a real Spectrum, on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega/Vega+ or on a computer, games console or another device using a ZX Spectrum emulator.
The starting point for 'Manic Mixup' was an amalgamation of two projects by Dr Andrew Broad: his laterally-inverted version of 'Manic Miner' ('reniM cinaM') and Andrew's 2008 remix of 'Manic Miner'. Into this melting pot was poured a cluster of newly-designed special features, making 'Manic Mixup' quite unique amongst games based on the MM game engine.
Thematically, 'Manic Mixup' is a sequel to the authors' previous game 'Jet Set Mini', which was a modified version of 'Jet Set Willy' - that in itself being Matthew Smith's sequel to 'Manic Miner'. What a mixup!
All of the original caverns (and their perilous occupants) have had an overhaul in 'Manic Mixup', and the in-game music has been significantly enhanced. Furthermore, nearly all of the routines in the 'Manic Miner' game engine have been rewritten or redesigned for this project, for various reasons: to provide additional functionality (such as new sound and visual effects, and additional gameplay elements - including putting Willy's hard hat to good use!); to increase the efficiency of the code; and to fix various bugs in the original game engine.
However, the essence of this 8-bit, 48K game will be very familiar to devotees of 'Manic Miner'. We hope it gives you 'unalloyed pleasure'!
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UPDATE: A minor visual bug during the title screen sequence has just come to light, which crept in because of a tweak to the routine which plays the title tune ('The Blue Danube' by Johann Strauss II).
When a single note is played, only one piano key is supposed to be lit up (whereas two keys are highlighted simultaneously whenever a chord of two notes is played). The rewritten routine caused two adjacent piano keys to light up when a single note was played.
This bug during the title screen sequence has now been fixed, and the corrected game file re-uploaded. This change does not alter the gameplay of 'Manic Mixup' in any way.