Manic Miner Apple II

[JianYang]

https://github.com/StewBC/mminer-apple2

 

This seems to have been around for almost a year, but I couldn't find any mention in this forum.

 

[MtM]

Welcome to the forum JianYang, you have reached the highest level of MM & JSW expertise in the world here,

excluding myself of course.

 

I remember seeing this on the Spectrum Computing forums I think about a year or so ago, very impressive remake, especially

considering the resolution issues. I haven't played it though so I do not know what it plays like, have you?

 

Anyway, welcome again. This forum is a very friendly place, not mad busy but very helpful.

 

Tell a lie, I think it was Indie Retro News. I have definitely seen it before though.

 

http://www.indieretronews.com/search?q=manic+miner+apple+ii

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by MtM

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for posting this, JianYang! 👍

A 1983 game ported to a 1977 computer platform in 2020. This is a great testimony to the immortality of "Manic Miner" 🙂.

[JianYang]

3 hours ago, MtM said:

I haven't played it though so I do not know what it plays like, have you?

I tried. I have a working (I think) Apple II emulator on my machine, but I only get into some weird monitor program and I have no idea how to continue from there.

 

[Spider]

6 hours ago, JianYang said:

I tried. I have a working (I think) Apple II emulator on my machine, but I only get into some weird monitor program and I have no idea how to continue from there.

I had similar issues getting an Atom emulator to work, it just would not behave properly.

There may be a MESS variant of an Apple II emulator to try, although my (now a few years old) initial experience of MESS was not great, much preferring separate emulators for each platform where possible.

I'll see if I can do anything with the above and with a spot of luck post something here too later today or tomorrow 🙂

EDIT... A cursory glance at the G.H shows it -might- be necessary to build the game from the sources. I can see the huge value in providing these and its a credit to the author however for those just "wanting to try it" a ready built snapshot / memory image / media image would be helpful.

🙂

Edited February 22, 2021 by Spider

[JianYang]

1 hour ago, Spider said:

I had similar issues getting an Atom emulator to work, it just would not behave properly.

There may be a MESS variant of an Apple II emulator to try, although my (now a few years old) initial experience of MESS was not great, much preferring separate emulators for each platform where possible.

I'll see if I can do anything with the above and with a spot of luck post something here too later today or tomorrow 🙂

EDIT... A cursory glance at the G.H shows it -might- be necessary to build the game from the sources. I can see the huge value in providing these and its a credit to the author however for those just "wanting to try it" a ready built snapshot / memory image / media image would be helpful.

🙂

I expressed myself poorly.

 

It's not that I have an a2 emulator that works fine and I just cannot get this game to work. It's that I have a vague memory of at some point, after reading Hackers for the 100th time, running Mystery House in an emulator successfully. The only a2 emulator I can find on my system is kegs and I can start it, I see that the virtual Mystery House disk is still there, but I have no idea how to load the game. All I see is the Apple ROM monitor program, and I have no idea how to load a disk from there.

 

Maybe that's how it's supposed to be and I just don't know how to proceed from there. Maybe I succeeded with another emulator that I cannot find right now.

 

It's certainly not the lack of a disk image, because

a) it's here: https://github.com/StewBC/mminer-apple2/releases/tag/V1.0

and

b) I'm not even at that stage, because I gave up after I couldn't repeat my success of running Mystery House.

 

My memories of trying to get any emulation with MESS to work pretty much match yours.

I hope you have more luck than I had.

[JianYang]

Update:

I looked through my downloads and found an emulator called linapple. That worked right away.

Short review:

If you thought the music in the Spectrum version was annoying, you have to listen to the Apple version.

The game randomly changes speed and keys get randomly stuck. This might be a problem with the emulation. And even when the keyboard for a few seconds behaves like it should the distortion is bad enough to make it virtually unplayable. All of this together is so bad that I couldn't make it through Central Cavern and I don't really feel like I want to keep trying.

It's a technical accomplishment that deserves applause, but even if the speed changes and keyboard problems are all the emulator's fault, I don't think this version of MM would have convinced me of the greatness that is Manic Miner.

 

[Norman Sword]

I downloaded an emulator called MicroM8. Unzipped and ran prog. Dropped the disk file onto the window and it was running.

Runs at a decent speed. I did not play for long due to the auto movement routine that is incorporated into the game. 

If you press and hold any movement key the game runs at a reduced speed. So to play it is press right key to move wait for the jumps and press jump. Hit wall press left key and wait for jumps. Hit wall. Press right key and jump, wait for other jumps  and die ==== could not manage the return run on the top. 

 

I will not be persevering to get further.   

 

 

  

[JianYang]

42 minutes ago, Norman Sword said:

If you press and hold any movement key the game runs at a reduced speed. So to play it is press right key to move wait for the jumps and press jump.

You are absolutely right. After reading your comment I finally had the brilliant idea to read the documentation, and:

Quote

About the keys - The ZX Spectrum version requires keys to be held down to move. The Apple II doesn't have a concept of keys being held down. You only know when a key is pressed, not when it's released so you cannot tell what state a key is in. You can also only detect one key press at a time.

In order to make the game play with the key limitation, I use the keys as toggles. If you press P, Willy will start and keep walking, as though you are keeping the key down. Pressing P again will stop Willy, as though you had let go of the P key. My Apple IIe does have auto-repeat so actually holding down the P key has an undesirable effect of stutter-walking.

I also made the game remember keys so that you can anticipate a key-press (like you would steer early in Pac Man). This works very well but it can also cause grief. For example, if you press Jump while in a jump, but you land somewhere unexpected, you will still jump because of the stored anticipated jump. If, of course, you are quick enough, just pressing the key again before it activates would cancel the anticipation.

With that information I was able to reach Abandoned Uranium Workings. I guess if I were stranded on a lonely island with only an Apple II and this game I would probably get used to it. Until that happens I feel I'm done with this version.

 

[Spider]

I did not get chance (read: time) to do anything with this yesterday but I note its been "tested" now.

Emulation issues, well if possible its always worth trying another one. Although I cannot recall offhand which emulator it was, with one of the rare 'custom' CPC versions of Manic Miner the lower third of the screen flickered with a purple effect. Original game not effected (odd coding of third party tweaks in game perhaps) however other emulators worked OK. All I'm saying is display issues may be emulator related possibly given what they are trying to do.

The keyboard issue sounds very odd, I'm not sure if the Apple II has some kind of inbuilt keyboard buffer (Acorn style really) or such.

There may be a post on an Apple 'retro' forum with even more details and perhaps some direct feedback from the author about any issues. 🙂