Manic Miner Redux

[AukonDK]

Got it working on the Steam Deck. I unpacked the exe and repacked for Linux. The unpack was missing sounds so I replaced what I could. Also I needed to add -f to the command to force a fullscreen.

This has inspired me to dig out my old projects. Not sure if I'll stick with Love2d or give Godot a try this time but your version certainly shows it's possible to keep that Speccy feel in a Godot project.

Edited September 18, 2023 by AukonDK

[DigitalDuck]

6 hours ago, AukonDK said:

Got it working on the Steam Deck. I unpacked the exe and repacked for Linux. The unpack was missing sounds so I replaced what I could. Also I needed to add -f to the command to force a fullscreen.

This has inspired me to dig out my old projects. Not sure if I'll stick with Love2d or give Godot a try this time but your version certainly shows it's possible to keep that Speccy feel in a Godot project.

I was literally just building for Linux myself - probably worth mentioning that I've done literally zero testing on this so it'll work if Godot "just works" and not otherwise. I guess you're my guinea pig for this... :D

The Speccy feel was important for me - it's worth noting that I've deliberately not tried to keep 100% faithful to Spectrum capabilities (obviously it can handle more on screen at a higher refresh rate, there's no colour clash or limit on which colours or how many colours can be used, and the music and sound effects are all pure audio files that could be anything), but for me the key things that give it that feel is the low resolution (fixed at 256x128 for levels and 256x192 for the display in general), the limited colour count at any one time (even if it's not true Spectrum colours, it still feels right if you don't have too many and too similar colours on-screen at once), single-colour sprites, and of course the border.

I feel like you can get away with some things being "wrong" if enough things are right, and at the end of the day I also want enough flexibility eventually for some crazier stuff, so the only things that are truly fixed are the resolution and single border colour - everything else is up for change depending on the level.

Anyway, Linux build attached, as I said no idea if it works or not. It's just the August build re-exported (current version is not buildable, I'm making a few major changes).

ManicMinerRedux11_Linux.zip

[AukonDK]

18 hours ago, DigitalDuck said:

Anyway, Linux build attached, as I said no idea if it works or not. It's just the August build re-exported (current version is not buildable, I'm making a few major changes).

Working fine on my desktop and Deck. 👍

On the subject of colours, everytime I was trying to create a format for my levels I would be torn between using a normal table index to say what tile was in each spot or to use the attribute value like the original. The former gives more flexibility but the latter both made it easier to port over the original levels but also forced each tile to have unique colours.

There were lots of things like that; do I write it with modern functions and hope it feels the same or do I try to step through the assembly and do everything the same, bitwise transformations and all. Some of them, once I got my head around what was happening, seemed so clever it was a shame to replace them.

[DigitalDuck]

12 hours ago, AukonDK said:

Working fine on my desktop and Deck. 👍

On the subject of colours, everytime I was trying to create a format for my levels I would be torn between using a normal table index to say what tile was in each spot or to use the attribute value like the original. The former gives more flexibility but the latter both made it easier to port over the original levels but also forced each tile to have unique colours.

Good news, should be seamless in the future then.

I explicitly wanted the ability to have different tiles use the same colour scheme - other ports of the game (plus JSW2/+) allow for this, and it means you can do monochrome levels, fake blocks, and other interesting things. Generally speaking for every choice like that I'm picking "the one that gives more options".

[JianYang]

On 9/18/2023 at 4:16 PM, DigitalDuck said:

I guess you're my guinea pig for this... :D

You have another one now.

 

Great work!

 

Except for the graphical differences and the extra levels (which both are great) so far I cannot say that this feels at all different from the originals with all settings on Smith/Original.

 

Despite me starting to nitpick on some minor things that keep this from being my perfect version of Manic Miner a few words from now, even if you never release another version this is going to keep me entertained for the rest of my life.

 

I love the short delay at the beginning of the levels that give me enough time to get my fingers off the keyboard and prevent the usual MM-multi-death, but it could be a little longer (2x-3x) to give me time to put the right fingers back on the keys.

 

I also love the option of giving Willy an outline, but I have 2 issues with the implementation:

- The outline shouldn't go below Willy's feet. That just looks odd on the ground and rarely helps. A compromise could be a partial outline when standing/walking and a full outline when jumping/falling.

- I would love a colour option "background." A black outline looks great in levels with black background, but way too heavy against other background colours.

 

I don't think it's possible to collect the first item in "The Pink People Eaters" with all settings on Smith/Original. I had no problem with the level on defaults. Checking if Item Collect is set to Smith and either skipping the level or moving the item up one character (one pixel might be enough, but that would probably feel wrong) could maybe fix that.

 

There was one weird issue I had a few times, but I cannot reproduce it intentionally and it only happened randomly when playing. When right ("p") is pressed while dying and I keep it it pressed and press jump ("m") after death the game would sometimes forget that right is pressed and just jump up. This happened most often in "Tokyo Uh Oh." This might just be the one issue with godot on Linux. Everything else feels rock solid.

 

I feel you could improve on the first impression. The "If in doubt, just press ENTER now" message made me go to presets, where I played the original preset. "This is great. It feels just like the original."

 

Then I wanted to see some different levels, so I thought redux long is probably a mix of classic and alternative levels and I just played the classics. So I decided to play redux short hoping it would be only the alt levels. "Why did I think this feels authentic? This feels like JSW2."

 

So I finally played redux long and 30 levels in (70 total) I felt completely exhausted and decided to take a break. And then I looked through all the menu options and found everything I could have hoped for. At that point I would have loved the option to change the settings and continue my game.

 

I think most people who will try this game are enthusiastic about the original, but after 40 years hope for a little change. So I think if you nudge the first time user towards a certain preset, original physics (I guess the slight speed up to 15fps would be fine) + graphic enhancements (outline) + redux long level set would give the best impression with most users. But don't take my word for it, ask around this forum.

 

Anyway thank you so much for making my new favorite game.

 

[DigitalDuck]

17 hours ago, JianYang said:

Despite me starting to nitpick on some minor things that keep this from being my perfect version of Manic Miner a few words from now, even if you never release another version this is going to keep me entertained for the rest of my life.

 Well there's definitely going to be another version, especially considering one of the things you've mentioned... 

17 hours ago, JianYang said:

I love the short delay at the beginning of the levels that give me enough time to get my fingers off the keyboard and prevent the usual MM-multi-death, but it could be a little longer (2x-3x) to give me time to put the right fingers back on the keys.

I tried to get a good balance - when the delay is too long it becomes frustrating waiting for it to start again. Redux mode adds a short invincibility period at the start of every level to help.

17 hours ago, JianYang said:

I also love the option of giving Willy an outline, but I have 2 issues with the implementation:

- The outline shouldn't go below Willy's feet. That just looks odd on the ground and rarely helps. A compromise could be a partial outline when standing/walking and a full outline when jumping/falling.

- I would love a colour option "background." A black outline looks great in levels with black background, but way too heavy against other background colours.

I can add both of these as options.

17 hours ago, JianYang said:

I don't think it's possible to collect the first item in "The Pink People Eaters" with all settings on Smith/Original. I had no problem with the level on defaults. Checking if Item Collect is set to Smith and either skipping the level or moving the item up one character (one pixel might be enough, but that would probably feel wrong) could maybe fix that.

Having checked myself, this appears to be true. I don't have any issue with tiny modifications to levels to make this happen (I've moved an item up a cell in one of the other levels for the same reason, as well as reversing a conveyor direction), so I'll probably just move the item up one cell to make it work.

17 hours ago, JianYang said:

There was one weird issue I had a few times, but I cannot reproduce it intentionally and it only happened randomly when playing. When right ("p") is pressed while dying and I keep it it pressed and press jump ("m") after death the game would sometimes forget that right is pressed and just jump up. This happened most often in "Tokyo Uh Oh." This might just be the one issue with godot on Linux. Everything else feels rock solid.

Unfortunately I can't reproduce this myself. I'll keep a lookout for it though.

17 hours ago, JianYang said:

I feel you could improve on the first impression. The "If in doubt, just press ENTER now" message made me go to presets, where I played the original preset. "This is great. It feels just like the original."

 

Then I wanted to see some different levels, so I thought redux long is probably a mix of classic and alternative levels and I just played the classics. So I decided to play redux short hoping it would be only the alt levels. "Why did I think this feels authentic? This feels like JSW2."

 

So I finally played redux long and 30 levels in (70 total) I felt completely exhausted and decided to take a break. And then I looked through all the menu options and found everything I could have hoped for. At that point I would have loved the option to change the settings and continue my game.

 

I think most people who will try this game are enthusiastic about the original, but after 40 years hope for a little change. So I think if you nudge the first time user towards a certain preset, original physics (I guess the slight speed up to 15fps would be fine) + graphic enhancements (outline) + redux long level set would give the best impression with most users. But don't take my word for it, ask around this forum.

I'm still experimenting with the way the modes are laid out, it's likely to be very different next time. I wanted "original" to be the first impression because I know a lot of people interested in this are going to be coming from the original and want to make sure that it plays authentically. I personally think the Redux settings improve the feel of the game, but as you've said it doesn't feel as authentic.

17 hours ago, JianYang said:

Anyway thank you so much for making my new favorite game.

Thanks for playing!

Edited September 30, 2023 by DigitalDuck

[JianYang]

On 9/30/2023 at 3:21 PM, DigitalDuck said:

Having checked myself, this appears to be true. I don't have any issue with tiny modifications to levels to make this happen (I've moved an item up a cell in one of the other levels for the same reason, as well as reversing a conveyor direction), so I'll probably just move the item up one cell to make it work.

The bottom right item in the same level with the same settings is also not collectible.

[DigitalDuck]

8 hours ago, JianYang said:

The bottom right item in the same level with the same settings is also not collectible.

Hmmmm. For that one I'll probably have to lower the spikes to keep the intended behaviour.

[JianYang]

About the level: IMO the point of that level is that it has two items that are really hard to collect. If you now make both items easy to collect, I'm not sure if there is a point in keeping that level. There seem to be several good levels that are not yet used in the level set. Just my thoughts. Feel free to ignore them.

 

Edit: Forget the idiocy above. I just moved the item up and removed the rightmost spike and still died 29(!) times before getting through the level. That's far from trivial.

On another note. I finally read this thread. You mentioned somewhere something about wanting speccyfied versions of the SAM sprites. I tried my hands at two of them (The Office, The Freezer)

If you're interested I might make a few more. If not, I don't see myself as artist or designer, so you can just say no without hurting my feelings.

Edited October 2, 2023 by JianYang
When you assume you make an ass out of you and me.

[DigitalDuck]

13 hours ago, JianYang said:

On another note. I finally read this thread. You mentioned somewhere something about wanting speccyfied versions of the SAM sprites. I tried my hands at two of them (The Office, The Freezer)

If you're interested I might make a few more. If not, I don't see myself as artist or designer, so you can just say no without hurting my feelings.

The train is pretty good and also very useful as it's one of the more commonly used sprites. As it stands the game doesn't reasonably support the train because I was mainly focusing on supporting the original game's, so they'd have to be two cells wide at all times while moving horizontally; that said, next version will support these just fine and I'd love to use them basically as-is.

I'm not overly fond of the other sprite, mainly the way they're filled, but I think it's fixable. I'm not sure what it was ever supposed to be, but that makes it a fairly normal Manic Miner sprite.

 

For what it's worth, the best way to get a feel for the "point" of a level is to play the original level - the SAM Coupe version of Manic Miner has "lenient" nasty collisions so you're not intended to die when you land on the collapsing platform touching the spike, only once that platform has been spent. That's why I feel that lowering the spikes into the ground is the better solution - it keeps the movement through the level as intended without creating an option that wasn't there in the original game.