Working on Manic Miner in Scratch

[MtM]

I just had a go of this now. No criticism intended, but does not seem in the spirit of the original, which was simple enough, and held your hand enough for you to very soon observe how it all worked, then you could continue playing and learn how to get better at it. Also, there seemed to be a bug, on about the 5th or 6th level, MW kept walking to the right even though I was not pressing anything or on a conveyor etc. Modern games come with tutorials - but hard to see why MM needs one - the paragraph of instructions on the inlay card was enough for most games in those days. However, I envy your ability to create such a thing, and hopefully you can go on to create more MW content with your skills, just my opinion of course, and hopefully a measured one.

 

As I say, not a criticism, I commend your efforts they are really impressive.

Edited January 4 by MtM

[manic986]

2 hours ago, MtM said:

I just had a go of this now. No criticism intended, but does not seem in the spirit of the original, which was simple enough, and held your hand enough for you to very soon observe how it all worked, then you could continue playing and learn how to get better at it. Also, there seemed to be a bug, on about the 5th or 6th level, MW kept walking to the right even though I was not pressing anything or on a conveyor etc. Modern games come with tutorials - but hard to see why MM needs one - the paragraph of instructions on the inlay card was enough for most games in those days. However, I envy your ability to create such a thing, and hopefully you can go on to create more MW content with your skills, just my opinion of course, and hopefully a measured one.

 

As I say, not a criticism, I commend your efforts they are really impressive.

Hi @MtM - no problem whatsoever. Thanks for giving it a go. I've played it through several times now in testing and haven't come across that particular issue yet. Will keep my eyes out for it. It is probably not level related.

Totally understand about it not being in the spirit of the original. Mostly it's an experiment to see what will happen and if people will revisit the original where they may have given up before. I personally have friends who can't get past the yellow windup robot on the first level for some reason that I can't understand 🙂  I'm also hoping to draw some scratch kids into thinking that they can use my engine to make their own MM levels to see where that might go.  

[manic986]

Btw, I should add that the last few levels should be fun and look more like a Manic Miner game.

Also, my 8 year old just found an issue on the iPad where Miner Willy keeps walking right. It is basically caused by the mouse controls where the mouse, touch pad or touch screen is pressed on screen but it never gets unclicked as the pointer/focus is moved off screen before it was released. That is those silly mouse controls that are mostly sticky tape. Perhaps that was the same issue you found also. I can see it happening easily on some laptops. Could also be something else though I guess.

[MtM]

Yes that is it exactly with what happened to me, but I was playing on a pc through firefox, but perhaps I lost focus on firefox somehow. I will re-visit and try and get to the later screens. Apologies, I wasn't entirely happy with what I typed, it seemed a bit negative which I didn't mean it to be, as I say, your efforts are terrific with what you have created.

[manic986]

@MtM - Thanks. No problem honestly.

Btw. the game starts in infinite lives mode and just counts deaths. You can also press "d" on the title screen to switch the badly named "death mode" off and instead have 5 spare lives to complete all 20 levels. This should be pretty doable for folks on here I would imagine and shouldn't take that long. It's about 8 minutes or so if you don't lose any lives and know your way through the levels.

 

[SymbolShift]

I just gave 101 a try! I love the concept and it's originality.

It's basically MM training, that helps you practice and familiarize yourself with certain principles of the game. If you have never played MM before, I can see how this could be very useful (before being thrown in the deep end with the actual game!).

[manic986]

On 1/12/2025 at 2:14 AM, SymbolShift said:

I just gave 101 a try! I love the concept and it's originality.

It's basically MM training, that helps you practice and familiarize yourself with certain principles of the game. If you have never played MM before, I can see how this could be very useful (before being thrown in the deep end with the actual game!).

Thanks @SymbolShift. Happy to hear that you enjoyed it. Did you play it through?

[SymbolShift]

8 hours ago, manic986 said:

Thanks @SymbolShift. Happy to hear that you enjoyed it. Did you play it through?

No, I got as far as "Leave yourself an escape route", which I think is close to the end. Unfortunately I hit the stop button at the top of the game thinking it would pause, but it restarted, totally my fault. I burnt through most of my lives in the "timing" room, which is something I clearly don't have!

[manic986]

8 hours ago, SymbolShift said:

No, I got as far as "Leave yourself an escape route", which I think is close to the end. Unfortunately I hit the stop button at the top of the game thinking it would pause, but it restarted, totally my fault. I burnt through most of my lives in the "timing" room, which is something I clearly don't have!

Ah yes. I have done that before... I always move my mouse away these days just in case. I quite like that escape route level though. Thanks for playing!