Let’s Remake Manic Miner
Welcome to our first “Let’s Remake” series, where we look to rebuild classic Sinclair ZX Spectrum games using STOS Basic on the Atari ST. This series is inspired by the “Make A Thing” blog from Into the Vertical Blank, so I’d like to say a big thanks to Jeff for the kick in the pants to get me doing something for the STOS community once again.
Eh? What? Only the best darn platformer created on the Spectrum!
Yep! That’s right, you read it correctly. For our first project, we are going to attempt to remake Manic Miner. This isn’t just going to be an Atari ST version of Manic Miner. No, this is going to be a recreation of the ZX Spectrum game. We’re going to try and replicate the game as closely as possible, using the same screen resolution, the original graphics, and, depending on how we get on, perhaps some of the original sounds.
Is it a difficult project? Not really, but it’s certainly going to be fun trying, and at the end of it, we should hopefully have a very playable game that has entertained generations of children and adults alike. Is the code going to be genius? Certainly not! I’ve not written anything properly in STOS for almost 30 years, so we’re kinda going to be making some of the code up as we go along.
We’re going to initially focus on Central Cavern, which is the first level of the iconic game. However, the tools we build and put in place will allow us to easily add the additional levels.
No Copyright Infringement Intended
Obviously, it goes without saying that this project is in no way intended to infringe on the copyright of Manic Miner (who is the copyright holder? Both Bug-Byte and Software Projects are long gone!)
It is meant as a training aid to deconstruct the game mechanics and let a new generation of STOS programmers understand what goes into a game and how they work. If you are the copyright holder, please do get in touch if you feel that you need me to remove any of this content, and I will happily oblige.
All the source code for this project will be available on my GitHub site, which will be listed later in the series.
So, let’s get to it…
Episode #1 – What is Manic Miner?
Episode #3 – Making Willy Walk