Manic Miner
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Miner Willy’s Back!!!
Revelation presents everybody’s favourite platform game, the classic MANIC MINER. This brand new version has been programmed by a newcomer to the Sam games scene Matthew Holt and is now three times bigger than the original versions with 40 totally new “caverns” with wierd and wonderful titles such as “Trainspotter’s Paradise”, “The Haunted House” and “The Twilight Zone”. All of the original 20 levels are there as well!
Manic Miner features Sam quality graphics and a super stereo soundtrack courtesy of Czech programming ace František Fuka.
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Crash Issue 98 review, courtesy of spectrumcomputing.co.uk
Your Sinclair review, (Recovered) courtesy of the YS Rock 'n' Roll Years YS76
Manic Miner (SAM) Revelation £9.99 Apr 1992
Spread the word - the eccentric explorer with the taste for treasure is back!
The magic of print, eh? In just a few words we can all be transported back to the days of Speccy history without any of that 3D light-field malarkey. See? We're here already. The reason for this little trip is to take a look at one of the classlest classics of all. It is of course Manic Miner, that never-bettered platform leap-about. The plot behind the game is that Miner Willy, Surbiton's noted spelunker, has tumbled down a mineshaft. Far beneath the Earth, he discovers the remnants of an ancient civilization. Well, money and mining robots actually. He has to dodge the robots and grab the cash in order to open the portal to the next cavern, ultimately returning to the surface with a dusty head and a fat bank account. Capital, isn't it? Now if you hold on tight we'll flip back to the present day, just in time to greet the SAM incarnation of that very same game. And knock me senseless with a pig on a stick if it's not a corker as well.
Updating the graphics and soundtrack, but intelligently retaining the pixel-perfect timing that made the original so agonisingly addictive, SAM MM comprises three sets of twenty screens each. Unlike the Speccy version you don't get a preview of the levels at the beginning of the game. This means that each new screen is a surprise; and quite often a nasty one, as the designers have been commendably devious. Cutting to the quick, SAM MM is a super game. The pretty graphics, funky music and jaunty FX are well matched by the viciously addictive gameplay. Such a combination is hard to beat, which funnily enough sums up the game as a whole. Stump up and get stuck in.
Life Expectancy: 82
Instant Appeal: 90
Graphics: 74
Addictiveness: 92
Overall: 84°
Ratings given by other magazines
CRASH 9/10 Sinclair User 9/10
Trivia
Included on the coverdisk with SAM Revival issue 9 Only..
The new 40 levels where designed mostly by Matthew Holt and David Ledbury - some additional levels were created users, via a competition run on the SAM Coupe Hotline - and included designs from numerous SAM users.
From David Ledbury
After the demise of SAMCo, the programmer of SAM Manic Miner never recieved a single penny from this game. Now - don’t forget that this is perhaps the third biggest selling game on SAM (after Prince Of Persia and Lemmings) … and with apparently the “official” source of “Revelation” software finding a pre-duplicated source of disks from the original Revelation.
(Of course, as these disks used professional quality printed labels, where SAMCo used a trusty dot-matrix to print all disks from Newsdisks to Sound Machines… this is rather unlikely…)
Anyway, as Matthew Holt never recieved a penny.. a plan was devised to try and get a better idea of the numbers of copies sold. Quite a simple one… an updated version of the game, which was going to cost next-to-nothing (probably only 1-2 pounds…) which would be available to any customer who returned the ORIGINAL disk to Phoenix Software Systems (who had been granted the rights by Matthew Holt …
The customer would get more levels to play with, for a low price, and the author would have more of an idea on what he was owed in royalties from naughty sales of his software….
Tips
On the main menu screen, hold down the keys Z, A and T and press RETURN at the same time. Now when you are on the game screen hold down L, F and C for a second. Now if everything has gone to plan, the following keys will work:
- F7=TURNS INFINITES LIVES ON/OFF (“LIVES” WILL TURN GREEN)
- F8=JUMP TO NEXT LEVEL
- F9=JUMP FORWARD 5 LEVEL
Only half the cheat mode will work… for fun - try the NMI button :)