Probotector?

Anyway, the point is that Miner Willy obeys the laws of physics in his jumps, and you already know the laws of physics intuitively. It isn't therefore a matter of learning the game. Also the implication that one touch completely destroys your game is false because of the level structure. Levels you know how to do can be completed in around about a minute, when you die on the levels on which you are stuck you start again at that level, probably at most two minutes prior in the gaming experience.

In any case, the whole flow of the game is towards correct navigation, so ordinarily when you die it is because you haven't solved the mystery of the level and you almost certainly want to start again. The whole game is predicated on excellent level design, so the challenge is pretty much Matt's deviousness versus yours - it isn't the objective management sort of thing that modern gamers are more used to where the fun comes from playing off numerous finite resources to achieve a difficult task. And, damnit, The Warehouse still beats me.

EDIT: P.s. Matt, the magazine 'Retro Gamer' (which I bought because my emulator was in it, please form no opinions from my reading material) seem quite desperate to get an interview with you - why not interview yourself and make a quick buck?

jumps over Eugene weeee! what screen was the most difficult you think? for me its the warehouse

Is the Banyan Tree the one with the saw as you walk in on the right then three chambers with things moving up and down and holes in the wall for you stand in? If not then I consider which that is to be the hardest JSW room.

As for the Warehouse, I've never been past it sniff

The version of MM I know is the SAM one though, and it has an additional two sets of rooms (i.e. 60 in total), so I never had to focus that hard back in the day. And the new rooms are really very well designed so they're worth hunting down for MM fans, although I believe whoever ended up with ownership of pretty much all the SAM Coupe games zealously protects them from the internet, so good luck!

The warehouse is hard but you can solve it
check out my manic miner guide on my site:

http://www.jump.to/speccy

about the screen "the banyan tree" in JSW
Yes you can past through that screen but its TRICKY with big letters!
you must first manage to jump over the microchip and stand between that one and the devil.
When the devil is on the way down you must jump EXACTLY over it and after that QUICKLY press left a little, and you should stand absolute harmless on the root

the SAM-version is RARE.. have never seen a copy on eBAy.. 60 screens? wow!! I want that one..

Hehe.. I am playing that wonderful game once a week.. at least!
trying to understand what every screen means and stuff.. coz I am not from england so it takes time..

QUOTE|< Mine died years ago. Luckily I also had a cracked backup, stored in the normal filing system format which means both that I've been able to get it into my PC for emulator purposes and make backups. I'd try and find a link to an online version, but I don't think anyone has ever uploaded any commercial SAM Coupe games. Very close knit community.

Okey, please send a mess if you find something

QUOTE|< The SAM uses a WD1770, so as with the Atari ST and the various Archimedes' with which it shares that chip there are numerous ways of encoding discs so that the native hardware simply can't copy them. So in fact I used to have cracked copies of pretty much every game I'd also legitimately bought. An especially necessary step when you were as careless with floppies as my younger self.

Ohh.. sounds bad.. but do you still have the original of MM left?

QUOTE|< The best thing about the SAM version is that the programmers correctly recognised that Willy has a quiff, not a stupid mining hat. Another very good thing is the way the programmers have recognised that key quality of Manic Miner - rooms are not just data sets. They frequently have extra features that in a modern engine would mean scripting - e.g. switches that change the directions of conveyor belts or particular events that cause the enemies to change direction drastically, etc.

What´s a "quiff" ? you mean a lose band with a lamp on it?
WOW.. really awsome features! gosh.. really want a SAM and a copy of MM!

QUOTE|< That's the sort of thing a lot of MM modifications don't seem to address.

yeah agree.. have you tried out all the JSW and MM versions at Andrew Broads site at Yahoo?

As a student of Law it would be remiss of you not to provide evidence to support your defence.

(It looks like a mining cap to me..)

One one of the cassette covers it's shown as a miners hat though most versions had the mutant telephone poking it's tongue out!
I mean he'd be pretty dumb to go poking around in an old mine without a hardhat, and it is called Manic MINER!

What on earth makes you think it's a quiff?? Is that what Matt said?

I mean Willy'd be pretty dumb to go poking around in an old mine without a hardhat, and it is called Manic MINER, and it does kinda look like a miners hat with a light on it, and I always thought it was a hardhat, and blah blah blah!

BTW has ANYONE ever managed to finish JSW without cheating?? I have never come even close, and nor has anyone I know.

No, Matt said he left it deliberately vague.

Yeah, you're right. The story about Miner Willy discovering the remnants of a lost civilisation through their left behind mines & mining equipment somewhere below Surbiton suddenly loses all credibility if Willy doesn't put a hardhat on before entering the mine...

But I'm sure this is some other conversion by some other programmer, who just got it wrong.

Only if the burden rests on me. I can say person X did a particular thing (i.e. had a quiff and not a mining hat), and if it isn't true then the normal legal procedure is that the other person takes me to court for libel (as I've presented my claim through something other than a transitory medium) and has to prove that it would lower his estimation in the minds of right thinking members of society before I become liable for damages and start to think twice about saying the same things in future. As Miner Willy is fictional, my true statement is that 'Matthew Smith created a mining game character with a quiff rather than a hardhat', and as that wouldn't lower his estimation as required, I can say it perfectly legally!

Obviously things would be different if I were trying to rely on the fact that Willy had a quiff in order to support an argument relating to any other legal matter, but I'm not.

Anyway, some evidence if the latter were the case:

• at the time, quiffs were cool

• Miner Willy is pretty cool

• supposing he used brilcreem to achieve it, it was probably harder than a hard hat

• none of the caverns depicted in Manic Miner have any areas with a visible likelihood of collapsing

• Miner Willy, once in the caverns must get through all 20 to return home, implying not a cold planned entry into the mines in order to collect artefacts but some sort of unplanned event from which he must recover - negating any possibly consideration of a hardhat on his front

• Since in many screens the majority of the area is black it would therefore appear to be quite dark and if Willy has a hat with a light

• If Willy has a hard hat, I would query why he is not protected from robots that impact with him from above, or else if the hard hat doesn't offer him protection from things moving from above I would suggest that he cannot therefore be said to have put it on deliberately for protection

Thomas.. that was one of the most detailed replies I seen for while
and yeah.. Willy might use LOTS of spraycans and cream in hair so he could build up that enormous quiff!

Commander Keen.

Number Six wrote:

>> errr! This is getting a bit far fetched for a simple 16k game over 20 years old isn't it?

it was a 48k game!
but its fun to renew miner willy´s adventures..

Haha.. that would been fun to watch for real..

Oh darn I mean the Spectrum version, yeah the other ones I agree.. and I remember the C16/+4 version with .. i think it had three separate loaders