For anyone who grew up with an 8-bit personal computer in the 1980s, you would have almost certainly known about the Miner Willy games, created by Matthew Smith. These games, Manic Miner, and Jet Set Willy I and II, are considered classics on the
Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and one way or another, these were ported across to the more popular micros of the day. There was even an unofficial version for Sinclair ZX81 which sported high resolution graphics, and it's actually pretty good too. The poor
Commodore VIC-20, however, was left out, and whilst Perils of Willy was okay for younger children and a reasonable effort all considered, it wasn't a patch of any of the Willy games for more powerful 8-bits such as the Speccy.

Fast forward to February 2018 and Kweepa has developed Manic Miner for the VIC-20 + 16K. For those who don't know, Kweepa is a rather prolific developer in what has become known as the 'home brew' scene. And I know from personal experience that even his
crap games aren't that bad.

As a professional developer myself (albeit in the PHP world), and a former writer, and Commodore user/fan, I know when someone has put a lot of care and attention into something. And Kweepa's version of Manic Miner is outstanding on
this level. There are
a few differences with this VIC-20 version and the original Speccy classic, which I think is down to having fewer pixels to play with; for instance, it took me a while to get through the Central Cavern (level one) unscathed which I
would usually get
through first time. The conveyor belts work slightly differently that the original too, but as for everything else, it's as close to perfect as you could
get or want. The graphics are really smooth, and unlike Perils of Willy mentioned above, this doesn'
t just look like a Miner Willy game, it feels like, and is, just that.

Kweepa has developed some of the best post-commercial VIC-20 games that I've seen. And this is one of them. This isn't just for Manic Miner fans either. If you enjoy 2D linear platform games, you will love this. It's brilliant.

Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Playability: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

Links:

http://sleepingelephant.com/denial -> see the "VIC-20 Software Releases of 2018" topics in the "Announcements" board of the forums there.

http://www.kweepa.org/step/vic20/miner-20180201b.zip -> direct download

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 10:25:47 AM UTC+2, Shaun Bebbington wrote:

For anyone who grew up with an 8-bit personal computer in the 1980s, you

would have almost certainly known about the Miner Willy games, created by Matthew Smith. These games, Manic Miner, and Jet Set Willy I and II, are considered classics on the
Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and one way or another, these were ported across to the more popular micros of the day. There was even an unofficial version for Sinclair ZX81 which sported high resolution graphics, and it's actually pretty good too. The poor
Commodore VIC-20, however, was left out, and whilst Perils of Willy was okay for younger children and a reasonable effort all considered, it wasn't a patch of any of the Willy games for more powerful 8-bits such as the Speccy.

Fast forward to February 2018 and Kweepa has developed Manic Miner for the

VIC-20 + 16K. For those who don't know, Kweepa is a rather prolific developer in what has become known as the 'home brew' scene. And I know from personal experience that even
his crap games aren't that bad.

As a professional developer myself (albeit in the PHP world), and a former

writer, and Commodore user/fan, I know when someone has put a lot of care and attention into something. And Kweepa's version of Manic Miner is outstanding on
this level. There
are a few differences with this VIC-20 version and the original Speccy classic,
which I think is down to having fewer pixels to play with; for instance, it took me a while to get through the Central Cavern (level one) unscathed which I
would usually get
through first time. The conveyor belts work slightly differently that the original too, but as for everything else, it's as close to perfect as you could
get or want. The graphics are really smooth, and unlike Perils of Willy mentioned above, this doesn'
t just look like a Miner Willy game, it feels like, and is, just that.

Kweepa has developed some of the best post-commercial VIC-20 games that I've

seen. And this is one of them. This isn't just for Manic Miner fans either. If you enjoy 2D linear platform games, you will love this. It's brilliant.

Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Playability: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

Links:

http://sleepingelephant.com/denial -> see the "VIC-20 Software Releases of

2018" topics in the "Announcements" board of the forums there.

http://www.kweepa.org/step/vic20/miner-20180201b.zip -> direct download

Fans of Edvard Grieg or Monty Python will be delighted to hear or see one thing
or other that seems familiar. Btw., if you don't own a VIC-20 (I don't) and like me don't succeed immediately trying to get the game running in VICE, here's what I did:
- Create an empty D64 file (I used x64, but this should work with the VIC-20 emulator as well)
- use Starcommander in DOSBOX to copy (F5) the PRG to the D64 image
- enable an additional 16K of RAM in the emulator
- enable emulation of a 1541
- autostart/mount the D64 to run the game

Many thanks to Shaun Bebbington for bringing this newsgroup back to life!

Chris

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Saturday, 21 April 2018 19:44:41 UTC+1, ArcadeAge wrote:

Fans of Edvard Grieg or Monty Python will be delighted to hear or see one

thing or other that seems familiar. Btw., if you don't own a VIC-20 (I don't) and like me don't succeed immediately trying to get the game running in VICE, here's what I did:

- Create an empty D64 file (I used x64, but this should work with the VIC-20

emulator as well)

- use Starcommander in DOSBOX to copy (F5) the PRG to the D64 image
- enable an additional 16K of RAM in the emulator
- enable emulation of a 1541
- autostart/mount the D64 to run the game

Many thanks to Shaun Bebbington for bringing this newsgroup back to life!

Chris

Thanks for the feedback. When I'm inclined to write reviews of Commodore games,
I'll post them here for people's consumption.

Regards,

Shaun.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 01:25:45 -0700 (PDT), Shaun Bebbington wrote:

For anyone who grew up with an 8-bit personal computer in the 1980s,
you would have almost certainly known about the Miner Willy games,
created by Matthew Smith. These games, Manic Miner, and Jet Set Willy
I and II, are considered classics on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and one
way or another, these were ported across to the more popular micros of
the day. There was even an unofficial version for Sinclair ZX81 which
sported high resolution graphics, and it's actually pretty good
too. The poor Commodore VIC-20, however, was left out, and whilst
Perils of Willy was okay for younger children and a reasonable effort
all considered, it wasn't a patch of any of the Willy games for more
powerful 8-bits such as the Speccy.

I saw Manic Miner first on the Commodore 64 port. I don't like
platformers, so didn't like it. Have to admit though it's cult game.
--
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)

On Saturday, 21 April 2018 21:06:15 UTC+1, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:

On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 01:25:45 -0700 (PDT), Shaun Bebbington wrote:

For anyone who grew up with an 8-bit personal computer in the 1980s,
you would have almost certainly known about the Miner Willy games,
created by Matthew Smith. These games, Manic Miner, and Jet Set Willy
I and II, are considered classics on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and one
way or another, these were ported across to the more popular micros of
the day. There was even an unofficial version for Sinclair ZX81 which sported high resolution graphics, and it's actually pretty good
too. The poor Commodore VIC-20, however, was left out, and whilst
Perils of Willy was okay for younger children and a reasonable effort
all considered, it wasn't a patch of any of the Willy games for more powerful 8-bits such as the Speccy.

I saw Manic Miner first on the Commodore 64 port. I don't like
platformers, so didn't like it. Have to admit though it's cult game.
--
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

ZZap!64 wasn't exactly gushing about Jet Set Willy II at the time, I think they
were lukewarm at best. But Speccy fans [mostly] love it. No game is for everyone though, I agree. I do like the VIC-20 version though.

Regards,

Shaun.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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In Kweepa's earlier builds, he had it that you could stop on the conveyor belts, which is definitely wrong. After mentioning this to him, he corrected it
and the last build put out fixes this. Not sure if that is what you were referring to here Shaun?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Tuesday, 24 April 2018 10:44:46 UTC+1, Mayhem wrote:

In Kweepa's earlier builds, he had it that you could stop on the conveyor

belts, which is definitely wrong. After mentioning this to him, he corrected it
and the last build put out fixes this. Not sure if that is what you were referring to here Shaun?

I was hoping that by now The Matt Mayhem(tm) would be self-aware. But apparently not.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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