#62 Manic Miner

Posted: 24th September 2017 by Jeroen in Games
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635th played so far

Genre: Platform
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1983
Developer: Matthew Smith
Publisher: Bug-Byte/Software Projects

Our next game is another early platformer. This one is inspired by Miner 2049er and will lead to future game Jet Set Willy. It’s an early platformer which looks fairly basic – so yeah, this time I played the improved  Game Boy version. The platform is listed as various and I could use the better graphics, having seen the original. The gameplay, however, should not have been much different.

Our Thoughts

After we’ve been talking about how hard arcade games are in this era, it’s a shame that games for home consoles seem to have the same fate. I tried Manic Miner and, to show that I am bad at these, failed on the first level. I guess there isn’t as much of a tutorial to it anyway, but this obviously didn’t feel good.

Where it went wrong was the jumping. I never really managed to get the arcs right and while I could get to the top of the first level, after many tries, I just didn’t get the solution to jumping past the vines on the top floor without hitting them. It’s been a shame.

I’ve looked at videos to see how the game proceeds, and I can’t say I got the feeling that would change much. That’s fine for a game like this – it’s an early platformer that combines its elements in nice different ways – but I just can’t claim any great finds in here.

Final Thoughts

Manic Miner is decent, but at times quite limited platformer. It’s a clear product of its time and I can see why it would have been great at the time, but I found it to be less playable now due to its limited controls with an awkward, not that tight jump.