Manic Miner Port?

[popmilo]

I didn't like the c64 version at all back in the day, it was written from scratch and not completely faithful. Amongst the gameplay differences, the solar power generator was completely wrong. It also uses C64 hi-res hardware sprites.

You're telling me that now !?

I've been playing the wrong version all this time ?

 

I remember playing first level on Spectrum and thinking it's just the same as on C64, and C64 doesn't have attribute clash, so I stuck to it

 

Damn.... Speccy has so much great platform games. Dynamite Dan, Rex, Myth ... What's your next conversion ?

[Tezz]

You're telling me that now !?

I've been playing the wrong version all this time ?

 

I remember playing first level on Spectrum and thinking it's just the same as on C64, and C64 doesn't have attribute clash, so I stuck to it

 

Damn.... Speccy has so much great platform games. Dynamite Dan, Rex, Myth ... What's your next conversion ?

 

Yea, I should also bring the real MM to the C64 too. The Lancasters' didn't do a great job with their interpretation of the game. It looks like they attempted something similar to the original after observing it rather than trying an accurate conversion. Matthews' game mechanics is what makes the game what it is so I made sure to recreate that correctly all be it in my own way

[The Usotsuki]

If a C64 can do it and a Spectrum can do it then I bet an Apple //e with an Arcade Board can do it too...

 

Well, my 6502-fu isn't that great but I could probably try to give it a whack so long as I didn't have to work from scratch which is what killed my other attempts at getting stuff up on the AB :/

[GroovyBee]

You could "go native" on the Apple and do a mono version like the Dragon 32 :-

 

[The Usotsuki]

...this is very true.

 

Of course, the Tano Dragon (being 6847-based, and I've written the bulk of a 6847 emulation) using 8 pixels per byte, and the Apple ][ 7, would make that quite difficult.

[The Usotsuki]

Had to expand on my prior posts.

 

Because the Apple ][ is my native platform and one I'm much more comfortable developing on - so I can do things there I can't do on other platforms even that have the same CPU. Of course my bias shows

 

Most of my work, though, hasn't been in coding stuff, so much as modifying existing games to be hard drive or 3.5" floppy installable. (And at that, I'm not THAT bad, I got a few good conversions to my name.)

[popmilo]

... the Apple ][ 7, would make that quite difficult.

Yeah, that 7 pixels per byte is a unique characteristics of Apple. Well 280 pixels is enough for 1:1 hires conversion from A8 version. Only need to change tile and sprite drawing procedures. Or if that is too complicated and there is enough ram - make it draw in off-screen buffer and than just make small routine to convert parts of back-buffer from 8-bit to 7-bit visible screen.

 

Especially if Tezz would give you source code ....

[The Usotsuki]

Well, if you're targetting a 64K Apple ][+ running ProDOS 8, you got all but 256 bytes of the 48K at the bottom. (But 8K would be needed for the hi-res screen). If it's single-load, the hi-res screen could perhaps be used to hold code to shove up on the 64K expansion - since you're not using ProDOS you don't need to leave it in memory.

 

I can do some 6502 coding - and I'm very familiar with the Apple ][ - but doing a port completely solo is probably well beyond me :/.

 

Still, if the Spectrum can handle these games - and so can the Tano Dragon - I don't see why the Apple ][ couldn't. It certainly wouldn't look as good as an Atari 800 port though.

[popmilo]

Still, if the Spectrum can handle these games - and so can the Tano Dragon - I don't see why the Apple ][ couldn't. It certainly wouldn't look as good as an Atari 800 port though.

I still kinda can't believe Apple didn't have Manic Miner ? I guess it was an early British game so it didn't make it's way across the ocean... Although it did appear on Commodore... So probably, apple users and coders were into rpg-complex games by that time and looked down upon a "simple" game like MM... What a mistake

[The Usotsuki]

Man, I'm really dragging this thread down. It wasn't my intent.

 

I still kinda can't believe Apple didn't have Manic Miner ? I guess it was an early British game so it didn't make it's way across the ocean... Although it did appear on Commodore... So probably, apple users and coders were into rpg-complex games by that time and looked down upon a "simple" game like MM... What a mistake

 

The C64 did quite well in the UK, did it not? Contrariwise, the Apple ][ was a dud.

 

The Apple ][ was here perhaps what the BBC Micro was there - as a lot of its use was in schools. But we had it in the home, so it's the first machine I did my gaming on.

 

We were playing Dig Dug and Mario Bros. on Apple ][s into the 90s, I can assure you no one would've mocked Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy had they gotten ports.

 

I'm not much of a game programmer, but there's certainly 6502 gurus around these parts, I'm familiar enough with the hardware as having written multiple emulators for the system, and I've gotten a bunch of games to work on ProDOS making them hard disk installable, so I think I'd at least be able to assist with a port, even though doing such a port solo is a bit out of my league.