Go manic for Miner Willy

de de de deee de deee de deee de deee deeeeeah…

A new version of Manic Miner is now available to download. Famous for undermining your spare time with its 20 bonkers subterranean levels, help Willy escape each cavern before the air runs out.

Rebuilt with fixes to run on both 26 bit and 32 bit RISC OS computers, up to and including the ARMv8 Raspberry Pi, you’ll find hours of frustration I’m sure. My puny skills are only good enough to complete the first level – perhaps you can get further?

There’s an alternate set of levels (ominously called “Blood!”) if the original 20 are too easy.

Special thanks to riscos.info for hosting the sources as well.

Whoa!! Thanks A LOT for this, Sprow!!! I am enjoying it this weekend, as Manic Miner is one of my favorite games… EVER!!!
Works great on my Raspberry Pi3. However, you can simply put the TimPlayer module on the game’s folder, and then RMLoad it on the !Run script, no need to put anything into !System to get music!

PD: The default graphics mode “high resolution” is NOT appropiate for the Pi. Ir causes the game screen to be too thin and tall. Could you please make “low resolution” the default? Or let the video mode setting to be saved, since it’s not saved currently.

Just tried it – doesn’t seem to work on VRPC – is it compatible with the Risc PC? It just freezes the computer until ALT-Break.

you can simply put the TimPlayer module on the game’s folder, and then RMLoad it on the !Run script, no need to put anything into !System to get music

Since TimPlayer is distributed as a !System update which the OS can merge into !System for you, that’s preferable over distributing a potentially out of date copy (as was the case previously) inside the application. You can of course load TimPlayer any way you want prior to running the game, but if the game can’t find TimPlayer the only place it tries to load it from is !System.

The default graphics mode “high resolution” is NOT appropiate for the Pi. Ir causes the game screen to be too thin and tall. Could you please make “low resolution” the default?

In choices choose “low resolution” before starting the game. High resolution is 320×480 which is intended to end up like 640×480 (ie. horizontal scan half the speed so pixels end up 4:3), so if it’s come out tall and thin your monitor or MDF must be unhappy.

Just tried it – doesn’t seem to work on VRPC – is it compatible with the Risc PC?

Yes (see the !Help). Tested on a real Risc PC with 5.22 and 4.02, and RPCEmu with 3.70. Do you have a vaguely up to date C library loaded?

doesn’t seem to work on VRPC

It does not work here on VRPC OS4.39 or VRPC-DL OS4.02 on Windows 10. It does, however, run on the Mac VRPC OS4.39.

Using RPCEmu on the Mac it ran under OS4.02 but not OS4.39.

SharedCLibrary at 5.94, the latest.

It does not work here on VRPC OS4.39 or VRPC-DL OS4.02 on Windows 10.

Put Reporter on the case which showed otherwise unseen TimPlayer too old errors. All good now.

Put Reporter on the case which showed otherwise unseen TimPlayer too old errors.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the OS had a built in error logging system, with (optional) GUI display of the events?

Problems here too, I’m afraid.

On my Pi 3, with AnyMode installed, I had the “tall and thin” graphics issues. I don’t think I’ve messed with MDFs etc. Out of curiosity I did a fresh install of RC15 on a new SD card, installed TimPlayer, booted up the game… and had “tall and thin” again. This was followed by the system freezing after the title screen (which did not happen on my “good” install).

The main oddity here is probably my Philips 170S, which is a 5:4 display that normally runs at 1280×1024 resolution. RISC OS includes an MDF for it, and it’s auto-selected thanks to EDID.

On my Pi 3, with AnyMode installed, I had the “tall and thin” graphics issues.

On my RPi3 with AnyMode High Resolution in Choices is double height but Low Resolution is correct. (EDID is not directly used, it made an MDF initially which has since been added to.)

On my Pi 3, with AnyMode installed, I had the “tall and thin” graphics issues.

That’ll be because the display scaling performed by the GPU assumes that pixels are meant to be square. So the 320×480 mode, instead of being displayed with a 4:3 aspect ratio (like you’d get with a VGA monitor), gets displayed at 2:3.

Mode 15 suffers from a similar problem, it’s 640×256 but is meant to be stretched vertically to get 5:4. But the GPU doesn’t know that so you get a wide 5:2 display instead.

If you let the OS command the GPU directly, and set hdmi_pixel_freq_limit_min to a suitable value in config.txt (e.g. 12500000) then everything should be fine (assuming your monitor is happy with such low-res / low-clock modes, and assuming the monitor stretches to 4:3 or thereabouts, and assuming you have a suitable entry in your MDF).

@Sprow: Any chances that you could add a commandline parameter to set low/high resolution mode from the !Run script, so it can be forced low-res on the Pi without having to enter the menu every time we run the game, please?
Another possibility would be that the video settings get saved, as the audio settings are…

@Jeffrey Lee: thanks for the detailed explanation! However, I find disabling the video mode changing much more conveninent…

Does anyone know what differences this version, compared to the previous release? as I can’t see any differences, has it just been tweaked to run on newer hardware ? as it worked on the Iyonix fine, and also on the ARMX6 fine.

Any chance of Jet Set Willy being ,made to run on newer machines, now that would be good !

Thanks
Matthew

@Sprow: Any chances that you could add a commandline parameter to set low/high resolution mode from the !Run script, so it can be forced low-res on the Pi without having to enter the menu every time we run the game, please?
Another possibility would be that the video settings get saved, as the audio settings are…

The video resolution is saved (it’s byte 7 in the choices file), but a quick look yesterday revealed the value isn’t used by the RISC OS front end, so you always get the auto detected value. Ooops! Looks like an oversight/bug. However…

If you let the OS command the GPU directly […] assuming you have a suitable entry in your MDF).

…if mode 49 isn’t in the MDF, it’ll fall back to mode 13, which is a suitable workaround for now.

@Sprow: I don’t have any special MDF, and on my system the resolution changing is disabled.
How is the resolution being passed to the game? Could you add a parameter for that if fixing the reading of the value is hard?

I don’t have any special MDF, and on my system the resolution changing is disabled.

AnyMode will allow MODE 49, so you’ll need to bug fix the code so it uses the options file setting. If this is based on the same source I used to create a 32bit version back in Jan last year, it should have a commandline option of “-2” to force 640×480 – see if that makes any difference.

I don’t recall how far I got with it but I do remember there being several bugs in the option code, namely with the resolution and possibly the level selection.

@Jon: Thanks for the tip! However, -2 makes no difference, the game is still booting in high-res mode :(

Ah! I have found out that I can RMKill AnyMode on the !Run file, so the game at last tries to start in a 320×256 video mode, but… That mode is not available.
How can I load an MDF file from the !Run file? I am SURE I have seen old games doing this but I can’t find how…
And what filetype should the MDF have? Can’t find that information either.

I believe that *LoadModeFile is what you want. MDFs are Text files.

@Chris Mahoney: Thakns for that! That’s what I needed, yes.
Now I have Manic Miner starting in the correct (low) resolution mode on the Pi, no more stretched screen and no more fiddling with options before starting! Great! :D

The only remaining problem is that it leaves my desktop in an ugly state: it seems to be in a 256 colors mode with 320×256 resolution after I quit the game via F12. What’s the command to restore default or previous screen mode? (note mode changing is disabled on my Pi)

The only remaining problem is that it leaves my desktop in an ugly state

I expect it’s calling Wimp_SetMode which will change the desktop mode.

What’s the command to restore default or previous screen mode? (note mode changing is disabled on my Pi)

There is a SaveScreenMode command as well, so save your original start-up mode as a file using this, then reload it after the game quits.

So you can add a line at the end of the Run file to reload the original mode file on quitting. Then it will happen automagically!

@John Williams: Thanks! The command seems to be actually *SaveModeFile
It works, as it dumps an MDF with my video modes when I call it, and then I can load it with *LoadModeFile at the end, but since *LoadModeFile is called AFTER the game exits to desktop, the game can not setup the videomode anyway.
Is there a command to set it up manually?

I am absolutely loving this, Despite having various Sinclair machines throughout the eighties Manic Miner seems to have passed me by. I am enjoying this Risc OS version on RPCEMu 0.8.15, running OS 2.23(5-Feb-2018) Music is great, gameplay is smooth, no issues at all. Thank you for updating it.

PS. Is there a nicer way of quitting than Alt-Break?

Cheers,
Becky.

PS. Is there a nicer way of quitting than Alt-Break?

F12, if memory serves me correctly.

It’s F12, as described in the !Help file within the game’s folder (shift + click). I don’t know why the Help option itself is not available in the application’s menu, though.