Personally, my biggest gripe with the original version of Manic Miner for the SAM was that most, if not all of the scenery could have been recreated in MODE 2 with barely any alteration or loss of fidelity. Some of the original graphics might even pass for MODE 1 at first glance, since there are 8x8px blocks containing just two colours. Furthermore, since the Willy sprite passes behind the scenery, it wouldn't even have suffered from significant attribute clash in MODE 2.
However, to be fair, very few versions of the game really go overboard on the scenery, since it's all just platforms to jump on, walk across and fall through, or walls to impede progress. It could easily be argued that there's no great need for the scenery to look stunning. Most other versions even retain the plain, black background of the Spectrum version and, at the end of the day, a game like Manic Miner isn't about having the whizziest graphics, it's about timing your movement and making pixel-perfect jumps. Sprites are all small (generally at most 16x16px), the majority have just four frames of animation, and the only necessity is that it should be clearly discernible as to which scenery elements are platforms or barriers to be navigated, and which are hazards to be avoided.
Additionally, extravagances like the full-colour background images of the Game Boy Advance version were out of the question on the SAM simply because of the way collision detection is processed. Any collision between non-black elements registers as fatal to Willy – a fact which made early playtesting quite frustrating, when some sprites collided with each other or with walls and platforms due to glitches in their paths. Even if that had not been an issue, there were other considerations, such as the limited palette (using the same 12 colours would make it difficult to differentiate between background elements and platforms or hazards in the foreground), the limit of 15 unique scenery blocks per cavern (which isn't generous enough for much more than the platform necessities), and the lack of any 'layering' features in the SAM's screen handling (so we couldn't simply set the collision detection to ignore everything on a 'background layer'). Finally, given the steadily increasing amount of RAM being occupied by my sprite updates, there simply wouldn't have been the space for background images.
To be perfectly honest, I don't enjoy drawing background graphics, particularly the kind that are built out of pre-prepared, repeating tiles – brickwork, rock patterns, etc. – because they quickly become visually repetitive. I'm aware that many games – both on home machines and in the arcades – tend to use tiles rather than large, contiguous background images because it saves memory... but I think it takes a particularly dedicated graphic artist to make good tiles... and I've never really considered myself to be that dedicated. Nevertheless, at worst, taking on The Lower Caverns was a challenge, something a little outside my comfort zone rather than a chore, and it ended up allowing me to explore the tiling feature of Aseprite, an application which had been gifted to me by another coder, for a different project.
So, there were very clear boundaries to what I would be allowed to do, added to the limits of what I felt I'd be able to do. And, in a way, the latter was still the greater concern to me, at least to begin with.
The existing blocks were provided to me as a SCREEN$ file, but they were all pretty jumbled – organised by memory location rather than by cavern, such that related blocks weren't necessarily adjacent – and alongside a mess of pixels representing adjacent code. My first instinct was to break it down and group the elements according to which cavern or caverns they were used in. This involved going through the first 20 caverns, screen by screen, and arranging the blocks used into new groups, so I could see how many scenery blocks each cavern actually used and where new blocks were introduced. Some of the existing blocks were incomprehensible, some were simplistic recolourings of the Spectrum graphics, and some just didn't adequately reflect what they were supposed to represent.
Most of the 'crumbly' platforms – those that gradually disappear as they're walked on, potentially causing the unwary player to plummet to their death, or blocking off a certain route – tended to use the range of blues and reds available to 'fade' into the background, with just a couple that disintegrated, a few pixels at a time. Both were interesting approaches, when pretty much every other version just had each block slowly sink, pixel row by pixel row, until it was gone. I suspect part of the reason for the different approach on the SAM version was that each crumbly platform had only four frames of animation with which to crumble, where the Spectrum version had eight. Certainly, one of the challenges I faced was trying to make them unique and effective with half as much animation. Platforms that 'break' had to function in and of themselves, and as part of a row of crumbly platforms.
By contrast, the solid platforms had effectively been given a gradient fill of one kind or another, which contributed to the impression that the scenery was drawn in MODE 2. There were three or four 'brick'-like blocks, two of which used 3x1 pixel bricks in mortar 1 pixel wide/deep. One of these had an awkward offset between the rows, which give the bricks a diagonal 'step' pattern rather than the standard alternating, overlapping rows. Another used 3x7 pixel bricks, but blended from red at the centre into 1 pixel deep yellow mortar by use of an orange outline. The three rock textures – blue, red and green/yellow – looked haphazard, and their pattern didn't seem to line up regardless of how they were arranged. This turned out to be because each one was made up of a single pattern brick rotated through 90° clockwise and anticlockwise to make a set of three blocks. The 'wood' block from “The Endorian Forest” was barely different from the Spectrum version, with only the most perfunctory anti-aliasing, so nothing about it really resembled wood (admittedly this is difficult to achieve in a single 8x8 pixel tile). I ended up creating two tree trunk tiles for this cavern, but I honestly still have no idea what the green, question mark-shaped things in that cavern are supposed to be.
Some of the conveyors looked quite good, but they were also inconsistent in the way they were handled. One even had a static white frame around its 'animated' component. Three were, however, fewer variations among the conveyors, so I ended up completely re-doing all of them.
Long story short, none of it really sold the enhanced graphical power of the SAM Coupé over the ZX Spectrum. On the upside, all the existing caverns kept well within the 15-block limit, generally getting close only when the rock textures came into play, since each of those could account for seven blocks in and of themselves, or just four if the angled blocks were not used.
Once again, referring to other versions of the game, particularly the Game Boy Advance and WonkyPix PC version, was invaluable for improving the look of the caverns. Even the simplest scenery in those versions used more colours that were available on the SAM, but I got a better impression of how to use the limited palette effectively. The 'earthy' platforms and brick patterns were the easiest, and allowed for use of the greatest range of colours and styles. However, the early drafts of the latter had to be replaced late in development, once I came to realise they weren't quite up to the standards of the other blocks. Similarly, the tiled 'rock' textures went through a couple of revisions as I struggled to get to grips with making a good-looking, repeatable set of blocks.
I think my most significant change, scenery-wise, was to ensure that the solid platforms looked more solid and varied, while the crumbly platforms are mostly discernible by having more obvious gappiness to suggest instability. While some versions of the game – notably the Wonkypix remix – feature crumbly platforms that are largely similar to the stable platforms, this is not in keeping with the Spectrum original, where each cavern's crumbly platforms are distinct, often in both look and colour. Certainly, disguising them would add to the difficulty of the game, but I don't believe that is true to the spirit of the original. As a result, the new solid platforms have an irregular, textured look, generally in three shades of a single colour, but have very little show-through, while the crumbly platforms are more open, with some being stippled, or exhibit some kind of damage.
As previously mentioned, the brick patterns in the original game were all simplistic and rather ugly. Since there isn't a great deal one can do with the concept of 'brick', I initially just eliminated the smaller brick patterns and made only slight changes to the way the larger ones were shaded, then added new colour variants. I found that the Wonkypix remix featured two versions of some brick patterns: one with the complete brick at the top and the split brick at the bottom, and one with the complete brick below the split brick. At first glance, there didn't seem to be much of a reason to duplicate this on the SAM version, but certain unique bricks did end up needing to blend in with one or the other. Thankfully there was plenty of memory left over for additional scenery tiles, so this didn't become as problematic as my additional sprite variations.
This was probably a good thing, too, considering the new styles of scenery presented in the Wonkypix remix, the new levels designed by Phil Wilson, and the liberties I later started taking even before the opportunity came to design a handful of caverns myself. Additionally, where the original game and some of Phil Wilson's caverns effectively used single 8x8 pixel 'rock' textures, I ended up creating a 16x16 pixel texture in four different colours, later supplemented by random detail blocks. Not all of these were used, not least because a cavern that used a rocky texture would have eight of its fifteen slots taken up with just that texture if it also used the angled 'corner' blocks.
Phil Wilson's caverns were created back in the day - but omitted from a previous release of Manic Miner on the SAM - mostly designed with unique scenery, treasures, sprites and palettes, all of which had to be brought in line with The Lower Caverns' specs as far as possible. His palettes were largely consistent in and of themselves, but he had designed a whole new Willy sprite and chosen not to use palette cycling for most of the treasures, instead using those four additional palette slots for static items and sprites. Initially, I did little more than adjust his colours to the closest available colour in the default TLC 12 slots (switching colours and palette slots where feasible and necessary). I also reinstated palette cycling where it seemed appropriate, or where the new treasures were suitably similar to those that already existed. Later on, I reworked some of the scenery, adding a sense of 'heat' and function to “The Steel Works”, a little more whimsy to “We Want Tea & Cake”, a cheeky nod to the unreleased Spectrum 'Megagame' from Imagine, Bandersnatch) in “The Return of Eugene”, a more 'dungeon-like' feel to “The Mediaeval Dungeon”, and some large, glassy blocks to “The Crystal Caverns”. Other caverns went through a couple of adjustments purely to achieve the most effective colourscheme, given the fixed palette.
"The Steel Works" turned out to be unworkable in its original form because there was too much going on at the top of the screen. The issue was that jumping off the top of the screen could sometimes cause the game to crash. Not consistently – in some caverns, the Willy sprite would hit the top of the screen and drop straight back down... but in "The Steel Works", he'd keep going and cause screen corruption and a system reset. As a result, the cavern had to be redesigned to prevent jumping at the highest points on the screen. I believe this was the cavern that required the most work to get it feeling 'right'... which is a shame, as I was quite happy with my industrial remix to the graphics – including forklifts and vats spilling molten metal – coupled with the altered colourscheme, giving it a sense of heat and function. This was also the first instance of the Cog treasure – created to replace the standard key – which spins via the same palette cycling trick as the conveyor belts.
"We Want Tea And Cake!" was a cute design for a cavern, but desperately in need of 'tea and cake'-related scenery. The teacup and bouncing cake sprites were a great point of reference, but their animation – limited to just four frames each – didn't work well enough in practice. This was also another cavern where the platforms had to be dropped to allow for jumping across the uppermost level of the screen. This cavern also adopted an altered palette – gaining a couple of additional shades of blue to replace the unused greens – allowing for refinements to both sprites and scenery.
"The Return of Eugene" was another where the upper extent of the platforms had to be dropped, and I gave the scenery a new spin based on Brattacas – reportedly a game derived from the aborted Spectrum 'megagame', Bandersnatch, which contributed to the downfall of Imagine Software, back in the day. To keep it on-theme, the Turkey sprite was replaced with a space invader, and a second was added in the top left of the screen. One hazard was outright removed, as its positioning caused problems for collecting one of the treasures, and a couple of additional treasures were thrown in.
"The Medieval Dungeon" was a bit of an experiment for me – the title demanded scenery that would better fit the concept, so I created a 16x16px brick texture to evoke the sort of large stone blocks that were used to build castles, an 8x8px block for the single-row platforms, and a more wooden feel to the ladders and crumbly platforms. The chains were only reshaded, but I added a manacle for the end of some of them, and then the bone-like treasures became flickering candles.
The last of these, "The Crystal Caverns", went through a couple of different versions. Initially, the single square brick was replaced by a 16x16 pixel crystal clump that I was never entirely satisfied with. Even after I'd created the glassy blocks, there were minor amendments, as I noticed that the two shades of green weren't used by either sprites or scenery. This allowed me to substitute them with another couple of pale blues, to smooth out the shading of the blocks.
As mentioned elsewhere, conveyors on the SAM were designed to operate using palette cycling rather than being multi-frame animations. Those included in the original SAM game were functional, but looked quite clumsy. Since even rudimentary anti-aliasing was not possible within the palette cycling, I mostly ended up slimming the 'belts' themselves down to a single pixel, and adding more static detail and colour to their framework. Phil Wilson's caverns, as mentioned, did away with the palette cycling, but some of them still featured conveyor belts. With their palettes brought in line with the rest of the caverns, we were able to add cycling to the new conveyors, or replace them with the existing ones.
Among the many strange aspects of the SAM version of Manic Miner was the fact that there were only ever five different 'treasures'. Considering the Spectrum version had just eleven, with half the caverns using the same key, it was bizarre to find fewer on the SAM. The very least I could do was aim to match the original by reinstating the 'lolly' from “The Cold Room”, the banana from the two Alien Kong Beast caverns, and the couple of other unique treasures, updated to employ the palette cycling of the SAM conversion. One I'm particularly proud of is the gearwheel in “The Ore Refinery”, which uses the palette cycling to give the impression that that wheels are turning.
The Wonkypix game already had some animated treasures and, while this was technically out of the question for The Lower Caverns, having made the gearwheel treasure turn, I started investigating how I might use palette cycling to give the impression of animation elsewhere. Thus, the eggs in “Pretty Flamingos” and the fruit in “The Endorian Forest”/”If You Go Down...” appear to rock back and forth, the Power Pills in “Packing Plant” pulse, and the candles in “The Call of Cthulhu” flicker.
Along with the reduced variety of treasures in the SAM version of Manic Miner, there were only two exit styles in the whole game (with the 40 custom caverns offering a couple of variants on one of those). The Spectrum version – and every other conversion – had a much wider range, if not unique exits for each and every cavern. Here, again, the Wonkypix version became the ideal point of reference. Its exits were clearly designed, nicely varied and easy to adapt to half size so they would fit the SAM's 16x16 block size and its more limited palette.
Not only was there sufficient memory to reinstate the 20 unique exits from the original Spectrum game in full MODE 4 glory, but there was enough left over for variants on those 20, adaptations of some of the unique exits from the Wonkypix version, the new designs from Phil Wilson's caverns, and a handful of wholly new exits that I put together along the way.
Since the final level on the Spectrum game used the Greek letter Omega (Ω) for its exit, I originally produced and updated version of that for the SAM. However, when The Lower Caverns later became an Entropy production, it was agreed that we should switch this to Sigma (Σ), since that was the group's logo. We didn't end up with 60+ unique exits, but there's certainly less repetition than in the original SAM conversion of Manic Miner.
The only major problem I faced while working on the scenery and treasures was getting my head around the way the palette cycling worked. Most of my first-draft conveyors ended up running backwards, which at least wasn't a disaster where a cavern had conveyors running in both directions. However, it was quite frustrating when something was designed to run exclusively 'up' but ended up animating 'down' in situ. The actual method of cycling seemed counter-intuitive, and had to be explained to me several times over the course of development before it sunk in.
All of this gradually made the game look fresh and new, despite its age. With the new in-game graphics in place, even a comparatively simple game like Manic Miner can demonstrate what the SAM is capable of – plenty of people may be familiar with the game, but fewer will have experienced a version that looks like The Lower Caverns. Most of it went pretty smoothly and, with the exception of the 'rock' textures, it didn't take too long to develop blocks that I was happy with. A few needed tweaks here and there, particularly those that used the two shades of green, but I considered my work on the scenery – including that of the 'bonus' caverns – to be complete by the start of 2023... At least until I realised the brick patterns I created at least four years ago just didn't fit with everything else. My adjustments were quick enough, but patching them into the game was a challenge the coder hadn't anticipated at so late a stage. I hope he agrees that it was worthwhile!
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