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

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