Manic Miner Engine

A free, cross-platform game engine for creating your own Manic Miner-style games.

You can customise artwork, caverns, and gameplay via editable config files found in media/config.

Note: Donations support my time maintaining the code — the engine itself is free to use.

Credits

• Graphics by Andy Noble

  Website: http://www.andynoble.co.uk

  Also see RetroSpec: https://retrospec.sgn.net/

  (Graphics used with permission — check out Andy’s RetroSpec site for more Spectrum game conversions, like Jet Set Willy.)

© 1999–2025 Jason Brooks

Email: ManicMiner@muckypaws.com

Website: http://www.muckypaws.com

System Requirements

• Windows 7 or newer
• macOS Mountain Lion (10.8) or newer (Intel)
• macOS M series with Rosetta2 Installed
• Linux Ubuntu 20.04 with OpenGL 2 extensions
• Raspberry Pi 4

About the Game

Based on the 1983 ZX Spectrum classic Manic Miner.

Collect all flashing items in a cavern, avoid hazards, and jump through the portal to advance to the next level.

The original Bug-Byte inlay story:

Miner Willy, while prospecting down Surbiton way, stumbles upon an ancient, long forgotten mine-shaft. On further exploration, he finds evidence of a lost civilisation far superior to our own, which used automatons to dig deep into the Earth's core to supply the essential raw materials for their advanced industry. After centuries of peace and prosperity, the civilisation was torn apart by war, and lapsed into a long dark age, abandoning their industry and machines. 

Nobody, however, thought to tell the mine robots to stop working, and through countless aeons they had steadily accumulated a huge stockpile of valuable metals and minerals, and Miner Willy realises that he now has the opportunity to make his fortune by finding the underground store. Can YOU take the challenge and guide Willy through the underground caverns to the  surface and riches. In order to move to the next chamber, you must collect all the flashing keys in the room while avoiding nasties like

POISONOUS PANSIES and SPIDERS and SLIME and worst of all, MANIC MINING ROBOTS. When you have all the keys, you can enter the portal which will now be flashing. The game ends when you have been "got" or fallen heavily three times.

Manic Miner was one of my all time favourite ZX Spectrum Games back in the '80s The object of the game is simple, collect all the flashing items, find the exit and jump through it to get to the next level.  

Controls

Movement:

• Left: Q E T U O [ or Cursor Left
• Right: W R Y I P ] or Cursor Right
• Jump: Z X C V B N M or Cursor Up

Gameplay:

• ENTER = Start / Main Menu
• F1 (Title Screen) = How to Play
• F1 (In Game) = Lose a life and auto-complete current cavern
• ESC = Boss Key (Configurable in next release)
• ALT+F4 = Quit (Windows)
• CMD+Q = Quit (Mac)

Cheat Codes

• 6031769, TYPEWRITER, PPPENGUIN, 716486 (classic codes)
• Hold 8 9 0 for extra lives
• Press 7 + number keys (1–6) to change levels (release 7 first)

Full level code chart available in readme file.

Report Bugs

GitHub: https://github.com/muckypaws/Manic-Miner-Engine/issues