How to beat Manic Miner and complete every level

Manic Miner is one of the most iconic games from the 80’s home computer scene. Written by the legendary coder Matthew Smith in 1983, it was first launched on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Bug-Byte Software. The game was an instant success and was quickly ported to pretty much every home computer system of the day.

The game is a classic, single screen, platformer consisting of 20 fiendishly difficult levels. Each screen requires pixel perfect jumps and split second timing to get around the moving guardians and static obstacles, collecting items along the way to unlock the portal to the next level.

The Spectrum version was one of the first games to feature a background music track for that system and gave the game one of the most recognisable soundtracks for the era. Whether is really classes as a musical background or not is debatable, but it was certainly groundbreaking for the humble Sinclair machine.

In this video I’m going to show you how to beat each level so you can progress through the game and see all it has to offer.

Emulation

I’ll be using the Fuse Spectrum emulator running on my PC.

https://fuse-emulator.sourceforge.net/

If you’re not familiar with that then please check out my FUSE setup video. To get hold of the game you just need to visit the World of Spectrum website which allows you to legally download the tape images for free. Just visit this link and go to the files section.

https://worldofspectrum.org/archive/software/games/manic-miner-bug-byte-software-ltd

So, let’s get going.

Cheating

To fully enjoy the game we’re going to have to cheat. Obviously, you can play it as intended, starting at the Central Cavern each time and playing through with your three lives, but that’s going to take forever. And, if you’re like me, you’ll want to try the levels you never got to see back in the day.

So first of there’s the original transporter cheat codes built into the software. This is the old style magic key combination that was probably used for testing purposes but which now lets you get to any level you want.

To activate it you simply need to type the code 6031769 while the game is running and then follow this with a level code to transport you. To activate the level code, you hold down a few number keys at the same time and then click the 6 key while keeping the other pressed. This works in both the Fuse emulator and on the original hardware.

For example, the code for the Skylab Landing Bay level is 134+6. So hold down 1,3 and 4 and then press 6.

The full set of codes

Central Cavern : 6

The Cold Room : 16

The Menagerie : 26

Abandoned Uranium Workings : 126

Eugene’s Lair : 36

Processing Plant : 136

The Vat : 236

Miner Willy meets the Kong Beast : 1236

Wacky Amoebatrons : 46

The Endorian Forest : 146

Attack of the Mutant Telephones : 246

Return of the Alien Kong Beast : 1246

Ore Refinery : 346

Skylab Landing Bay : 1346

The Bank : 2346

The Sixteenth Cavern : 12346

The Warehouse : 56

Amoebatrons’ Revenge : 156

Solar Power Generator : 256

The Final Barrier : 1256

As well as the transport cheat, using the Fuse emulator allows us to take system snapshots. By default, the game has no save feature. Once you lose your lives it’s back to the start. In Fuse you can use the F2 key to pause the game and save the complete state of the machine to a file on your computer. You can then return to that exact point in the game at any time by pressing the F3 key and reloading the save state file.

This way you can save a state at the end of each level so you can keep trying the next level as many times as you want. I’ll be honest and admit this is how I got through the game. I didn’t really create this playthrough in one single sitting!!