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The Endorian Forest

ZX RobZX Rob
edited January 2006 in Games
Seeing good old Manic Miner again, I remembered how stunned I was when I saw Return of the Jedi and realized one of Manic Miner's levels, The Endorian Forest, represented an Ewok village!

Manic Miner had already been around for some time, and RotJ was released much later... Now how's that possible? Was the programmer one of these people that spied on Lucas's secret filming locations? Or was it just the case that Lucasfilm released the movie considerably sooner in the UK than in NL?

Just a little oddity that came to mind...

EDIT: O, and does anyone know a "more lives" poke for Manic Miner (and how to implement it)? I mainly play it for nostalgy's sake but I just lost three lives in the Menagerie :D (Birds freak me out these days with the bird flue and all; the world was still innocent the last time I played it. Good old cold-war era, sigh).

With only 3 lives, it'll take me two days to get past Eugene's lair.

_________________
B Integer out of range, 0:1


[ This Message was edited by: ZX Rob on 2006-01-05 00:16 ]
Post edited by ZX Rob on

Comments

  • Dave_CDave_C
    edited January 2006
    RotJ was released in 1983, the same year as MM.
  • ZX RobZX Rob
    edited January 2006
    On 2006-01-05 00:25, Dave_C wrote:
    RotJ was released in 1983, the same year as MM.

    Really? Backt then I was really surprised about this... Maybe Jedi premiered in 1984 over here... It's not like I was late seeing it, because it was circulating on VHS even before it was in the cinema... (parents of a friend of mine had a VCR which was not that common in those days).

    Maybe I just mistook MM for an older game than it actually was (I had no official version, just a homemade copy).

    Well, got that one sorted out after all those years... Too bad it just such a simple explanation :D

    If I remember correctly there's a reference to "the forest of Endor" in the Bible, where King Saul visits a witch. Maybe that's where George Lucas got the name from... No bears are mentioned though :)


    [ This Message was edited by: ZX Rob on 2006-01-05 23:27 ]
  • JonNorthJonNorth
    edited January 2006
    http://www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/info.pl?name=Manic%20Miner
  • DasseDasse
    edited January 2006

    Welcome to the world of totally manic miners! :)
  • The_SentinelThe_Sentinel
    edited January 2006
    And look at Miner Willy Meets the Kong Beast. That was 20 years before King Kong hit the cinemas! That man Smith must by psychic.

    What...earlier version in black and white?
  • pigdogpigdog
    edited January 2006
    the endorian forest is my favourite level on MM..
  • mel the bellmel the bell
    edited January 2006
    On 2006-01-05 15:18, The_Sentinel wrote:
    And look at Miner Willy Meets the Kong Beast. That was 20 years before King Kong hit the cinemas! That man Smith must by psychic.

    What...earlier version in black and white?

    and the one in 76? :)

    that joke doesnt quite work now does it :p
    Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
  • Ashley PomeroyAshley Pomeroy
    edited January 2006
    I was impressed by the "Skylab Landing Bay"; not only because the level is slightly different to the others (the baddies just drop from the sky) but because it must be the first piece of satire to appear on the Spectrum, although a few years after the real-life Skylab fell to earth. I was 3 in 1979 but I remember it still being a bit of a joke slightly later.

    This thread prompted me to go and have a go at Manic Miner again, with infinite lives. I was still surprised by its variety, and the way that it added so much to the standard language of the platform game. I remember a feature in Sinclair User in about 1986-ish that traced the history of the platform game, with Panic and Miner 2049'er, and lots of the game mechanics in Manic Miner seem very original for such an early game. Simple things such as the beams of light in the solar power generator, the falling Skylabs, Eugene and so forth. The collapsing platforms sort-of come from Panic, but so much else seems original, not to mention the bizarre monsters.
  • ZX RobZX Rob
    edited January 2006
    On 2006-01-05 13:59, JonNorth wrote:
    http://www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/info.pl?name=Manic%20Miner

    Thanks!!

    Btw, I also have had a chief called Eugene, at least 15 years after MM came out... He was a d*ckhead too.


    [ This Message was edited by: ZX Rob on 2006-01-05 23:31 ]
  • GrazGraz
    edited January 2006
    The forest planet Endor also featured in the abandoned 1970's George Pal TV series of War of the Worlds.

    But then, Endor simply means, 'The centre of habitation,' and it is a biblical forest.

  • The_SentinelThe_Sentinel
    edited January 2006
    On 2006-01-05 19:31, mel the bell wrote:
    On 2006-01-05 15:18, The_Sentinel wrote:
    And look at Miner Willy Meets the Kong Beast. That was 20 years before King Kong hit the cinemas! That man Smith must by psychic.

    What...earlier version in black and white?

    and the one in 76? :)

    that joke doesnt quite work now does it :p

    I'd forgotten about that one as well! Thanks for the reminder.

    I always loved Attack of the Mutant Telephones myself. Not that I ever got there when I played MM; but I used to torment myself by watching the 'demo' that would show the screens and dream of one day possessing the skills to make it. Using POKEs would be just wrong, as I'm sure some will agree.
  • DasseDasse
    edited January 2006

    Ahh.. the Endorian Forest is great! but many other levels as well.. its quite fun about "Warehouse" level, Smith himself never finished that one but decided to let it go anyway.. Haha..
  • andrewbroadandrewbroad
    edited January 2006
    O, and does anyone know a "more lives" poke for Manic Miner (and how to implement it)?

    n lives {1 <= n <= 17}:
    * Bug-Byte edition: POKE 34269, n-1
    * Software Projects edition: POKE 34275, n-1

    Infinite lives:
    * Bug-Byte edition: POKE 35136,0
    * Software Projects edition: POKE 35142,0

    --
    Dr. Andrew Broad
    http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/
    http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
    http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/

    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manicminerandjetsetwilly/

    [ This Message was edited by: andrewbroad on 2006-01-09 22:13 ]
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