Manic Miners: A LEGO Rock Raiders remake

Well, it's just awesome!

And it works great on the Steamdeck too! Just download it, add it as non-steam-game in desktop modus and select Proton 8 as compatibility tool.

(You have to customise the mouse only layout a bit if you want to use hotkeys - I'll be publishing my layout when I mapped everything)

This is a brilliant remake of the old RR game. Lived up to all my expectations and then some, so many little features making it a much more pleasant experience than the original, I loved that I could turn the stress levels down on some of the run away from lava levels, but there are so many other little tweaks you've made that improve things

I've realised this game is kind of a precursor to factorio in several ways too, decades before it's time, a gem many will have missed out on, 

Even with the improvements you've made there is an extensive list of QOLs/features I'd like to see implemented some bigger, some smaller, I think many of them became more standard practice after RR was made and others were just too computationally expensive at the time (the requirements were a 200-400MHz processor and 32MB RAM) but I think that's less of a concern with more modern hardware. I also know the dev is taking a break but I want to make a list here anyway:

• Be able to queue vehicles like you can queue miners (though if there's no resources it won't teleport them until resources have become available)
• Be able to give each different sort of vehicle it's own task priority (this would let me turn off transport ore for miners if/when there's transport trucks to do that job, letting the miners focus on clearing rubble which transport trucks can't do, among other common optimisations I do)
• Separate Collect Studs from Collect Ore
• Separate Directed Rubble Clear from Automatic Rubble Clear
• Add auto mining and auto reinforce as options in the priority queue like auto clear rubble (have these off as default like the base game)
• Add Auto Repair Lava Damage to Priority Queue (off as default)
• Add Auto Training in the miner priority queue so they will auto-upgrade if they're otherwise idle (off as default)
• Add upgrades and repairs as part of vehicle priority (It can be a pain to find all the transport trucks to upgrade them with bigger engines and cargo capacity, if I'm doing those upgrades I want to apply them to all the trucks I have without having to track each and every one down one by one)
  
• The Hover Scout and Rapid Rider currently don't do mining tasks automatically even if they have the mining upgrades and the tasks are available for them.
• Have a way to mark every tile in some area with the same task.
• Having more power stations could allow for more consecutive electric fence discharges (or bigger Zaps) before waiting for the cooldown.
• Better Pathfinding, thin powerpaths lines generally aren't worth building to increase miner speed because the Miners don't preferentially use them to get to places faster, they always take the shortest route not the fastest route, avoiding uncleared rubble would also benefit from this change.
• Better Pathfinding, it'd be great if it was possible to choose the order in which things would happen when they're of otherwise equal priority, right now I think it's just whichever was queued first but for miners I'd like them to do the fastest task of a given type even if it's not the first one that was generated of that type (staying close to the base where possible so collecting ore isn't just the time to pick it up but also includes the time to drop it at a tool station or ore refinery), meaning they will often go to the closest marked wall to dig or closest rubble to clear, etc... while for vehicles if they're at the base (relatively near a tool station) I want them to go to the furthest pickup task from the base (meaning furthest from any tool station) cause they'll generally get there faster than the miners and when they're away from the base I'd like them do things that're the closest to them first. (Transport trucks are the biggest culprits here, right now they will zip back and forward according to the queued order to pick up things, and they can pick up a stud and carry it to the far corners of the map to get more items, losing inventory space and time in the process. If they went to the single furthest item from the base and then picked up the 2 or 5 next closest items to that point and run them back together that'd be much more efficient use of their time and the one stud that needs putting in the tool store should be the last thing for a vehicle to pick up (unless it's part of a building order) as it's a very quick job in most cases for a miner and it's also relatively safe being in the base even if it isn't in a tool store while far-flung energy crystals could be eaten by rock monsters, but I've seen inefficient behaviour with Loader Dozers too)
• Path Finding Overriding existing Tasks, even if something is already on route to a task if there's something else that would complete that task faster (and wants to do it) then kick the slower thing off the task and redirect them to do something else. (again transport trucks are the stand-out culprits, there might be several clusters of energy crystals across the map a miner might be sent to get crystal 1 then a truck will get 2 and 3 from that cluster and it'll ignore crystal 1 making the miner collect it at a far slower rate, and instead it'll zip across the map (maybe ignoring other crystals on route to another cluster perhaps again not picking them all up because another miner is on the way there by that point, so I think it'd be great if a vehicle that's right there any way would override a miner that's on the way especially if the miner would take much longer to complete the task)
  
• Better Pathfinding if the only way to get to a task is to use an empty vehicle to get there then the Miner should be able to do that automatically. This also applies to small vehicles using the abilities of the Cargo Carrier and Tunnel Transport or doing tasks only vehicles can like drilling hard rock. And all those special animations that have been added to jump gaps, I almost never see them cause I don't like micromanaging miners that much
• Mining Lasers should be able to automatically mine within a limited area around them including targeting inside corner walls (including those on vehicles)
  
• Mining Lasers could automatically target the Monsters and Slugs if the alert mode is on (including those on vehicles)
• Mining Lasers on vehicles could take a second miner along to operate the laser even when the vehicle is moving (though I can see this coming as an upgrade and requiring model changes)
• Better Fog, have the map colours show in overworld view to highlight things in unmined areas.
• Large Teleport Pads should be able to do everything a smaller teleport pad of the same level could do, so teleporting a small vehicle or standing in for a requirement if the small teleport pad is destroyed and you'd like to build another support station.
• Level complete, have an option where if every single task that could be done has been then end the level, if that's no minable walls, no depleted energy crystals to recharge, no rubble to clear, no miners to train, no crystals or ore left to collect etc then automatically end the level (since you've changed the level end to include taking the resources of which have been invested with you this is 100% completion no way of improving the score only the potential of loss of crystals and ore to monsters bashing open vehicles, buildings and powerpaths)
  

Some of these are likely very easy, some will probably mess up the UI and I'm betting many others would require a lot of thought about how to optimize them cause while they sound simple I bet they're full of hidden complications ^_^ if even a few of these ideas ever make it into the game I'll be thrilled.

And while I've said I'd like these changes even without them the game is totally playable and a lot of fun, the revamped campaign is familiar but different enough that even though I knew the original inside out I'm sure I have a lot to learn about MM over RR.

I'm now wondering if there are any other things I'd like to mod into the game if that ever comes about, maybe another resource and some extra processing, we have ore, these can be turned into studs/bricks and energy crystals for power, but maybe something that can only be collected by killing the monsters and slugs? Food maybe? make a use for the canteen. I'd also like a way to make a campaign more integrated with the LMS story, you start the game with space for 3 Rock Raiders on the LMS and in order to get more you have to find them in the levels and make sure you collect enough resources to expand the LMS with space for them... I can see that having to replay levels might be a significant part of that for example I'd need a labyrinth-like level with several places miners could spawn and different potential layouts as the way to find rock raiders, I'd also want very few resources to make it out of that level so being able to more directly control the amount of ore/crystals a wall drops would be amazing if that exists in the editor so far I haven't found it XD there's a lot to think about. 

I hope you understand this post is out of love and passion for what you've made and not a huge dollop of criticism for it not being good enough <3 

Absolutely spectacular! The adjustment to gameplay balance really shines, it's a super remaster of this beloved game. I've been playing it a lot lately, it's masterful.
This is the game they intended to make I think, the polish is excellent.

Amazing work! This was legit one of the first video games I ever owned, my grandpa bought me it and I could only play it on his super old pc. I tried to play the game again a few years back on some emulators but the graphics always crashed the game. This was so smooth and easy to play, the addition of hot keys and being able to speed up the game speed made it so much fun to play again. Thanks so much for making this, again very well done haven't had nostalgia like that since i played osrs again for the first time.

All I can say is wow. I only vaguely remember playing the game back in the day being quite young, but I thought no way it actually holds up?

I've been hooked for 4 solid hours this afternoon just playing the classic campaign. I'll definitely check out the new content.

I beg you do Alpha Team next :D

This is probably the best fan remake I've ever played. I can't really give enough praise for this, on both a technical level and just the sheer amount of love for this old game radiating from every part of its production. 

This isn't just a remake - though all the classic LRR content is there. It's more akin to an expansion or even sequel. If you've come looking for a convenient way to play an old game on a modern PC (as I was) then prepare to have your socks blown off. Personally, I would've been happy with a somewhat janky reimplementation that was hacked together that mostly worked, but this is so, so, so much more. 

I could probably spend hours listing off all the new and improved features of this remake, but I won't. In short, this isn't just a simple fan project. It's a fully-featured, polished and expanded package that, if it were officially sold as a remake/remaster, I would be incredibly impressed by the quality. 

Props to Baraklava and any other contributors. My only hope now is that you don't suffer too much from success and see Lego come spoil the fun. 

banger

I can remember fondly playing it in the day care center often even though I had no real clue how to play it

Thank you so much for doing all this work.