Manic Miners V0.3: An in-progress complete Lego Rock Raiders remake (The Miners and machines update is here!)

[baraklava]

(2020-08-31)

It's been a long while, but today the largest update so far drops for Manic Miners! The vehicles are here, together with an extensive miner customization system and many surprises and improvements. Dive in and re-live an almost-complete Rock Raiders remake today! The only thing missing are the monsters... so stay tuned! Thank you for following development!

 

V0.3: The Miners and machines update trailer:

 

 

Spoiler

V0.2: The BUILDINGS AND BRUISES update trailer:

 

 

Initial reveal trailer:

Spoiler

 

 

Latest version: V0.3.5, released 2021-01-28)

Download link: https://baraklava.itch.io/manic-miners

 

 

Resource links:

Trello  (my development progress)

Discord (active daily discussion AND usually weekly in-progress builds)

Subreddit (active daily)

Facebook page (not very active, but will announce major updates)

 

Here's some more information on the project, taken from the Trello:

If you have played the original Rock Raiders game and just want to jump right in without reading the project backstory and explanations, here are some quick notes:

Spoiler

 

- The game is programmed by one person. Please respect that implementations, however easy they are to implement, might take time.

- Resources have physics. They'll roll. If they roll into lava or water, they are gone for now. This will change in the future, but until then: Take care where you put your buildings!

- Clicking a wall doesn't colour it immediately. They'll have a "token" showing you commanded a drilling etc there. They'll turn coloured *when a miner is approaching the wall*. 

- Resources are dispensed on demand, not when you order a building.

- The AI is still in its infancy: You will find hundreds of ways the AI can be improved to make smarter decisions, many of which I'm aware but just haven't had time to implement. 1) This will grow over time, 2) Don't treat it too much like an idle game: you can command them to do stuff yourself, you know! 

- Report bugs on the Discord, as that is where the latest builds are shared. You can check the Trello or ask for the bug before posting, but it's fine if you report something that's already a known issue.
That's it, you are now ready to jump into the game!

- The game is far from feature complete. You will be missing stuff like vehicles and monsters, but the miners are very functional, as well as building construction. It indubitably has some bugs, but not more than the original, and at this point I need your help to find them!

- The game runs in debug mode during Alpha. You might get some messages that doesn't make sense, which either means I've forgot to remove them or they indicate something is wrong.

- Some older hardware can not run the game at all. I need a larger sample size to figure out why that is. IF YOU ENCOUNTER THIS AND SOLVE IT, MESSAGE ME YOUR SOLUTION. I'll add it to the Troubleshooting section (which currently doesn't exist).

 

 

 

Original post: 

Spoiler

 

Hiya! This has been cooking for 2.5 months now, so I think it's time to reveal what I'm been working on: A complete, uncompromising rebuild of Lego Rock Raiders!

 

It's currently in Alpha development but is frankly more robust than any RR project before it, from what my testers have said. Take a look at the overview below:

 

 

Now, some quick questions:

 

What is this?

Manic Miners is a rebuild of the 1999 game Lego Rock Raiders. It has been in development since late May 2019 and is programmed by a single person; Baraklava.

 

Is this game sponsored by The Lego Group?

This game has nothing to do with The Lego Group, although I definitely wish I worked for them! 

 

Why are you doing this project? For money???

It's for fun! And no, it will be free!

 

Where can I download it?

The links are above!

 

 

Full information dump can be found here

 

[aidenpons]

I've been granted super special early access happened to hop on the right server at the right time knew some people honestly I don't know how I got involved with this earlier than the rest of RRU did. By LRR remake standards this one has already come extremely far - very clever miner AI (more clever than the original game in so many dimensions already), support of hidden caverns, barriers, and actually buildable buildings. No threats are in, but the game is at a sufficient state that it's actually fun to play, instead of merely just trying to poke holes in it & find content. So I'm excited to see it continue.

 

 

Also, I made a map convertor which would accept LRR maps (Surf + Dugg + Cror + High) and then spit them out in an MM-friendly format. Making the level data human readable was a good call, Baraklava. Shove the resulting file under ManicMiners\Data\Levels, rename it to .dat instead of .txt, edit the biome type by hand, load it up in the in-game editor for objectives + starting units, and go!

[Jimbob]

This is epic, great work, especially the usability changes you've made like the icons on the drill walls. Neat upscaling job on the textures too!

[Mikkel246]

Holy s***! this is next level remake :O 

I love it 

[baraklava]

On 9/19/2019 at 3:46 PM, Mikkel246 said:

Holy s***! this is next level remake

I love it 

Thank you!  

 

Perhaps a status update is in order:

Development is currently fairly slow because of school, but I've implemented all buildings and now working on the Power System, which powers up nicely since yesterday. Pre-test builds should be available in the coming weeks!

 

 

I'm on the Discord every day so make sure to join it! (I see you already did) Also check the Trello "Buildings Update" page for what I plan to include!

[baraklava]

You can now try out a snapshot build (in-progress build) of the Buildings Update, with buildings and Power Paths, by going to my Discord! Snapshot builds will be exclusively shared there as their intention is to allow for quick feedback so that I can fix bugs. Posting snapshot links here would make them obsolete quickly as they can be updated very frequently

[Arthuriel]

The fact alone, that your game doesn't randomly crash* or contains the RRIS** is a really important aspect for me .

Also: It's already playable and the graphics look nice.

 

My only possible suggestions for improvements would be stuff like moving on the map by moving the mouse cursor to the border of the screen or keyboard shortcuts for stuff like drilling the wall (maybe close to other keys like the one for teleporting Rock Raiders down).

*I tested a base with hundreds of Rock Raiders (around 370) and I didn't even encounter low framerates. That could be partially due to my computer and the game engine, but it's still great.
**(Rock Raider Idle Syndrome, yay for made up medical terms)

[baraklava]

Manic Miners keeps marching forward at an unrelenting pace! The Buildings Update should be out in a matter of weeks.

 

This week I've done a major overhaul of settings, implemented Electric Fences, added the Air meter and some other UI stuff, as well as simplified the Level Editor and *tons* of other stuff that takes too much time to describe! Instead, I suggest you jump into my Discord Channel and try out the latest build for yourself!

 

[Yourself]

Great to see this progress!

I played Frozen Frenzy and the gameplay worked fine, but the mouse scroll speed was very low and I resorted to using arrow keys to move the screen around. It'd be useful to have an option to increase the scroll speed.

[baraklava]

23 hours ago, Yourself said:

Great to see this progress!

I played Frozen Frenzy and the gameplay worked fine, but the mouse scroll speed was very low and I resorted to using arrow keys to move the screen around. It'd be useful to have an option to increase the scroll speed.

...and it will keep coming! Glad to see you aboard  Camera settings such as scroll/move speed exist in the Quick Settings menu so I suggest you check that out, and edge scrolling like the original is set to arrive soon

[baraklava]

To follow up on my previous comment, I just added edge panning as a movement option like the original LRR! You can also move by holding the middle mouse button and panning around. Join the Discord for the latest updates! (I'm studying for exams this week, but when i'm done I'll get to finishing up the Buildings Update as soon as possible!!)

[baraklava]

Exams are done so I had some time making huge improvements to the Level Editor! If you found it confusing before you will hopefully find it more intuitive now: Multi-tile placement, automatic updating of whatever you place as well as a better system for placing and saving resources to file. You can join and play the build right now by joining the Discord

[aidenpons]

.... Baraklava, with that click and drag to fill you've managed to implement a better map creator (for the cave's terrain) in any case than we currently have on RRU. Forget the converter from LRR to MM format, now I'm going to have to develop a MM to LRR convertor

 

... I've wanted that functionality for..... so.... long.....

Cyrem, what did happen to that Map Creator 2.0 of yours?

 

also what kind of objective is "Build 10 Electric Fences" .... and I might point out that such an objective would actually be entirely impossible in vanilla LRR, as GetPlaceFenceIconClicked includes clicks that didn't result in anything (eg: clicks on greyed out). So already Baraklava has managed to implement more than what was originally there.

[baraklava]

The BUILDINGS AND BRUISES update is here! Featuring all the original buildings, power systems, hotkeys, Landslides, Erosion, and a very fancy level screen! There's honestly so much to cover there's no way I can put it all into words.

 

Here's a trailer:

 

 

Download links are in the main post.

[Jimbob]

I'm so pumped for this! Watching the Support Station sink into the lava, that was awesome haha

Is it possible to turn off or reduce the bloom? It's awesome visually but a bit much for my tastes

[baraklava]

7 hours ago, JimbobJeffers said:

I'm so pumped for this! Watching the Support Station sink into the lava, that was awesome haha

Is it possible to turn off or reduce the bloom? It's awesome visually but a bit much for my tastes

You're in luck, I am shipping a patch today that allows disabling all post-processing, which is Bloom and Dynamic Ambient Occlusion  Or you can reduce the lava brightness in itself if it's only the visual aspect of it annoying you! In the future I'll probably add a Bloom slider etc. 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

-----Changelog V0.2->V0.2.1-----
Changes/Additions:
- Updated some levels
- Miners now look for nearby drill orders before they get new tasks
- Added "Disable Post-processing" to the Graphics Settings.
- Added Biome changer to Level Editor Environment Menu
- Shovel from landslides is now automatically queued when the landslide is not active anymore
- Added "Teleport at Start" to buildings in Level Editor. Works only when directly clicked due to complications.
- Solid Rock can now landslide and be reinforced on "Harder". This only happens when the map maker specifically puts landslides on Solid Rock and will not influence other difficulties. Classic Classic campaign levels will not have this enabled.
- Made landslide heavier
- Enabled ping sound to the Geological Center when powered up
- Changed the "Discover" objective to be *whatever you want*, without the "Find" prefix. Yes, I'm giving you the power to make "Go kick Rock Monster butt" an objective (when tied to a discover location)

Fixes:
- Defeated Barriers in a honourable battle of life and death
- Fixed navigation for rubble and Power Paths extending and overriding lava
- Fixed Erosion not being visible in opened caverns
- Fixed some erosion tiles not adopting the original texture
- Fixed Ore Refinery not dropping Ore into the bin. Sloppy.
- Fixed Power Station sometimes not being reachable
- Fixed rubble from initial collapsing walls not being shovelable
- Fixed Building Popup appearing when no building was avaialble
- Fixed miners locking up when trying to get a tool in a tight space: They will get tools from the inside of the Tool Store now.
- Fixed Stats menu locking the game
- Fixed foundations sometimes appearing to float
- Fixed Forced Restart after Game Experience change removing the cursor
-Fixed landslides going into water behaving like it's lava
 

[baraklava]

V 0.2.2 released! It fixes some issues with Erosion and introduces click-to-reinforce for miners. No new major features will be introduced until the next major update and I will focus on bugfixing for a while longer. See changelog for full details!

[baraklava]

Patch 3 has been issued, fixing at least one very concerning bug:

 

Changelog V0.2.2->0.2.3 (Buildings and Bruises Patch 3):
Changes/Additions:
- Added reachability check for constructing buildings: Previously they would just stop if the next prioritized building was unreachable
- Clarified Buildings tooltips to show what has and has not gotten functionality yet
- Clarified control scheme
- Added missing tooltip to Building Power Priority button
- Discovery objectives now work for walls that are not in a cave, meaning you can e.g. put it on a Crystal Seam in the middle of a dirt path
- Reworked gameplay hotkeys to be dynamic: You can now change them by opening ManicMiners\Config\DefaultInput.ini in notepad and 
   scrolling to the bottom to change Task bubbles "Key=X" etc. They will get proper in-game remapping functionality in the next 
   major build.

 

Fixes:
- Fixed Erosion Repair and Power Paths playing the teleport-up effect
- Fixed Ore Refinery leaving Ore floating after destruction. It is now dispensed instead.
- Fixed issue where camera did not start at desired height
 

Downloads are available in the main post. This should be the last patch before completely focusing on the next build!

[baraklava]

Patch 4 (Essentially a hotfix) fixed a camera issue I introduced last patch.

 

Changelog V0.2.3->0.2.4 (Buildings and Bruises Patch 4):
- Added free camera option. Experimental, so if you have issues with it right now, that's life
- Fixed camera escaping the map boundaries
- Fixed camera sometimes getting stuck in map corners
- Missed patch note from last changelog: Reduced game size.

- Made an Easter Egg more interesting

 

This should be the final patch for this update now and work will begin on the next update for real.

[Das Glückskekschen]

Keep going, this is fantastic.

[baraklava]

Patch 5 has been issued, fixing mainly some severe performance problems.

 

Additions:
- Added Lava to low-resolution textures! It doesn't move like the original yet, but it should boost your performance on slow PCs.
- Walls about to be reinforced but turning into corners are now automatically canceled
- Lowered minimum landslide rate from 6 to 4. More landslides!

 

Performance:
- Fixed severe lava performance issues for larger lava maps as well as erosion:
--- Removed Lava component that caused unnecessary performance drop and mouse "skidding". 
--- Lava placement is now instant again no matter the map size. The destruction of resources will look slightly worse as a result, but it's worth it.
--- Fixed severe performance issue where lava on larger maps would stutter the game when Erosion progressed. It is now close-to-instant, previously it was nearly unplayable.

 

Fixes:
- Fixed water not being available in high-resolution
- Fixed (hopefully) resources sometimes spawning in unreachable configurations, especially barriers.
- Fixed Tool Store spawning too high up in the air to be reachable 
- Fixed Potato mode locking the screen if enabled from in-game
- Fixed level load failure ruining the currently loaded level
- Fixed an issue where Edge Panning moved in the wrong directions
- Fixed some tooltips
- Fixed Geo Center's teleport-down animation
- Made cursor smaller = less blurry
- Changed the Miner jumpsuits to fantastic HD ones! ( by @ZuTheSkunk#4273 )

[baraklava]

Psst, wanna know how vehicles are going? All I can say right now is it's going well but more importantly: I'm aiming to do a development stream next week! Exact date will be announced later.

 

Also: There is one more patch coming soon, fixing several pretty severe issues with the game

[baraklava]

Patch 6! Just some bug fixes, can hopefully spend all time working on Vehicles now! Changelog:

 

'Tis the season! Press X to activate Jolly Mode!

 

Changes/Additions:

- Added "Play Custom Level" to Main Menu: Play levels that other players have shared with ease! Will improve in upcoming releases
- Added "Lock game speed" setting: If this is off, the game will always start at speed 1
- On Easier Erosion and Landslides now have their cooldown doubled
- On Harder, walls will now give 1-4 Ore instead of always giving 4. (mean value 2.5 ore per wall)
   This is generated by a seed tied to the map data and is consistent between runs.
   Note: Remember that buildings don't give back Ore on Harder! Things can get really tough in some caverns
- Opening caverns now give 10 units (Miner-Seconds) of air per tile in the cavern. Should encourage exploration! (will make it a level parameter later)
- Seams will now "push" resources towards the closest miner so they don't fall down into water/lava on the wrong side as often
- Miners should now avoid erosion by a certain margin. If this causes any issues, let me know.
- Made some minor improvements to Oresome: Added shortcuts and fixed an annoying rubble patch 

 

Fixes:

- Fixed a bug where miners forgot to put their tasks back in the task queues. 
- Fixed a bug where the Ore Refinery caused miners to go idle
- Fixed a bug where Erosion did not power off Power Paths
- Fixed a bug where Power Paths in discovered caverns did not behave properly
- Fixed the Quick Settings menu sometimes double clicking
- Fixed landslide minimum being 5, not 4
- Fixed landslides spawning on corners under very specific conditions
- Fixed miners sometimes choosing inaccessible drilling approaches. Miners will now always prefer drilling on tiles that are not
   near buildings or undergoing erosion.

[baraklava]

Merry Christmas! Here's a patch and a small update on vehicles. All vehicles are currently in the game, moving around pretty much like they should, they only need to have their behavior defined (which is essentially copied from the Miner behaviour!) before I can let people start playing with them This is currently what it looks like to move the vehicles, and a drilling command test that is not very pretty, but will get better:

 

https://i.imgur.com/EM8DJzb.mp4

 

And now, Patch 7, just some bugfixes and minor improvements

 

- All resources are now checked for proper goals before being picked up. This means power paths and buildings
  are automatically built if accessible, instead of making certain generalizations about how resources are used.
          > Note, however, that Studs won't be used for Power Paths unless there is a fully upgraded Ore Refinery 
- Drill icons now stay until the task is finished. 
          > Note: You can still queue drilling commands for walls that are not reachable yet
- Reinforcing, Dynamite and drill commands now stack and don't cancel each other.
- Hopefully increased sound buffer so sound won't restart randomly

 

- Fixed Erosion not destroying unbuilt Power Paths
- Fixed Erosion sometimes being immortal
- Fixed power issue with removing Power Paths
- Fixed Miners not reaching resources that were too close to walls
- Fixed Miners abandoning tasks if told to go somewhere before the task was started
- Fixed miners not getting killed by lava (99.9%, sometimes they walk onto the lava just as it is spawned and it won't get triggered)
- Fixed miners not being able to shovel certain terrain
- Fixed "New Building" popups not initializing correctly

 

Download is in the main post. That should be every single bug I have recorded so far! I will have basically no time to test this build, so if you find an issue that requires you to "roll back" to a previous version, here's a download of the previous version

[shaggy08251993]

@baraklava, I'm not a super active member of this community, but have followed it on/off for like 7 years now. I logged in just so that I could say that you're doing God's work, and this is incredible. I'm rooting for you and this project till the end. Keep up the awesome progress! I'm really looking forward to this. It also sounds like you're building this from the ground up from scratch...not sure if there'd be legality issues, but if not, I'd totally pay for this game.

 

Edit: In addition, this was one of my favorite childhood games and holds a special place in my heart. I'd be fine playing the old version if I didn't have that damned bug that causes the video freezing. This was also the first game that I ever learned how to mod thanks to the awesome community here.