As a reboot of ZX Spectrum classic Manic Miner was announced this week to mixed responses, its developer admits that AI was used in the trailer. Earlier this week, the Munich-based developer BBG Entertainment announced that the much-loved ZX Spectrum platformer Manic Miner is back and “better than ever.” In theory, it sounded like a ... Manic Miner | Reboot trailer used AI “to speed things up” studio says
As a reboot of ZX Spectrum classic Manic Miner was announced this week to mixed responses, its developer admits that AI was used in the trailer.
Earlier this week, the Munich-based developer BBG Entertainment announced that the much-loved ZX Spectrum platformer Manic Miner is back and “better than ever.”
In theory, it sounded like a solid project, with the game being made with the approval of Matthew Smith – the British designer who created the original game in 1983.
The accompanying trailer, however, was less promising. Signs of generative AI were everywhere, from its modernised, anime-inspired graphics to upscaled assets from 80s magazines to a grating synthesised voiceover (the phrase “GLOW-BALL LEADERBOARDZZZZ” still echoes in our brains).
Perhaps tellingly, comments on beneath the trailer published on YouTube were turned off, and remain so at the time of writing. That didn’t stop a number of retro enthusiasts expressing some mixed feelings about the trailer on social media, however.
“Losing my mind at the ‘CRT filter’ for this new release of Manic Miner that was just announced,” noted game preservationist Frank Cifaldi on Bluesky, pointing out the wildly inaccurate proportions of a TV screen glimpsed in promotional screengrabs.
“Who is this even for?” a reply went. “How many people are within the Venn diagram of ZX spectrum enthusiasts that don’t mind genAI garbage?”
Both Retro Gamer and Time Extension also noted the game’s seeming use of AI.
Keen to know more, we contacted BBG and asked whether it could confirm that AI had indeed been used on the trailer – and, unsurprisingly, the company’s founder Stephan Berendsen responded to say that it did.
Berendsen explained that the trailer was put together ahead of Gamescom, a major expo in Cologne, and that AI was used to “speed up” its creation.
Read more: Truly, the Manic Miner reboot is the stuff of nightmares
“We finished the build just in time for Gamescom and were running out of time for the press release and the trailer, so our artist created the trailer with the help of AI for the animations to speed things up,” Berendsen wrote. “We just thought it looks nice, but we understand the concerns the community has about AI and we will keep this in mind moving forward.
Our intention is to celebrate Matthew Smith and we want to make sure that moving forward we can just focus on that.”
For the sake of balance, it should be notice that some ZX Spectrum enthusiasts are comfortable with Manic Miner’s new look.
“I’m fine with it, don’t mind AI stuff,” one user wrote on the World of Spectrum Facebook group. “Same as our grandparents moaning about computers taking over the world and ‘why play that game on a computer when you can with a boardgame’ type of stuff.”
As AI increasingly appears in our media, from writing to movies to videogames, there’s the sense of a growing backlash against its impersonal look – not to mention the technology’s appropriation of artists’ work without their consent and its potential ecological damage.
We’ve contacted BBG to ask whether AI will be used in the development of the game itself, or whether it’s restricted to that trailer. We’ll update this piece should we get a response.
