Old Minotaur games Can be resurrected on modern iOS devices!

[matt]

Yeah I am wondering what the best / cheapest / easiest point of entry for iOS games like GR and MR are ? Or should I just get like a cheap 50 quid android tablet and run them on that ?

I'm playing the following:

iPad mini 1st gen (£15 eBay)
- Minotron 2112
- Mino Rescue

iPod touch 5th (£18 eBay + £2 rubber tipped stylus)
- Gridrunner

I picked those two devices so they're guaranteed to be on a version of iOS that will run the games. Newer devices would probably need downgrading and I wanted to avoid having to do that, I have in the past and it's more involved than jailbreak.
Jailbreaking the above devices is very easy, almost one click.
Installing the apps is actually one click.
Game Center scoreboards are still up.

Windows versions work well on macOS with Whisky/Wine app.
That's also how I play Gridrunner++

I also tried:

Samsung Tab S2 (iPad mini size Android tablet)
- there's more touch lag than in iOS

Still need to try an old Android phone

[mb3018]

In Minotaur Rescue you can only restart from level 8?

These iOS games were great

[Deckard]

Thanks Matt I will do the same and get an early iPad - does it play Gridrunner on iOS as thats my fave !

I see from here -

https://archive.org/details/gridrunner-ios

NOTE: You will need a jailbroken iOS device running iOS 10 or earlier to be able to install and play the decrypted ipa of this game.

55 quid for a good condition ebay 4th iPad which supports up iOS 10 which would be good !

[Misfit]

In Minotaur Rescue you can only restart from level 8?

These iOS games were great

Sadly I can’t check. But I thought the restart works on the last level you got to?

[Misfit]

55 quid for a good condition ebay 4th iPad which supports up iOS 10 which would be good !

I think an iPad mini 1st gen for under £20 is the answer. The smaller form factor makes it easier to play.

I just fired up my old Mini and had a quick blast. Gridrunner iOS is close to perfect (after TxK, T2k and GR++ for me), great touch controls and at a simplicity level for part-timers like me to feel good, but hard enough later for those 'proper' gamers amongst us.

[rowan]

In Minotaur Rescue you can only restart from level 8?

These iOS games were great

Sadly I can’t check. But I thought the restart works on the last level you got to?

I can't remember how it works for Minotaur Rescue but it may only record a "restart best" if you had at least 3 lives or similar.

[Deckard]

Well that was piss easy too install Mino and GR to my 20 quid pristine ebay gen 1 Pad mini using

https://ios.cfw.guide/installing-kok3shi9/

happy happy days !

[Misfit]

Well that was piss easy too install Mino and GR to my 20 quid pristine ebay gen 1 Pad mini using

https://ios.cfw.guide/installing-kok3shi9/

happy happy days !

Is that a permanent jailbreak on the 32bit systems?

So going to add MAME etc too?

[Deckard]

Weirdly only one from there that wont work is Minotron - fails with

There was an issue during installation: 3892346903: ApplicationVerificationFailed (Failed to verify code signature of /private/var/installd/Library/Caches/com.apple.mobile.installd.staging/temp.MYeRjE/extracted/Payload/Minotron.app : 0xe8008017 (A signed resource has been added, modified, or deleted.))

on sideloadly

[Frogacuda]

I have made a super lightweight portable SDL3 implementation of this engine that can run these games on basically anything. I also updated the menus in the games so they're navigable with controllers and added screen orientation settings, so you can run it on a phone or a tablet or a console or whatever you want. No emulation, it's super lightweight so it should basically run on a potato, provided that potato supports SDL3 and GLES 3.

Anyone who wants to test let me know. They require the original decrypted ipa files to import assets from as a one time import, but it doesn't use any emulation.